7 week old baby does not sleep during the day

[PatronSaintOfDucks]

Hello everyone. This is my first thread. I am sure there were similar topics before, but I would like to exchange ideas with people who are in a similar situation to mine, and possibly help each other.

I have a 7 week old ds. He is utterly angelic when he sleeps well. The problem is that although he sleep reasonably well during the night, daytime napping is hell. As a newborn he started off with being able to drop off pretty much anywhere any time. By four weeks this ability was gone. Now I am only really able to get him to sleep either in a moving pram or in a sling, with me moving, and then often only for 30-40 min max. And he usually only falls asleep after at least some and often protracted screaming. I hate to hear him scream and feel like a child abuser.

I've been trying to watch for his "sleepy signs" and put him either in the pram or sling early. This sometimes works with the sling but never with the pram. It is also often hard to know when he is sleepy as he is a very slow eater (a feed can easily take 40 minutes), his "activity" window can be very narrow and he is prone to dozing on the breast.

He also will not sleep on me. He used to fall asleep on the breastfeeding cushion after a feed, but if he does it now, he sleeps for 2 minutes max.

He also does not seem to ever go into deep sleep during the day, but always REM. He always fidgets and I can see his eyes moving under eyelids.

I feel terrible as I have to enforce daytime sleep through his screams. But I feel like I do not have a choice as if he does not sleep, he starts hanging on my breast for literally hours, fidgeting and pulling, dozing but never properly asleep.

For the past four days I've been trying to do a little routine for the first nap. He gets up around 7, and I time his first nap at around 8:30 am when he shows signs of tiredness. I take him upstairs to bed (we co-sleep), sign him a song, feed him, swaddle him (he is swaddled in the night), and then stroke/shushpat/hum/feed him to sleep. I do not have a blackout blind, however, so it's light. Today we managed about 1.5 hour nap, but he fidgeted for the whole time and I had to pat him and hum to him for pretty much the whole time to keep him asleep.

Is there anything else I can do at all? I especially hate to make him cry. It breaks my heart. The HV is telling me to "just put him down when happy and walk away", but she does not tell me what to do when he starts crying.

Hi Count! (love the nickname!) Yep, Baby Whisperer is incredibly irritating. I just hated the smugness about "accidental parenting". But it helped me to recognise that DS is crabby because he is tired.

I am actively lurking on your current thread about sleeping babies, prepping myself for the future. I am told that babies that sleep little turn into toddlers that sleep little and into adults that sleep little. I am consoling myself with the thought that perhaps, when DS is a teenager, I will escape the grief of having to get him out of bed in the morning using five alarms and a jug of cold water. But I totally feel for you now. I feel that I really should not be whingeing here about my DS. He is really not that bad in comparison with the issues you and other people on your thread are dealing with.

DS is now sleeping with a little bit less of white noise, which gives me hope for the future. We are nearly off the hairdryer, at least, which I am happy about as I am sure running electrical appliances are not very safe.

And yes, there will be loads of changes. I am awaiting the fearsome 4-month sleep regression and teething with trepidation.

I must be incredibly naive thinking that routine actually works. I've been putting DS down for over a month in exactly the same way. It always worked well, besides for once. For the past two nights, however (and this is after we had two brilliant nights and days), things are totally going to pot. He took forever to put down last night. And today he is beating the record. It is an hour and 10 min now since the start of his bedtime routine and an hour and a half since he was put to bed. He is still whingeing and awake upstairs. DH is with him now as my throat was about to give in from so much humming trying to put DS to sleep.

Last night was also not so good. Again, after a month of waking up at 11 for the deramfeed, DS decided to wake up at 10:30. It took an hour to put him down after that after his feed. Night-time settlings have also been difficult.

What is this? An early four-month regression? (DS is 10 weeks tomorrow). A blip? Perhaps he had a bit of a cold (last night he was snorting so much it was like sleeping with a cabin-full of drunken sailors).

I. have. NO. CLUE.

P.S. I seem to be able to put him to bed for a nap in the morning easily now (but for how long?), but there is just no way I can make him sleep for longer than 40 min. Our record in the sling is 1 hr 10 min. How on earth do I get him to nap for longer? I tried sitting next to him and re-settling many times. I know he can do it as he did 1.5 hour naps before.

Hell. It took almost 2.5 hours to get DS to sleep. It took the hairdryer on the highest setting (it's a chainsaw-like sound!). And I thought we were done with the hairdryer. :( I feel like I wrestled down a rhinoceros. Am not waking him up for the dreamfeed (if he stays down, that is). He'd be still tired by then and I really do not want to fight with him again.

i've sort of scanned the thread so apologies for repeating if already said but
a) he's 7 wks. don't worry at all about feeding to sleep. it's fine. it helps him sleep. that's what is important.
b) the less he sleeps the harder it will be to get him to sleep for any amount of time. overtired baby and all that
c) repeat what you do at night for him at naptime.. eg, if you use a sleeping bag/swaddle, then do the same in the day...sends the same signals... I didn't realise this for MONTHS and it was a revelation...
d) black out blinds. Get them if not already in. He needs dark in the day to help him realise it's time to sleep..
and agree re the shushing.. both mine still go to sleep with my recorded SHUSH...SHUSH...SHUSH.... on the monitor (got a bit breathless doing it in RL

good luck everyone, it does get better... just remember to look after yourselves....

