Getting my 6 week old to sleep - advice?

[IzzyMum25]

Hi everyone, I am new to mumsnet!
I have a beautiful baby girl who is just over 6 weeks old now. For the first four weeks, she wouldn't sleep at all at night and I used to stay up with her all night long - she would only sleep in my arms. This led to me getting completely exhausted and depressed as I had to care for her all day as well - my partner works full time.
It finally got to the point where we had to say enough is enough - I could not stay up with her all night anymore as I was getting quite severely down. We went to the doctors who said she might have gastric reflux which she is now taking baby gaviscon for. This means she isnt in any pain and just wants holding. We now put her down at about 10pm, give her a feed and cuddles, put a night light on and put a white noise CD on and leave her to fall asleep on her own. If she hasn't fallen asleep on the bottle or in our arms, she cries as soon as we put her down and this goes on from 10 minutes to an hour. We put her to sleep in another room now and have a monitor on, and when the crying stops we check on her. After falling asleep, she will wake for her feeds at the right times and normally falls asleep on her own without the grizzling in the night time.
My question is, are we doing the right thing, and what did you do with your chronically crying newborns? Our health visitor thinks its the worst thing but our doctor advised us to do it, as she thought Izzy was getting too reliant on my holding her all night long.
Sorry about the long post, I just wanted to get all the info out so that people can give me advice.
Thank you

You can't ruin or spoil a newborn by holding them and an hour is a very long time for such a small baby to be crying alone. At this age, she doesn't understand why you aren't there for her and is not capable of self-soothing. If you search online for anything to do with leaving a baby to cry, none of the advocates for it recommend leaving a baby under 6 months to cry it out.

I also had a baby like yours, she's now 15 weeks old, sleeping through the night for 10-11 hours and rarely cries. Have you considered co-sleeping at all? I did this at first then put her in her Moses basket at night from around 8 weeks old. I feed or rock her to sleep and let her fall into a deep sleep which takes around 20 minutes before putting her down and this worked well. For daytime naps I let her sleep in her swing which was a life saver for me with a baby that cried so much, if you don't have one then I really recommend you get one.

Try not to worry about her sleep too much yet, she's so tiny and spent 9 months inside you so it makes sense that she's comforted by being held close to you. She will sleep better eventually and it will honestly happen quicker if you respond as soon as she cries because then you're teaching her that she's safe and somebody is always near. Good luck.

Have you tried swaddling? It worked wonders for my dd.

I also think an hour is too long for crying to carry on. I know that, at that age, my DS used to struggle with trapped wind in the evenings. If I put him down flat before I'd patted every bubble and fart out of him, he couldn't settle either and would draw up his legs etc. If I'd done a thorough job he went out like a light, no problem. Medicines, FWIW, didn't help. So I would say that if the crying goes on for longer than a few minutes and if it sounds like 'crying' rather than 'low-level grizzly noise', pick her up and see if she needs winding.

I really wouldn't leave a newborn to cry for that long. If you want her to fall asleep on her own, I would recommend the Baby Whisperer book. I used her techniques to start a night time and nap routine with my DD when she was 6 weeks and it worked wonders.

The idea is you don't leave them to cry - look out for sleepy cues then swaddle and put her in her cot and shhhh her, pat her tummy gently so she knows you're there right by her. In time, she'll learn to settle herself to sleep with minimum input from you.

There is no right or wrong answer - if you are not comfortable with what the GP (or HV, or any other professional for that matter) has advised, you don't have to go with it.

It is exhausting having a newborn. Try and get some rest when your DP is home, get him to take her for a big walk in her pram at the weekend so you can sleep. My DH walked miles and miles between feeds with DD so I could sleep. She just needs lots of reassurance to get to sleep, and you need a wee break.

Your HV is right. Little babies need to be held and cuddled. I held DS a lot and now he's 2.4 and I don't hold him all night.

DD is similar but she does have reflux and wind problems (i put her down and she starts wriggling and grunting). I know it wont last forever.

Please don't let your baby cry that long- an hour is a long time and exhausts baby.

