7 week old sleep

[gem149]

I have a 7 week old lo who just does not seem to be a good sleeper. During the day he will have a short window of around 10-15 minutes after some feeds where he will be content, then will start screaming which I believe to be from tiredness, however it takes a long time to actually get him off to sleep and he will not be put down. At night it also takes a long time to get him to sleep and he will then sleep lying across me with his head in my arm. Even still for period of time he will repeatedly spit out his dummy, flail his head from side to side and kick his legs as much as he can, despite being swaddled. I have been trying to put him down in the co sleeper cot but the same thing happens, he wakes up spits out dummy, kicks legs etc and won't settle even though I'm practically in beside him. Any one experienced similar or have any advice??

First of all, your DS is still very little so don't expect too much and it might be a bit early to label him a bad sleeper!

What he is doing sounds very familiar and similar to what my DS did. I agree he might be over tired and it would be good to do all you can to get him to sleep more in the day so he is not so wired at night. I did this when DS was that age by getting him in the pram and tramping round with him while he slept - not appealing in this weather but after some days he seemed to get used to having more sleep in the day and the walking become less necessary! A drive in the car or putting him in a soft sling at home would have the same effect.

For night time I would recommend cluster feeding in the early evening so that he is nice and full for bed, swaddling tightly ( look up safe swaddling) and also getting a white noise app for your phone and playing this in his co sleeper quite loudly.

I think my DS slept on me til about 8 weeks when I said enough was enough, did all of the above and we also started a night time routine (just bath, massage, pjs, feed).

All that worked quite quickly to get him more sleep in the day, more settled at night and in a good bedtime routine. At 9 months he's now asleep by 6.30 every night.

Good luck!!

Thanks for your very quick reply. I carry him a lot in a sling during the day where he will usually eventually fall asleep. He can take a while to drift off to sleep in the car and now often wakes up in the pram as well! I have started swaddling him at night in a Velcro swaddling blanket though he can still move his legs and we always have white noise at night. I am hoping to start attending mother and baby groups after the holiday - not sure if this will tire him out or just make it harder to get him sleeping in the day.
Cluster feeding sounds like a plan.. How often would you feed and what time would you go to bed?

Hi gem. I think at that stage I started feeding him around 5pm and just had him on and off the breast for a couple of hours. I think at that stage he was going down at around 8pm, with bath at about 7pm.

It will help you to go to groups but it might not have that much impact on him yet because he won't be able to do much. Sounds like you are doing all you can for now, so just keep at it. I will all settle down in time!

Great, thanks for that. I am also still torn over whether or not to wake to feed during the day and whether it has any impact on night time. At the moment I am feeding him every 2.5-3 hrs through the day and wake him to feed if he goes beyond this but given it's so hard to get him to sleep and he always seems cranky and tired maybe I'm better leaving him to wake up when he's hungry?