10 day old baby feeding/sleeping at nighttime

[PinkFondantFancy]

My DD feeds and sleeps beautifully between the hours of 6am and 10pm. The rest of the time ie at night she fusses at the breast, falls asleep there after just 5 mins or so, then either falls fast asleep on my shoulder or wakes up again and starts rooting furiously. If she's rooting i put her back on the breast but again, a few sucks then falls asleep. If she goes to sleep on my shoulder and I put her down in her basket, she starts writhing and fussing and crying until she's picked up. She will only sleep at night sleeping upright on someone. Sleeping in the basket during the day doesn't seem to be a problem. This has been the pattern since she was born.

My question is, is this normal behaviour that will pass or is there an underlying problem? I have been getting myself through the non-existence of any kind of sleep by telling myself this will pass but now I'm wondering if that's true....

Hi Pff, first of all congratulations and good work on finding time to come on here with a 10 day old! I don't really have any great advice to you but if I could go back to when DD was ten days old I would tell myself to break the feed to sleep habit asap. DD is 6mo and struggles to get to sleep anywhere other than on the boob which means I'm still up with her several times a night. I have only twice put her to bed and had her fall asleep entirely on her own. The rooting and short feeding implies to me your LO is needing the comfort to fall asleep (perfectly normal for a 10 day old btw, but it does need to change at one point-debatable when). A dummy might help this if you're not using one already - of course there are plenty of pros and cons to debate about that but if it helps you get some sleep then I say go for it. Also I wish I had read The Baby Whisperer and the No Cry Sleep Solution earlier when habits were less ingrained. Better to set up good habits from the start as believe me they're hard to change after a few months. Re: sleeping on you - I had 5 months of letting DD sleep on my chest when desperate and had a breakthrough when I realised it's just that she wants to sleep on her front not her back. I wouldn't recommend this for a 10 day old but if the problem persists you could perhaps try it when she's older. Good luck!

this is completely normal, there are no bad habits when your baby is 10 days old.

She doesn't even know she is a separate person from you yet! Give it time, she will eventually fall into a routine that is perfect for HER (every baby is different, you can't force them into a routine just because a book says so)

She needs to keep rooting/nuzzling as she is ordering up the milk - your supply is still not fully established yet. There are big growth spurts and all kinds of developmental changes coming up

you are doing brilliantly its exhausting but keep doing what you are doing - it will indeed pass

Sorry but I disagree entirely with Emsmaman. It is literally impossible to set up habits with a newborn because their brains can't physically form the memories that habits are based on. At 10 days old you need to do whatever she needs - babies are actually very sensible little creatures and know when they NEED something. They don't have 'wants' as such.

It sounds as though you're doing very well indeed - you're giving her what she needs when she needs it - no newborn likes to sleep alone as they're comforted by your heartbeat and by being held tightly. You could try swaddling at night, but in any case she will grow out of needing to be cuddled all night in a few weeks or less. You'll probably also find that it's the norm to keep baby downstairs with you in the evenings rather than try to get her to sleep upstairs - she will settle better during the night that way. Another thing you could try is to keep her awake a little longer for night feeds - I would expect a newborn to take between 10-30 minutes to have a full feed, so a little jiggle every now and then if she looks like she's drifting off too soon may help.

FWIW I fed both mine to sleep whenever they wanted it and it was no problem at all when they were a bit older getting them gradually used to falling asleep by themselves. Night feeds get dropped anyway so it doesn't matter feeding them back to sleep for those.

DS is now 7 months and self settles most of the time both for naps and nightime sleep. I let him sleep on me for his daytime naps until he was about 5 months and co-slept until then as I was still bf-ing at night and found it the only way I could get some sleep and function during the day.

AFAIK, you can't teach them too much until they're at least 3 months, as Octavia says their brain can't form associations until then. And at 10 days your supply is getting established, and will do so for a while yet.

However, I do understand how sleep deprivation can break you and you need to take care of yourself too. As I said, the only way I could get some sleep was by co-sleeping, I understand this is not for everyone but after falling asleep unintentionally near DS I thought it would actually be safer to choose to co-sleep and follow all the safety guidelines.

