Advice needed please - I have a 9 wk old that gets extremely over tired and fights sleep!!

[Piper0804]

Hi - bear with my post - I dont post very often on here. Just wondered if anyone had any advice - I have a baby daughter - 9 weeks old and she constantly fights sleep. She likes to settle to sleep on my breast or on the bottle but then doesn't sleep very well - I have tried to stop this over the last few nights and have had a much better night from her (7/8hrs) but it involves up to an hour (and it seems to be getting worse) of me holding her while she is crying.... I am not sure what I should be doing and my husband thinks that i should just keep feeding her. She won't take a dummy unfortunately - we keep trying!!

She is awful at sleeping in the day too - she sleeps if I walk her or if we are in the car - but there is no routine to it and I think this is worsening the problem.

What should I do / try??

Thanks.

Hi,
Do you have a sheepskin for the baby to sleep on during the day as i found it worked wonders. My baby used to stroke it for comfort to get to sleep. I also used my little finger in my baby's mouth when he would not take a dummy. I cleaned it and kept the nail very short. He fell asleep sucking it then i carefully pulled it out and put him down. I know it's hard but it does get a lot better as the months go by. At 9 weeks my baby woke every 3 to 4 hours during the night for a feed. At 5 months he dropped the night feeds and slept 9pm till 6am . I had a routine from 5 weeks and it really helped. He has a comfort toy which is a little jellycat dog and is now a great sleeper. He sleeps 11 hours at night and 3 hours in the day at around the same time every day. I remember being so tired and thinking it would never end but it does. 5 months was a turning point as he started to sleep much better.

Can you sleep with her? Either in bed, or with her in a sling?

What time does she go to bed. Have a set routine about bedtime and be anal about it for a couple of weeks and she will get it or so I found. Needs usually to be earlier to bed rather than later to start the settling before overtired bit hits.

I would suggest not letting her sleep in the day after 4.30. Then upstairs 5.30/6 feed, bath, from bath into a dimly lit room and into night clothes, then feed again (I would go for breast for last last feed as milk has hormones to aid sleep) and into Moses for 6.30/7 and no later and left to sleep in darkened room. All settling thereafter to be done upstairs.

In the day do what ever it takes to ensure she some sleep every 1.5 to 2 hours and at this age pram or car or sling or rock in bouncy chair is fine. Sleep in day will space out and become more routine by about 5 or 6 months.

Learnt the hard way with my first that the over tiredness was just that she was hyper stimulated and she needed to be upstairs in a dimly lit room with some quiet and actually not touched too much to just be allowed to follow her body clock for nighttime sleep. Also a late June baby like I am assuming your baby is!

She is nine years now, and bedtime, you will be glad to hear, been sorted for years and years. So it will all get better