To ask how you get newborns to sleep??

[FanaticalFox]

Thats it really. Took our 2 day old home from hospital yesterday. She will not breastfeed so onto SMA pro formula (stayed with Sma as she had that in hospital) she cried and stayed away allllll night til 6am when i finally got her to sleep in her moses basket with ewan the dream sheep now i don't want a total repeat of this. ANY help or advice would be gratefully received, midwife is coming this morning to help us too! But mainly to look at breastfeeding which i already know is highly doubtful as they gave up in hospital.

I found it really hard getting my LO to latch on at first too (and that was with an excellent midwife friend helping me). A newborns stomach will only hold about 5ml so don't worry about not producing lots of milk yet.
You might find this helpful regarding feeding www.lllc.ca/thursday-tip-newborns-have-small-stomachs

We co-slept (still do at 6m) and found that sleeping with a low light on helped. Skin to skin contact when we wanted LO to sleep worked well for us (again still does) so maybe try your LO just in their nappy and you without a top/bra on. This will also help your milk come in (expect anytime between day 3-5, though if you had a traumatic birth it could be as late as day 10).

If your LO is very unsettled and refusing to latch on try doing a "flipple" (basically hit them in the mouth with your nipple)
this worked really well for me. I also got DH to help me with positioning my LO's head for the first few days - think a bizarre version of target practice - up, down, left, right, NOW IN IN IN! :D

If you need some boob relief when your milk does come in try dunking them (boobs not LO) in warm/hot water and massaging them gently. You could do this in the shower/bath but we have a big sink and I used that.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Am assuming this is your 1st babe OP. Firstly congrats. Secondly SKIN TO SKIN as much as possible to promote BF. Thirdly, sleeping is now like the holy grail but will evolve with time. Rest if you can't sleep, and just snuggle with your babe. All will be well .....

OP- if you do want to bf, you need to keep trying. It's pretty likely that your milk hasn't come in yet, but putting her to the breast often will stimulate your supply. And a lot of people can't express at all, so don'5 worry about only getting colostrum out of one breast.

And you won't want to hear this but you are lucky if you have a baby this age that sleeps for long however they are fed. The first 6 weeks or so are usually a fog of feeding and dozing. If she will on,y sleep on you then let her. You can't create "bad habits" or spoil her at this age. And if feeding (breast or bottle) isn't established it's best not to introduce a dummy. Just regard every squeak as hunger at this stage. If she's awake, offer bottle or breast. And remember that it gets better. I promise.

We used a hot water bottle in the basket to warm it before putting her in. Obviously take it out again before inserting child! Also, my friend lent us her cocoon baby which feels like a womb and she slept like a treat in it.might be worth looking for one?

My tips for getting a newborn to sleep -
Swaddling.
Dream feeding. Make sure they get their wind up before you put them down.
Dummies.
White noise really helped. I found the best thing was the tumble drier(makes me feel sleepy too). Nowadays you can get apps for white noise, or look on youtube.
All the obvious things, like rocking, patting their back rhythmically, walking round holding them.
One of my kids loved the fringes on his shawl and couldn't get to sleep without it.
Good luck, OP.

It's perfectly normal for newborns to sleep all day and be awake all night, at least it was for my dcs.

One thing I found that helped get them used to sleeping at night was to keep the curtains open and not try to be too quiet during the day when they were asleep (usually on me) and at night kept it dim and quiet while they slept (usually on me) for the first few weeks.

I found it helped to have the TV on all night on quiet and brightness turned down a bit. This way there as no change from silent and dark to having a light on while I was feeding them, plus in the early days of feed, change, settle, sleep for 20 minutes and begin again it meant that I could watch TV while feeding without the sudden light/sound startling the baby.

If you want to bf then keep trying but there's nothing at all wrong with formula. I can't bf and all of my dc's were ff from birth and are all thriving.

I found that tommee tippee bottles made dc1's colic much worse, the style of the bottle was too wide at the top and she swallowed loads of air with the milk, we switched to avent anti colic bottles which were much better.

Laying the baby face down on your arm with your hand supporting their chin/neck can help get wind up. Rubbing their tummy in circles can also help with the pain of colic.

My baby is 6 days old. He likes to sleep on me. I'm not fighting it. I try to transfer him onto a warm surface when he's asleep.

Read up on the 4th trimester to help you understand your baby a bit better. Perfectly normal, enjoy the snuggles

Hospital maternity units often lack the time or the skills to support a new mother with BF. Despite the official messaging its much easier to hand over the formula as I found when in difficulties with my first.

A friend put me in touch with a BF counsellor who was brilliant and helped me through a really difficult time. Much more supportive than any of the hospital care as she could sit with me and not have to rush off after ten mins.

If you do want to give BF a serious go you should be able to fine one via NCT or LLL. Personally I found the first one probably harder than FF for the first weeks but much easier than FF once established (even when I went back to work and we had to mix the options).

Congratulations! I'd get my nb to sleep then I'd tentatively put him in his moses basket then he'd be up, after a few days of this I caved and started cosleeping. Different ways of going about it and I know people will flame me as it doesn't fit nhs guidelines but I let him sleep on his tummy on top of me and I was propped up with Pillows. barley had to move to bf which at one point was every 1.5-2hours

Someone said to me that if you think about it, when they're in the womb, you are up and about during the day so they're being rocked to sleep. When you sleep at night you're still so they're not being 'rocked' to sleep so that's when they're awake. So then this is their routine which is arse about face to yours.

