Crisis of confidence - advice needed re sleeping and feeding 7 week old

[Picklepepperpiper]

Basically ds is 7 weeks and 4 days old, I know that we are still in the very early days.

He is ebf on demand. At which point should I stop feeding on demand? I feel that he is constantly feeding all day and has very few periods of being content to lie on playmat or be with dad.

He is also not a great mapper during the day and today he has had a total of 1 and a half hours sleep. So far I have been allowing him to dictate his naps and I also take him out in his pram to try and get him to sleep, but he usually stays awake or will close his eyes for 5 - 10 mins. He had been having a biggish sleep (2 hours ish) late afternoon when I do the school run, but today has decided to forgo it. Should I be making him have scheduled naps?

I am not desperate to get him into a routine and am happy to go with the flow, but I am concerned that he is not sleeping enough and also it is not fair to dd as I am constantly feeding him and not getting to do things with her after school. I am dreading half term! I also do not get any time to just rest and eat my lunch! I honestly am starting to get a bit depressed and beginning to think I am doing it all wrong.

Night times are not awful, but again I am worried I am setting bad habits and doing him no favours. I give him a bath and then take him to a darkish room and lie down to feed him around 7pm. He will fall asleep for good 9.30pm - 10pm and I then move him to his Moses basket. He wakes around 2 or 3 am, but I can not get him back into his basket, he ends up sleeping with me which I really don't want to do!

I bought 'the Baby Whisperer' today and it has made me even more convinced I am doing it wrong.

Any tips or advice would be gratefully received, thankyou

I dont have much time to reply but just wanted to reassure you you are doing EXACTLY the right thing.

He is tiny.

You are still getting things established bfing wise.

When he is 2/5 to 3 months old things will be very different - he will go longer between feeds settle down a bit. You'll look back and you'll know what I mean.

You will actually reach this stage more quickly if you keep bfing on demand, hard as it is, and get things thoroughly established.

7 weeks is the hardest time, as I remember with my two. You are over the euphoria of the first weeks, it is a slog and they are still very much newborn in their behaviour.

My kids slept with me till they were about 2.5 months. My DD slept ON me till she was 8 weeks as she wouldnt lie flat anywhere. They both grew out of it by 3 months. The fact that your DS is sleeping from 9/10 ish through to 2 or 3 is fantastic, at this age.

Hang in there and good luck!

I don't have much to add, just to say that I could have written your post except my DS is 9 weeks. i also have a DD. His behaviours are exactly the same as you describe. I agree you are doing exactly the right thing. Don't get hung up on what you should/ shouldn't be doing...just do what feels right. And only read books with the view that they may give useful little tips or help you to understand why your baby is behaving in a certain way, if you take them as a bible (as I did with my first) you'll always feel you're doing it "wrong". Enjoy your precious little one.

It sounds like you are following your instincts and his cues, which is the perfect thing to do with a little baby, IMO. You are meeting his needs and showing him that you are there for him, which is all such a tiny person really needs at such a young age.

He's got the rest of his life to fall into a routine, sleep on his own, lie on the mat, etc. Right now just enjoy snuggling your lovely baby, forget what the books say and carry on as you have been!

PS His night time sleeping pattern sounds amazing for such a young baby. Neither of mine were sleeping anything like yours is at that age (falling asleep much later, waking more often).

OP I bought the baby whisperer book at around the same time as you and felt the same way . Put it away! There are some useful bits in there but most of it will make you feel like you're doing everything wrong and your baby is terrible, which you are not. Seriously, your baby will not get into bad habits for ages, just do what you need to do to get him to sleep, things will sort themselves out later in time. My DD slept on me for most of her day naps (would not sleep anywhere else either) until 17 weeks, then decided she wanted to sleep in her cot and I really missed that snuggly time. Your nights sound really good for 7weeks.

