3 week old baby won't sleep anywhere except on us or in our bed with us. Help!

[zambooloo]

Our baby is very clingy. She will only fall asleep in our arms and will only stay asleep for any length of time if in our arms or in our bed with us at night.

She hates the moses basket - we have tried heating the mattress with a hot water bottle, putting my partner's t shirt in there and putting it on an angle. Nothing has helped.

She will tolerate the bouncy chair for short periods if we put her in there while asleep.

I'm just struggling to get anything done as if she is awake we can't put her down anywhere without her crying.

People keep telling us we are making a rod for our own backs by having her sleep in the bed with us and by holding her so much but it is the only way we can get any sleep. Also my partner is sleeping on an air bed as we were worried about lack of space in the bed so this can't really go on much longer as he is already suffering from backache.

This is our 1st baby so we really don't know if this is normal/ how long it will last etc. Any thoughts/ suggestions are very welcome. Thank you.

To agree with others, I got a lot done round the house with DD in sling. So it's not forever, you will be able to do housework etc again.

Just be aware that if you do housework with baby in close proximity they may get used to it and then when your DD is a toddler you may find that you can only Hoover whilst holding her hand....how did this happen....:o

You can use a Moby Wrap sling from birth-

www.amazon.co.uk/Moby-Wrap-Baby-Carrier-moss/dp/B00134DLO4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326892395&sr=8-2

this one is the same but cheaper for some reason

I carried DS (9lb 6 at birth) in ours for 6 months as he had reflux and other issues. He usually fell asleep in it instantly as he was nestled against my skin and IMO there is nothing nicer than having a tiny baby snuggled tightly against you asleep, you can sniff their little heads and stroke them all the time.

We had a limpet baby as well! I found a kari-me wrap to be a sanity saver because it let me get on with things while he was snuggled against me, and we co-slept with him in a bedside crib (and later a cot with the side removed) so he was right next to me and I knew I wasn't going to roll onto him. It's certainly not been a rod for our backs - he's a fabulously independent little lad now and sleeps brilliantly in his own room all night, having chosen to move in there himself when he was 2.

A friend of ours cosletp using something that I think was called a Snugglesafe or Snugglenest and loved it.

Sling sling sling
(Not horrid baby bjorn front carrier thing!)
And lots of sitting down and cuddling

Sling sling sling
(Not horrid baby bjorn front carrier thing!)
And lots of sitting down and cuddling

at least she got the important colostrum :)

my boys were like this and dd! so i used a moby wrap, i have now given mine to my sister who had her baby just over 3wks ago (25th december!) and she is using it as he also doesnt like to be put down, its normal baby behaviour!

re sleeping, we co-slept with all of ours, so we have a futon, push it up against the wall and baby sleeps by the wall or inbetween us, we also have a toddler bed next to the futon, it has little sides, so if we want to we can shove the baby/toddler into that so we have a bit more space :)

mine all went on to sleep in their own beds just fine btw, well no 5 is still in with us, but she is just 13mths, she sleeps in the toddler bed sometimes, but tbh we both like having her snuggled up with us, they are only little once! :)

Lots of good advice here. I'd also suggest swaddling (I use one of those straight jacket style blankets with velcro) as a way of helping your baby sleep in her moses basket when you and she are ready.

oh yes SWADDLING works wonders, on some babies! my boys didnt like it but dd LOVES it, still now at 13mths i swaddle her for her nap and then again at bedtime, she gets out of the swaddle in the night and is fine but she settles much better being swaddled when she is first put down, its like her 'cue' to go to sleep tbh and she always looks very content and happy when i do it, like a little worm all snuggled up, she loves it :)

We have a Velcro baby. Well she's like a koala - he little hands grab my clothes when she's on me.
She's 6 weeks and my second - I went straight to wearing a sling in the day and she's on me at night.

A sling is fab - I can do most things with it including looking after DS (2.3 years). I have a close carrier for indoors and a manduca for outdoors. I had a bjorn - rubbish!

DS was the same. He moved into his cot at 3-4 months, own room by 7 and in a bed at 20 months. It will change!

I think it's easier having DD with me and dh in the spare room - we swap sometimes so I can sleep too.

Got a close sling - I've used it on dog walks, definitely a good idea. I just put her in the bouncy chair while I shoved in a sandwich - only managed to eat half of it before she was crying again so the sling would be excellent!

Without wishing to cause you concern, I think it might be a good idea to check out the reflux threads in the feeding section, if only to discount it. It doesn't have to mean the baby is sick, but it can put them off breast feeding, wake them soon after they've been put down flat, and they feel much more comfy when upright. It took me 4 months to get this diagnosed with ds1 and only 10 days with ds2, with whom we had a much easier time because we knew lots of strategies to help him. Good luck. Enjoy the cuddles.

My DD was just like this, for the first 6 weeks particularly. Couldn't put her down. Used a sling and as she was very sucky, from about 6 weeks she started to have a dummy and lie in her Moses basket. The dummy made a massive difference in comforting her.

Don't panic. We never ever left her to cry - far from making a rod, you are making them secure. DD started preschool yesterday with not a backward glance and is now a confident and totally non clingy 2.7 year old!

Babies just come wired their oen special way. DS is 11 weeks and is a totally different character to dd at the same age. From birth he's been happy to just lie in his basket and slowly drop off the sleep. After DD, Dh and I had to slap ourselves to make sure we hadn't entered some kind of alternative reality!

Did your dd have a long/stressful birth? Massage / cranial oesteopathy may help.

Oh, the well meaning 'rod for your own back' comments. Selective deafness cures that :) I am still getting them from my Mum 10 years down the line - and she paid a nanny to bring us up - I laugh like a drain (inside) when she starts with her parenting advice!! Anyway, my 1st was the same - we bought a drop side cot and butted up to the bed, put baby in the cot on the edge and I was on edge of bed, gradually (and I mean over a period of months) I slept slightly further away and eventually the side of the cot went up and then (drum roll please) we moved the cot into another bedroom. It was a long slow laborious process, but involved no screaming or anxiety from either party, so everyone was happy. 1st children are always clingier, because I think naturally we are - not something I think anyone should try to change. By the time I got to the third he was in his own room straight away and the bottles were propped up by a blanket ;) !! - not that I would recommend that of course

I totally agree re not listening to 'rod for your own back' comments. When she is a few weeks older start thinking about that but now she really is just newborn. She will change, guaranteed (although not necessarily for the better!) but at the moment she is so much less aware of the world than she will be in the future. From the age of 2 weeks my son has been fighting sleep. We had the same thing that even if he was in a deep sleep on one of us when we transferred him to his basket we'd only have 5 mins until he woke up.

Have you tried putting her in the basket and rocking it with your hand on her? We got a wobbly stand so we could rock the basket back and forth and it worked wonders. I also totally swear by white noise, it can really calm them down. When things got extreme I used to sometimes turn the hoover on. We have a really great machine that I put in the basket with him.