Newborn - Sleep vs Adult sleep

[OnlyNexus]

Hi all, have been a dad for a week now everything is great apart from sleep.
My son will not sleep unless laying on my chest which is a fantastic feeling apart from my lack of sleep. I am a night owl so will stay up with my son until 1-3am unless he wakes, in this time my wife will sleep until she needs to feed our son.
I then grab about 45 before he is crying in the crib and i need to soothe him again.
My wife will take him at 6am when i go on to get the bulk of my sleep. With 4 days paternity left im worried that we can not get him down.
Should we accept for now that we should adapt to him or just keep putting him in his crib? The latter saw me upping and downing him every 5 - 10 mins for an hour which was highly stressful and mentally exhausting.
Re crib we have a side bed one.
Have tried warming it, my t-shirt,white noise etc.
We refuse to co-sleep or entertain the idea?

I guess i want to know if i should go against my instinct and keep putting him down or just relent and accept he needs to sleep on me for the first few weeks / month of life??

[Wales34]

Probably can't help you much as my daughter is my first and only 10 weeks old . May help ....At 6 weeks , she wouldn't self soothe, we had to hold her and then put her down once she was asleep. After 6 / 7 weeks started to improve , we can now put her down tired and she gets herself off yo sleep . What helped enormously in fact was a game changer was swaddling , don't know if you have tried that? Also the introduction of a dummy helped massively in calming her down after feeds

[Wales34]

Sorry thought you said you boy was 6vweeks for some reason! The first 6 weeks are tough , but you'll see an improvement in week 6 and 7

[Nightmanagerfan]

It’s so difficult when they’re so little. It will improve I promise. Google the fourth trimester - babies need the warmth and reassurance of contact when they are newborn.

Co-sleeping can be done safely (look at Lullaby Trust guide), but there are very strict criteria - eg it need to be the mother, not if baby premature etc.

It is much much more dangerous to fall asleep with a baby lying on your chest if you’re sitting in a chair or sitting up in bed - so please do bear this in mind and keep yourself awake at all costs.

We put a rolled up towel in a C shape inside our son’s Moses basket, around his legs/body (not near his head), and this seemed to help him feel more snug in the basket. A side sleeper cot could feel too wide open for him.

Have you tried a swaddle? Gro swaddles are safe and easy to use (you zip the baby in) and can help the baby feel more secure to sleep.

Congratulations on your new baby. This bit feels like it lasts forever but everything in parenting is a phase and you will remember it as a blur!

[Angelik]

Firstly, this is normal. Don't worry yourself thinking you have a long term non sleeper. Babies lives are phases and you will learn to be comfortable with it. Now harking back over 7 years when my dd was newborn and my 2nd so I was soooooo much more comfortable. She would've slept on me all the time. I spent a lot of time each evening for several weeks gradually introducing her to the cot and sitting with her shushing and putting (it's a bona fide technique), with a wee rolled blanket atween her legs and along her body (as pp not before her face) from 7.30pm till 9.00 at first but reducing every day - neither of mine cld sleep on their backs for several months.

It's about realising you are all they know. You are their safety and comfort. Trying something new takes time and best done when neither of you are tired.

Your ds is soooooo tiny and parenting first time is so hard. Give yourself small, achievable targets otherwise it will feel impossible. And remember change is constant and, again, it is all one phase after another. Once you accept that it will feel much easier

[thattravelphotographer]

Could this be day/night confusion? My DD would only go to sleep at night if held and would wake and cry the minute she touched base with her crib! We did some reading on day/night confusion and the advice worked for us. As others have said, swaddling was great, along with a dummy (she's 12 weeks now and self soothes so no longer needs it). I found amotherfarfromhome website really helpful.

[CostaCosta]

I too was adamant I wouldn't co sleep but then fell asleep with ds in my arms and it scared me. I followed the lullaby trust guidelines and it has changed night times! I used to dread them, now they're fine. Ds is 2 and we still co sleep.

[Mousey86]

We had the same with our LG, she's now 8 weeks old and we properly turned a corner around 3 weeks

I would sleep 8pm-1am, then swap with hubby. We'd be downstairs with her as she was wide awake between about 11pm-4am and hated the moses basket.

When hubby went back to work, I moved to the spare room with LG and persevered to put her down. After almost a week we got a next to me crib and that was a game changer

She hates to be swaddled and is a wriggly sleeper so we think she wakes herself up in the moses basket. She has loads more space in the next to me crib. And now we go to bed at 10pm, last feed in bed, feed & change also me time between 2.30-4.00am then start the day around 7-8am.