7 weeks is a really difficult time, there is a growth spurt just happened/happening and a wonder week (8weeks I think) just coming so he will need to be feeding more often. It's really common to cluster feed all afternoon/early evening (I have been told it's a sign they're leading up to sleeping through the night, so you may be on a winner there ). Can you sit down with DD and read stories while you're feeding or get her to play with things and tell you about them (depends how old she is of course!)? Or just go out for walks to the local park? It won't last forever, I know it's tough on her now, but it's only for a few weeks when DS needs you most. Can you put him in a sling/frontpack so you can make yourself some lunch and a ? some people can even feed in them! My DD used to zonk out within minutes of going into one and got a 40 min nap (long as I kept moving anyway ). You need to look after yourself, no food and lack of sleep makes everything 100x harder, and your mood 100x worse.

Good luck, you're doing an awesome job and don't let any of the baby books tell you otherwise

Thankyou so much for all your reassurance. I was having a particularly bad day yesterday, probably an accumulation of sleep deprivation.

I am going to put the book away and just do what he needs me to do and relax. Easier said than done i know, but now I know that I will not ruin him for sleep for ever feel a lot more confident.

Haven't read the whole thread, but agree with putting the BW in the binaway. It's not evidence based and the "advice" is very bfing unfriendly in my opinion. It's also on the kellymom books to avoid list. My DSIL read it before having her Dc1 and leant it to me before I had my DC2, I read it and thought, ah that's why she stopped bfing almost straightaway.

If he's not napping in the day and you want to do things like play with dd, have you thought about a sling? At that age my dd would want to be feeding all day long but would happily doze of in a sling while I cooked the tea or played with DS.

Whether you are bfing or ff its the advice to feed all babies on demand. Don't worry though, there are things you can do. Have you tried breast compressions while you feed? Have you had your latch checked and has DS been checked for tongue tie? I think it would be worthwhile going along to your local bfing support group and asking the BFC to observe a whole feed and ask her to check for tongue tie. Even if DS has been checked for tongue tie before, it can be so easily missed.

If you want to encourage him to sleep more on his own, have you tried swaddling and white noise?

Everything you are both doing though sounds perfectly normal and you aren't setting up bad habits. My DS was very much like this, which makes me suspect tongue tie. He wouldn't go in his Moses basket ever. I ended up sticking him in bed with us to get some sleep. It wasn't what I planned to do but it was the only way we could cope. He's 8 now and loves his own bed, co sleeping and newborn cuddles don't last forever.

If you want to read evidence based information on normal infant sleep have a look at ISIS.

If you do want to substitute the BW, try Babycalming by Caroline Deacon. It's evidence based and Caroline Deacon is a BFC and it will help you find your own pattern rather than enforce strict routines. I read it before having dc2 and she was a really chilled baby. Really, really wish I'd read it before having dc1.

My DMIL bought me GF when Ds was about the same age, I read about half of it, felt utterly depressed, stuck it in the bin and promptly forgot about it

Oh and DN still wakes regularly at 7 so the BW is no guarantee of success.

Just reread my post and it sounds like I'm saying there is something wrong. There isn't of course, everything sounds like normal baby behaviour and like others have said, the nights are actually very good for that age.

Glad you are feeling better about things OP,it's so tough when you read all the books and start believing you're setting yourself up for a lifetime of misery! Glad you are going to put TBW away, and stay well away from Gina Ford too! Like Jilted says, best place for that one is the bin (then no other poor mother will be attracted to it in a 2nd hand shop!). Good luck

My DD was exactly like this until about 12/13 weeks when she suddenly started napping regularly during the day. She's now 7 months and you could set your watch by her daytime naps.

You're doing fantastically well. Hang in there. It will get easier soon.

It sounds like you're doing a great job. My ds2 is 10 weeks and he just slept half the night on me because he wanted to. They are such tiny babies for such a short space of time. Try and enjoy it.

(Overt rarely put ds2 down, we use the sling a lot)