It really does get better. Things change and as long as you try and settle your LO in her cot/basket every now and then she will not want to fall asleep on you forever. While I agree that for your sanity you need to gently teach them to fall asleep on their own, 10 days it's too early IME.

Regarding the night feeds, DS has always been a snacker and just like your DD he would suck for a few minutes then fall asleep on the breast, and want to feed a bit later. I tried and tried to keep him awake for longer, changed his nappy and put him back to the breast, etc, but he just fell in a deep sleep again and there was no way I could make him feed for longer. I just accepted it and things gradually started to improve, and feeds spaced out.

Sounds like you're doing brilliantly, it WILL get better.

Thank you so much for all your advice, it's greatly appreciated and good to hear that other people have been through this and can confirm it's not going to be like this forever... It just makes me a bit sad that I feel like I spend very little quality time with her as instead of spending nice time with her during the day I am asleep whenever she's dozing or asleep. Fingers crossed she will get the hang of it a bit more soon.

Don't worry about quality time too much at this point - it will come! Wait till she's 5-6 weeks and you get that first smile.

Hello again everyone. DD is 4 weeks today, and after a few nights where I naively thought we'd turned a bit of a corner I'm back in the same situation again. She won't feed properly as keeps falling asleep at the breast but won't go in her basket and will only sleep on my chest. Any ideas anyone? Am sitting in a chair desperately trying not to fall asleep with her on my chest. Am exhausted :(

Oh have tried stripping back to nappy to feed, made no difference. Can't cosleep as small double bed with barely enough room for me and DH. :(

I have exactly the same prob, DS is 4 weeks old and will cry if I don't cuddle or co sleep but is fne during day. He has colic and sometimes wakes up screaming which is horrible. I am going to try a night of feed and put in basket and restrain from picking him up straight away to see if he will settle himself but don't know if that is unrealsitic, am getting 1-2 hours broken sleep a night but he has on occassion slept for 2-3 hour blocks so I know he can do it. Good luck the rest of you, am watching to see if someone has magic cure

PinkFondantFancy - my DD is now 11 weeks old and we did everything you are "not supposed to". For the first few days she would only sleep on me or DH, we used to spend the night holding her in 2 hour "shifts"! Then when DH went back to work I co-slept with her after feeding her to sleep, DH slept in spare room and she shared a king size bed with me.

Then we waited for her to snore (the deep sleep) and put her in the moses basket and she stayed there. We have now got to the stage where she goes to her moses basket awake and settles herself at night.

It really does change I promise, don't get too worried about it. I spent ages working myself into a frenzy about her not going to the moses basket and dropping off immediately but actually all you need to do is keep trying, i.e. putting her in the moses basket but not beating yourself up over it if it doesn't work, one day it will.

Like you, she aways slept OK in the day mostly on visitors or me, but now will self settle herself in her cot for naps.

Sorry for essay but what I am trying to say is, don't worry about bad habits, do what you need to for that moment in time, but keep trying the other ways as well and one day it will click.

Candr - for DD's colic we used colief and although its expensive can't praise it enough!

Thanks Pink, is nice to hear others have had same prob. Have started using Colief but too early to see if it will work better than infacol. Having let baby sleep on me all last night he has fed every 2-3 hours today and slept well in basket for proper sleeps and seems more relaxed - fingers crossed for a peaceful night.

Can't your DH sleep somewhere else and you and the baby co-sleep? That would be much safer than you falling asleep with her in a chair.

Hi, just wanted to offer a ray of hope! I remember being exhausted at week 4 as DS would not sleep at night except on me and seemed to feed all the time. Here's what I did;

1. spent a week doing ALL naps in Moses basket. First day I basically spent the whole day beside the basket picking him up and putting him down (no crying, just settling, resettling until he got the picture)

2. swaddle! And tight! Also gives you a bit of a nap/bed routine which helped.

3. coslept from second feed.

Turns out he has some pretty bad reflux too, so a wedge might help you?

Oh, and in bed myself by 9!!!

Now 15 weeks and have a happy napper who goes down in a cot 90% of the time no problem; and about to try to break co-sleeping ... At DH insistence. He wants back into the bedroom (fair enough). Breaks my heart, I love snuggling with the little guy so looking for a cosleeper instead