I really feel for you as we also have a crier, but I would never have let him cry for that long. Now he's 6mo I let him cry for 5-10mins but never longer. At 6 weeks I would have left him at all (but I am soft!)

Have you tried co-sleeping? Or a side car cot? Walking her about in the sling? Rocking her in her cot? Singing? Swaddling & white noise worked for DS when he was younger too.

Iggly - that might be the first time I've read the phrase "your HV is right" on MN!

I wouldn't leave a baby that small to cry for more than a couple of minutes, certainly not an hour! She doesn't know that you are coming back and must think she has been abandoned. I would sit with her and stroke her until she falls asleep if you want her to sleep on her own but actually I would probably just snuggle up and enjoy the cuddles.

agree, your health visitor is right.

I dont want to try co-sleeping because I'm no longer breastfeeding due to a number of issues we had. She is on a bottle and we have been told co-sleeping is very dangerous when you are not breast feeding. We do have a cot by the bed but at the moment she settles in a moses basket. During the day she is completely fine and happy - I am sure she doesn't think she has been abandoned at night as the cries are not true crying, it is more the grizzly needy crying and as I said, it can be from a few minutes up to an hour. The reason we started doing this is because our GP tried the same on her tiny son who was the same age and she said it worked like a treat. Id like to start a proper bedtime routine (bath, massage etc) but we have also been told that once you start the bathing bedtime routine, the baby becomes reliant on that to get to sleep. She does like being bathed but it doesnt make her sleepy.
I dont feel great about leaving her to cry out so please dont judge me - I dont know what else to do and no one seems to have any good advice. My friends with children cant remember what they did at that time and some of them have those perfect babies who slept through the night at this age!
My other question is, should I be limiting the day time naps? Sometimes she will fall asleep for 3 hours, should I wake her up after a certain amount of time or leave her to it?

Sorry I have another question - we have tried swaddling but all the websites say you shouldn't swaddle for more than 6 hours in a row. If we swaddled all night from 10pm - 8am, this is longer than 6 hours. How long did you swaddle for or did you swaddle all night long? Izzy likes having her hands free as she sucks her fingers so I am not sure how well this will work. However it might work to start the night swaddled and then undo her at her next feed. She normally feeds at 10pm and then around 1am and then 4am and then not until 7am. She can go as long as 5 hours at night without needing a feed but this is a rare occurence and she does normally have 2 feeds between 12am and 6am.

Most people can't remember what they did at 6 weeks because it goes so quickly. You might get her to sleep faster if you stepped in after a few mins of crying instead of leaving for sn hour?

I would not restrict day sleep either. That way madness lies with a 6 week old. It sounds like she has her days andnights sorted so why would you? She's waking for hunger not to play so you've no issues there. Her stretches of sleep sound great!

ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged yes it felt odd writing it

Don't worry. No-one is judging you. We all know how hard it is and we all know that there is no 'right' answer to sorting sleep! It's just that 6 weeks is so very little and this time will go so quickly. It might feel relentless at the monent, but 'this too will pass' and you'll work out how best to settle your DD. For now, could you decide on how long you will let her cry for before trying something else? E.g. if she's still crying after 10 mins then you'll go in and cuddle/sing/feed/whatever. That might be nicer.

To be honest, I'm pretty sure we were still settling DS downstairs in the living room at six weeks and just taking him up to his side-car cot when we went to bed.

In terms of swaddingly, I tended to swaddle DS to get him to sleep and then 'release' him once he was settled. Unfortunately I didn't discover it worked until he was four months old and it stopped working by the time he was five months old... then it's 'back to the drawing board'.

In my (limited!) experience, babies don't come to rely on a bedtime routine, it's more like cues to warn/reassure them that bedtime is coming soon. Again, your DD is so little that I don't think you need to worry about her becoming over-reliant on anything at the moment; she will just keep changing.

As Iggly says, your DD is not feeding an unusual amount so don't worry about that yet. I don't want to worry you but my 6mo still feeds at least that often

Good luck

I would be concerned if a baby was doing 'needy crying' at six weeks and being ignored for an hour. If you don't feel great about it and the health visitor is advising against it then listen to your instinct and don't follow the advice of the doctor.