3 week old & post night feed sleep

[talulahbeige]

New first time mum here and I've realised how unprepared we are! Help me please

My 3 week old wakes at around midnight for a bf, she then won't go back to sleep or go down in her crib next to our bed. Sometimes she will nod off in our arms, so we put her in her crib but then wakes up 20 mins later crying. This means both myself and Dh have minimal sleep for most of the night.
How do i get her to sleep after her feed?

She often has quite a bit of bottom end wind that seems to cause her discomfort.

This is really, really common for very little babies. My DD slept anywhere, anytime for her first couple of weeks then after that would settle fine to sleep during the day but at night sometimes she would settle after a feed, often not. They are so new to the world and they like the reassurance of being snuggled up to someone, hearing their heartbeat, smelling them being close to food! It's a survival technique too, if you're snuggled up to your parent you can't be forgotten about and at risk of being frozen/eaten by wolves! What I'm trying to say is that it's perfectly normal and at this stage certainly I'd just go with it and if they didn't settle easily first or second time of trying, just co-sleep (safely, following guidelines) so that you can all get some sleep rather than persisting and trying to fight against your baby's (and probably your own) natural instincts. I co-slept with my DD for probably about 50% of the time, just as and when she needed it for the first couple of months, after that she's mostly been happy to sleep in her moses basket then later, her cot. Since then I've co-slept on the odd occasion when she's needed to and also for a long time I fed her lying down during night feeds, set us up to co-sleep safely so if I did doze off we were fine.
If you really don't want to co-sleep then there are other things you can try, maybe putting a hot water bottle in the cot to warm it up before you put her down, wait until she's properly asleep (limbs completely floppy when you lift them up). Breastfed babies often fart rather than belch to get their wind out, I have seen some very breastfeeding-knowledgeable people on here say that most babies can actually produce their own wind without any assistance, even if they wriggle and squirm quite a bit before they do so and that winding is quite a British obsession!

Thank you matriarchal, very helpful

Hi talulahbeige,

I've got a 3 week old too, and we've found that if we put him down in a quiet dark room from 6-7pm and let him sleep there he settles much better after the 12-1am feed. We we're thinking that he was getting overstimulated in the evening and so was overtired and couldn't calm enough.

Good luck

Bump you should not put a baby that young to sleep in a room on their own.

They can settle too deeply to sleep and may forget to breathe. Please read the current SIDS advice.

OP - what you are experiencing is very normal! Have you tried co-sleeping? We found with both of ours that being held while we paced up and down really settled them and then they would go down in their basket. Try swaddling too.

Hi alibaba - he's just in the hallway, with the door open, so I can hear his noises while he's sleeping. I wouldn't be comfy with him too far away. It's more about having him somewhere calm in the evening, and the lounge room, with the light and tv on seemed to be a bit 'active' for him

Do read the SIDS stuff though bump - it is more to do with them being able to hear you than the other way around. If there is noise of talking\TV\ music etc and you are close by then that's ok.

Swaddling worked for both of my two til about 3 months, you do need the arms quite tight, but we used a slumber pod by summer, bought in mothercare, for ds2 and that worked just as well and was easier.