He's 8 weeks old. Are you giving him breast milk or bottles?
Sometimes young baby's can loose their day/night routine.
It's hard for them to find it back.
He'll need you help with this.
Take pen and paper and write down the moments you'd like to feed him and when you'll put him back in his bed.
If you give him breast milk see if you can buy or hire a scale to weigh him before and after you've fed him. Don't change his nappy in between. This way you can see how much milk he has been drinking. If he didn't had enough then you can give him extra milk with a bottle.
Use a breast pomp after you've fed him to stimulate the breasts into making more milk.
Let him be with you. Then let him play. Or for how much he can play at this age. When he's still awake put him in his bed.
This might be difficult for him as he might not be used to be put back in his bed while he's still awake.
But the problem might be that he's too sleepy when he goes to bed. That might be the reason why when he's asleep you hardly can wake him up.
If he finds it hard to sleep on his own you can use one or more of these tips:
- Sing for him or read him a story
- Record your voice. You can sing a lullaby or read a long story. If it's a song then repeat it over and over again until he has fallen in sleep.
- There are also special cd's for sale with on them sounds from the womb. That will sound familiar to him and might make it easier for him to fall asleep.
- Use a swaddle blanket. It helps baby's to go to sleep and stay asleep.
At day time don't wait for him to wake up. You are the one who's going to decide when it's time to eat and when not.
Afcourse you'll look at his needs. Maybe he needs now a 3 hours sleep in between meals and over a couple of weeks 4 hours. Or in the morning 3 hours and then 4 hours and later again 3 hours of sleep.
You'll be continually looking for that balance. But it won't be as hard as it's on you now.
At night time he can decide when he'd like to wake up and when not. But in the morning you're in control again and you'll decide when he's going to eat and when not.
If he wakes up in between meals you can leave him for about 15 min. Sometimes baby's cry a couple of minutes before they fall back in sleep.
After 15 minutes you can check his nappy, hold him, give him a dummy or if it looks like he wants something to eat. You can give him some water or something else.
In the beginning you'll need to teach him that things are a bit different and he'll need a couple of days to get used to it. Also you probably will be changing the dinner and sleeping times to let it work best for you and your son.
This is what I did with my children and will do with me next child.
It always worked well for me.
I hope that you might find some or all of the above helpful.
Sylvia