It took me a while to grasp the psychology - I was putting my tiny newborn in a big cold silent crib after 9 months of warm noisy dark womb, and then wondering why she woke up after 5 mins and cried!

She would only sleep on me, which I didn't want to do in bed because we have a tempur mattress and it's not safe for babies. So I sucked it up: first few weeks I sat up with her and DP took over for a few hours each night.

And when she was about 8 weeks old, we bought a sleepyhead and it was like magic - instant sleep for 3-4 hour stretches!! If we ever had another, I'd get a sleepyhead at about 2 weeks. It could also be put next to me in the bed for safer co-sleeping, had I needed it.

But I was breast feeding - friends with FF babies found that they slept more easily.

Three thoughts that got me through it:

• it feels like forever but really after about 6 weeks they do get more able to sleep for a bit and their circadian day/night rhythms synchronise

• it really really does go in a flash, so try to enjoy the cuddles, even when it's 3am and you're exhausted. My gorgeous tiny baby who wouldn't sleep is now a gorgeous shouty toddler who won't sit on me for cuddles at all, and I only get cuddles when SHE wants them

• your baby is crying because he/she needs you. You're his/her whole world; you are all he/she knows, and they need your familiar smell and touch and warmth to feel safe.

The last one used to make me cry with pregnancy hormones!!

It's a huge shock to your system and takes alot of adjusting to having to put your needs away and put theirs first. Unfortunately, most newborns have you up alot of the night. It's probably what it's going to be like for at least a few months to come. I hope you get one that starts to do 4 or 5 hours at night in one go after a few months. I had one like this but I had another that woke every night for nearly 2 years. So, if it's your first, get as much rest as you can when you can. Whether that's 9am, 2pm or 5am.
Hope the breastfeeding works out but if it doesn't, don't feel bad. Some babies just don't get on with it. Do what's right for you both. Good luck!

Unfortunately babies are not born knowing the difference between night and day! You need to take time to get into a feeding/sleeping routine to help you both.

You don't 'get them to sleep'; they fall asleep when they are tired. If you actively try to get them to sleep, you risk them becoming dependent on falling asleep this way - see all the threads on baby only goes to sleep on me, in the car, if I rock him/ her.

I would also recommend a Sleepyhead and maybe a dummy if you aren't breastfeeding (sometimes they just want something in their mouths).

Also they are forever going on about skin to skin, so you may not get to wear clothes very often for the next few weeks.

A few things that helped me ;

• Skin to skin helped her in the first week.
• White noise app around as it's very quiet outside the womb
• try being in a dark a room as possible

Many congratulations on your baby!

Do you have a dummy? Newborn babies come out desperate to suck suck suck as that's how they get your milk in. She will just be crying to get you to notice her so she can suck. If you're not going to put her on the boob you will probably need a dummy, as she'll be too full too quickly on formula to get much sucking time.

Hairdryer noise

I can't advise here, I'm only pregnant. HoWecer I've heard a lot about Sleepyheads. It may help.

If you do want to persevere with breastfeeding there are some things which may help. I had trouble feeding my first baby (second one fed like a dream) and this is what worked for me:

To help with latch, the Lansinoh latch assist is a brilliant little gadget which draws the nipple out temporarily and makes it easier for the baby.

Nipple shields were a godsend to me with my first and in the end we used them for 5 months and carried on feeding for another year without them. We went from it taking up to an hour to latch and lots of pain to latching instantly with the shield every time. There are lots of different types on the market so worth trying a few. Amazon has a good selection and they do the latch assist too.

Other than that, lots of skin to skin. If you lie on your back and place baby on you she will naturally start to root. It's quite amazing.

I love breastfeeding and find it really convenient, especially for feeding to sleep.

It might be that your milk hasn't come in yet - mine never did until day 3.

Whatever you decide - good luck!

With DC1, I spent an hour expressing on day 4 and could see nothing Bugger all support from midwives, however the local baby cafe with trained breastfeeding counsellors was amazing. By week 2 I was leaking through breastpads - it's not to late for you to get expert advice and try again to breastfeed.

Newborns need far more winding than you would expect as well.

We spent the first night with Dc4 having to sleep with the light on - I have no idea what was going on but he'd scream until we turned it back on. He'd fall asleep, we'd turn it off so we could sleep, he'd scream again

My newborn is now 5 weeks, he still won't settle unless he's on me.

His sleeping routine is non existent

He's also crap at burping! He likes to throw up on me though.

I gave ds2 a dummy from day one. He slept in 3hr stints when I often woke him for a breastfeed. He rejected it himself at 10 months old.
Ds1 wouldn't take a dummy or a bottle so I was bfeeding him every hour. They were both sucky babies.
Both colicky too so needed a lot of winding. Cycle legs, push knees into tummy, lay over knees and pat/rub the back, over shoulder and pat vigorously.
Ds1 struggled to sleep because he had uncomfortable wind. He was also under obvs for 3 hellish days where as soon as he fell asleep someone would come in and wake us up for bloods or meds.
Try swaddling. Make sure he is warm enough. I rolled a towel up under the sheet in his moses basket. But really the dummy was magic with ds2.