7 week old will not sleep please help 😭😭😭

[PonchoIsNotMyName]

Tonight has been the worst night yet, he's been wide awake and miserable since 7pm and DH has just taken him for a drive in the car as a last ditch resort. He settles to sleep during the day fine - pretty much only in the sling. At night it is a different story, it takes hours to settle him, even in the sling, even co sleeping. He's been swaddled, white noise, dummy, sleeping bags, dark room, on me, not on me, pram, bouncer, all the colic relief type meds - literally EVERYTHING you can think of and he will not settle, he just screams and you can see how exhausted he is but he will not sleep. I have tried shorter wake windows, longer wake windows, nothing. He is EBF but will not feed to sleep (neither would my eldest, I don't know how I have managed to produce two EBF babies who won't fall asleep on the boob!!!).

The only thing I haven't yet tried is a bottle of formula which I'm loathe to do in case it upsets his tummy.

Any words of wisdom? Thus far he settles OK DURING the night but getting him to sleep in the first place at night is awful.

I had one like this. A bottle of hungry baby formula at bedtime bought me four hours of sleep and my sanity. But she was constantly hungry! She didn’t really sleep until she was weaned, and then not much. When she was one, and walking, we’d walk her to the park in the evening (20 minutes away) so she could run around and go on the baby swings, and even this wouldn’t tire her out. You have my sympathy!

This is overstimulation. You need a solid routine which people will say isn’t necessary at 7 weeks, but it is.

Ilook up the infant cry curve.
He is probably at the peak of fussiness for his age… and usually evening is when babies are the most fussiest (witching hour). Just put it down to a bad night and start all over again tomorrow, same routine.

I think you're expecting him to go to sleep for the night too early. My baby was always 10pm until she was a good few months old.

ooh Yes very good point. 8pm is very early for a 7 week old

I have been there. I exclusively breasfed both children. The first one was constantly on my breast, waking up every 1-2 hours at night. Until eventually I ended up doing a variation of controlled crying by Baby Whisperer (where your child ends up crying on your shoulder rather than being left alone in a dark room for varying lengths of time). BW method made sense to me and it worked.

I thought I was doing very well with baby number 2 by not not feeding him to sleep on the breast. Unfortunately, with the busy toddler in the house I got in the habit of letting him to settle in the pram.

Fast forward to 7 or 8 weeks and I had a baby just like yours - naps well in the day and early hours of the morning, would not go to sleep in the evening. Even rocking him in the pram in the living room did not work, he had to be outside.

We reached a crisis at 10 pm one January evening when it was poring rain outside.

Out comes Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems book (2nd edition, yellow cover) - she has different methods for different age.

This is what she recommends for the baby your age.

Look for signs of tiredness (yawn at this stage)

Swaddle the arms only (babies at this stage don't realise their arms belong to them). Modern advice is against swaddling to avoid overheating and promote normal hip development

Place the baby on the side. Support them by the shoulders and gently pat between the shoulder blades. You can start quite fast and then slow down to the rhythm of your heart.

Let him/her yell in protest. They are overtired but can't switch off to sleep.
They will eventually settle. They know you are there. They don't feel abandoned, just frustrated. Rhythmic patting to the beat of your heart calms them down (eventually)

KEEP patting for 15-20 minutes AFTER they stopped crying. This bit is HUGELY important. Otherwise in all likelyhood they will jerk and start crying again. You want to get them into the zone where they are on the brink between light and deep sleep, still aware of their surroundings but too tired to mount a protest.

Roll them on their side, step back and hope for the best.

My baby naturally protested. The first time he cried for 45 minutes. One could have easily thought I was trying to murder him.

However, I persevered as I honestly did not think going out with a pram under the poring January rain was a good idea for either of us.

2nd time he cried for 30 minutes, about 5-10 after that and that was it. I continued to use this method on and off till about 7 months.

Baby Whispeper used to work as a neonatal nurse and then as a sleep consultant. I swear by her methods. She has different methos for different ages, this method is specificially for a baby under 3-4 months. Ignor her breastfeeding advice, times were different, the rest of her book is full of excellent advice. 2nd edition with the yellow cover is much better than the 1st imp. I hope it helps

Further to the ealier post as unable the edit... The full advice could be found on pp. 180-186 of Baby Whisper Solves All Your Problems book (available on Amazon). If the baby is getting hysterical she recommends calming them down on her shoulder first, them putting them down. Then proceed as above. You must be full of resovle to carry on with this method, it really does test you. However it does work if you are desperate enough to try.