Hi MummyElk,

Thanks! But he's 10 weeks now (I started the thread a while ago). I've not been feeding him to sleep for over two weeks now, except once on a desperate night, and he's been rather ok with it. The problem is that he started to really gobble his milk all of a sudden and is rather windy as a result. This drastically reduced the practicality of feeding to sleep. But he's been rather ok, going down pretty easily most of the time, rarely with full-on crying, normally just whingeing, and sometimes just a couple of squeaks. I've also got the blinds and do for naps what I do for night-time, minus the bath. It's just the past two days are totally weird, like the routine stopped working.

Oh god. Switched the hairdryer for radio white noise and DS woke in in 10 min. What's got into him tonight? Am prepared for a sleepless night. And DH is ill and has loads of work tomorrow.

Hi,

Have a serial non napping DD here (now 10 months) She hated hated hated her pram (but was a refluxer so forgiven for that) I used to use the car seat on the base for trips out. I walked MILES, sometimes it worked sometimes not.

But the wrap sling- what a godsend! In act she would never nap anywhere else until 4 months old!

Like your DS my DD would feed and feed and feed for the comfort but refused a dummy. Frankly we were so desperate for some sleep that we used to let her suck our little fingers, which also worked when she was in the sling (could kind of poke my hand in the side) and also at night when she was in the cot next to my bed. As she got older she found her own hand to suck which she still uses now as both a method of settling/resettling herself and to tell me she wants/needs to sleep.

At 4 months she deigned to sleep in the car seat in the car, and I ditched the pram in favour of the buggy seat, which reclines and she would nap there if outside and in motion.

At 6 months, I could push buggy up and down inside the house (lucky really it was winter by then and I was bloody sick tired of walking the streets for hours on end. Then at 7 the buggy could be still.

I still use the buggy a lot for naps, and on bad days park it next to the tumble drier which seems to help her.

At 9 months she would occasionally take the morning nap in her cot.

Then the 9 month sleep regression/teething/cot crawling hit and it all went to hell again. Normal service only just resuming...

Not sure if there is anything in this lot that is helpful to you, if nothing else remember 'this too shall pass...' hang in there!

What the hell???!!! The night is repeating itself. We did the evening routine again, DS was definitely sleepy - crabby beforehand (but ok in the bath, until the end), falling asleep on the breast during the last feed, but when put to bed, he closed his eyes for 10 secs, and then was yawning but wide awake. We've been trying to put him to sleep for the past 40 minutes now. I am resigned to having no evening, that's ok, but I would love to know why the evening routine stopped working.

Everything else is actually not too bad. Last night was good, he had three good naps today (even one 1.5 hours in the morning!!!), he is sleeping better in the sling (allows me to remain stationary rather often now), but evenings for some reason have gone to the dogs. Is he getting overtired and can't go to sleep because of this? Should I be putting him to bed even earlier? We start his routine at 18:45, getting him to bed by 19:20 at the latest now. This seems rather early already. Shall we try keeping him up later? But he is crabby already. We will, I guess, continue doing what we have done for a few more nights and see if anything improves. It's just totally baffling.

Fumblina, thank you! You do give me hope and I know you are right as I see some improvements already. Wrap sling is a godsend indeed. . . . This too shall pass. . .

I also cannot detect the pattern. Yesterday evening and today's were totally different, but with the same result. Last evening, he had a catnap between 5 and 6. Today he did not (he slept between 3 and 4 instead). Yesterday I gave him his bath and DS was rather awake during his last feed, today DH did the bath and DS was falling asleep during his last feed. . . . . I guess I should just wait for the magical 12th week.

Ok, got him down by 8:35 by feeding him more. An improvement on last night (it was 9:52 last night). Perhaps I am just not feeding him enough. Will try to keep him awake during the feed tomorrow night.

I hope I am not boring the tits off anyone with my accounts of daily minutia. It's just such a release for me.

The same situation is repeating itself this evening. He was sleepy during feeds, but now is wide awake and yawning in his swaddle upstairs. Not upset though. Yet. I am really at a loss about why he started doing it. I am thinking it may be my evening milk supply that is low for him. Perhaps he is getting hungrier and I am not keeping up with him. I really tried to feed him up today, but there did not seem to be much swallowing going on. Perhaps he is going sleepy on the breast because it is empty.

Wow, wow, WOW, ladies (and gentlemen), OMG!!! DH just went upstairs to check on DS and came back bearing the news that DS is asleep! He has fallen asleep all by himself. When I put him in the cot, I turned the radio white noise on and started humming to him as I've always done, but he did not show any signs of wanting to close his eyes, but was not at all upset, so I decided to leave him to his own devices and come down to whinge here instead. And he fell asleep. It must have taken about 10 min, but I was not timing it as I was sure that he would stay awake. Still can't believe it.

I feel kind of bad and sad now. My tiny 10-week old baby did not need me to help him to sleep. :( I know I should feel good about this (self-settling seems to be the holy grail of sleep training, not like I am trying to train him), but it's still kind of sad.

Update for anyone who is interested: DS has been self-settling for the evening sleep and some naps in the cot ever since. Sometimes he whinges himself to sleep (I leave him when he is not crying but making little whingey noises). He definitely settles better with me out of the room. I seem to distract him. If I stay, he often does not go to sleep. I still use the white noise though.

However, this self-settling so far has not been able to extend our naps or reduce night wakings. But I am not complaining.