It's witching hour, or hours.

Look at the a
ICON project and the research around the crying curve.

It's a stage of development that they have to get though. We have no idea why the amount of time they spend crying in a 24 hour period massively increases between 6-9 weeks but it does. Each week after that it gradually decreases back down to normal.

You can't fix it. You just have to get through it.

If you feel stressed, anxious or frustrated by his crying, put him down in a safe place, shut the door on him and give yourself 5 minutes to just calm down. Never shake him. Call for help if you need it.

Formula will make no difference!

I'm not "expecting him to go to sleep for the night", I'm simply trying to settle an overtired baby. I don't really understand posts like these.

Yes he naps and settles really well in the day, hence why I don't think it's a medical issue.

I have looked up PURPLE crying and pretty sure that's what it is tbh. Something that needs riding out!

Agree with @LapinR0se

This is overstimulation. You need a solid routine which people will say isn’t necessary at 7 weeks, but it is.

Also the comment about too much patting & so on. I think that sometimes they just need to be left to settle. Mine didn't really cry at bedtime though & I can see that it's not easy to ignore crying.

I wouldn't have had the time nor energy for what one poster was suggesting where you pat on the back for 20 mins after they have gone to sleep. I don't think that's realistic if you have a toddler in the mix. Plus if you're back at work & need to get on with other stuff 🤷🏻‍♀️

Normally at 7 weeks you need the last nap to finish at 5.30 and then you’re putting them back to sleep at 7pm.

Routine for < 12 weeks

7am wake and feed
8.30-10am nap
10am feed
11.30-1pm nap
1pm feed
2.30-3.30pm nap
3.30pm feed
5-5.30pm small nap eg in the car or buggy
6.30pm enormous feed
7pm bed
10pm feed
feed on demand all night

That's pretty much what we do. Basically he sleeps and feeds whenever he needs to. I'm not aware of any other possibility with a baby that young tbh. My eldest got into a great routine but we didn't start that til he was past the 12 week stage.

I didn't make it clear, apologies. You only do the patting for 20 mins after they fall asleep as you are trying to create new sleep associations (not in a pram in my case). I would have to resort to this method once every now and again if we were in a totally new environment- on holiday for example. It really was a lot easier than pushing the pram around the block

Further to the earlier message.... this method isn't for the faint hearted - my son was screaming murder the first time I tried and it lasted for 45 minutes. I only did it as the alternative was to take him out in January rain

Dd was like this. If you'd tried everything and he doesn't seem to be in physical comfort, I'd just accept it's what he needs to do right now. Earplugs and take turns to do gentle rocking. Or a pram walk for sanity. I used to think of myself as having a magic umbrella the crying would roll off.

@Kosenrufugirl

You're more patient than me! I can see it's preferable to going out with a pram or listening to crying. I just don't think I could have faced sitting doing this every night. I suppose it's only for a relatively short period of time in the long run & you don't hear about teenagers needing this 😂

This is what our DD was like. We kept trying everything we could - feeding, burping, bouncing her, rocking her, holding her, singing to her etc. and it turned out she just wanted to be in her cot in a dark room so she could sleep!

If you've tried absolutely everything, nothing is working, and your instincts are that there is no physical cause you can address (i.e. hunger, reflux, wrong temp, illness, allergies, just not tired yet etc) then I would just take him into bed in a dark room with you and act as if you were co-sleeping. At least then he will be in a suitable, non-stimulating environment for sleeping when he can eventually manage it, and he will know that you are right there with him and he isn't abandoned. Eventually he will cry himself out and go to sleep. Earplugs, white noise etc form your eldest if he's disturbing her. You can try singing softly, shhhing or patting, but sometimes there is a certain relief to knowing that you've literally done all you can and now you are just there with them, keeping your baby company through what is a hard time for them. Sympathy - I had a terrible sleeper too and it is just brutal for everyone.

I'd also try taking him to bed a bit earlier. Sometimes they do just get past that "sleepy window" and hit full on hysteria. I'm not sure from your earlier posts if you've already tried that though.