Advice on 4 week old needed by confused mother!

[jaz2]

For the last 4 weeks I've been looking after ds using gut instinct. Have just read Baby Whisperer to give me some idea of maybe what I should be doing, but it doesn't match reality much. Any advice welcome...
DS sleeps for 2 hour blocks at night, waking for a feed each time. Would be nice to have longer blocks of sleep! Sometimes in the evening he cries for a few hours (don't think it's colic), not sure why. During the day he feeds happily but is not keen on being put down to sleep (cries, sometimes to melt-down), and appears to be quickly over-stimulated.
Is any of this normal?! Anyone have any suggestions of a way fwd?

go back to using your gut instincts! he is 4 weeks old, each day is different at the moment, as he adjusts to life outside the womb and you adjust to motherhood.....

2 hours between feeds is normal

crying for no particular reason is normal

all is normal..welcome to the world of the new born!

just relax, listen to your baby and take your lead from him..the first 6 weeks at least are a blur of feeding, nappies, cuddling and confusion, go with the flow.x

I read BW when DS was small on a friend's recommendation
In retrospect a lot of it was rubbish

It's normal for them to cry and want to feed a lot in the evening

agree with the others. at 4 weeks they are still going to be a bit of a nuisance, need lots of frequent feeding etc. And 4 weeks is too young to start thinking about feeding less frequently. if you can beg borrow or steal a swing and see if he likes that that may help. alternatively he may like to be held in a sling with you. some babys are textbook, others aren't, I find that sites such as these are better as they give you a wide range of people's experiences.

You sound like you are coping despite the hard work involved in a newborn.

Lulumama is right, its all normal and when and if things do start getting to you more, ie the sheer bloody tiredness and never ending feeding and crying, do try and remember that it wont always be like this.

The first few months will pass so quickly and it will get easier (the problems don't end, they just change, but you will get more of a settled routine).

agree with the others. at 4 weeks they are still going to be a bit of a nuisance, need lots of frequent feeding etc. And 4 weeks is too young to start thinking about feeding less frequently. if you can beg borrow or steal a swing and see if he likes that that may help. alternatively he may like to be held in a sling with you. some babys are textbook, others aren't, I find that sites such as these are better as they give you a wide range of people's experiences.

take each day as it comes. don't worry that things are so changeable. babies become more predictable as they get older. but then you find things change as they reach different milestones so it's never really always the same.

he probably isn't keen on being put down to sleep because he'd rather have cuddles from you. but again, he'll get used to not being attached all the time as he gets older and more interested in the world around him.

jaz, remember that while you have read the baby whisperer, your baby hasn't. cuddle your baby when your instincts tell you, including when they want to sleep, feed them when they want to. you can't go far wrong from there. i wish i had dd's early days back so that i wouldn't stress over what others and books said we are supposed to be doing.

My ds1 was like this. At 9 weeks I wanted someone to take him away permanently I was so exhausted. At 12 weeks I put him on a routine and things improved overnight. With ds2 I wanted to be more "natrual" but he was following the same pattern so I started routine at about 1week and he was a much happier baby. I realise it's not for everyone but it worked for me!

Thank you all for your advice, I felt considerably better having read it...and less guilty for wanting to cuddle ds when maybe I should have put him down when he was asleep (as dh said I should!).
I guess ds will settle down to less frequent feeds when he is ready? The times when he is awake and I have put him down in his basket to sleep I sit close to the basket so that he can see me, and quietly talk to him so that he feels secure..tho he has never actually fallen asleep when I do this! Has this approach worked for anyone? Any other suggestions?

In my vast experience of 3 babies ( and I'm currently struggling with no3 - 2mo who for the past fortnight screanmds blu murder when we trtry toput him down for a nap), what the OP describes is qyuite normal. 2-h blocjks of sleep at night is very good. BW's EASY works - we instinctively did this for all three, but I only heard of it for the first time last week, when I obought The BW in search of tips how to get ds2 sleeping again. However IME (vast, as I say) it is not necessarily inevitable for a bsaby to crie for hours in the evening. IME it's usually the result of over-tiredness or over-stimulation. Sometimes a baby needs help getting to sleep, we just have to meak sure that the help we accustomthe baby to is something that we're willing to keep doing for a few months. Perhaps the baby needs to be put down a little earlier at each nap, so that tey'r not over-tired, and perhaps a dimmer room, perhaps a bit more background noise, perhaps a slower putting-down, with swaddling and stroking for 10mins, rather than just put straight down and left. Lots of alternative strategies. But, IME, once you've got the baby napping regularly, the evening crying just disapperas.

jaz2, I have a 12 week old DS (first baby). I'm following the forbidden to mention routine, not to the letter but the basic times for naps, sleep and feeds, and it has really settled my DS since I started him on it at 2 weeks. just basically making sure he is napping enough but not too much in the day made him start taking bigger feeds and only needing to feed every 3-4 hours. I would also really recommend making the night time quiet and boring, and not hanging round too long after putting him down; I let DS cry for maximum of 5 mins, then I would go and see if he needs more food etc, but 90% of the time he just has a little whinge on being put down, and then drops off, cos actually he is really tired and doesn't need anything more from me for a bit.

anyway it sounds like you are doing fine, I can just reassure you that already at 12 weeks things feel more copeable with... best of luck!

jaz, there is an excellent book called 'the social baby' by Lynne Murray and Liz Andrews. it deals with lots of the stresses new parents meet in the first 12 weeks and with pictures of real babies and real families, shows you how to 'read' them. Highly recommended.

also highly recommend 'baby bliss' by dr Harvey Karp on the how to deal with the first 3 months or the 4th trimester as he calls it.

look for both on amazon. i can guarantee that they will be a life saving/worry saving late christmas present to you and your dh.

Agree with Pretty Candles, babies sometimes nedd to be taught to sleep.

Dd was like this at first, wouldn't sleep in day, despite being obviously v tired and constant grizzling through tireddness. Didn't follow any particular routines but did find BW tips on settling them really useful, patting and shushing etc. Made a big improvement in her daytime sleep. But do agree that 4 weeks is very young, and ds will get easier in time.

Dd now sleeps for England (night and day) despite never doing daytime sleeping before age of 6 weeks

Can you feed lying down? That helps a lot at night. Also helps not to change night time nappy unless you really have to!

If you can make the night time feeds less tiring, you won't mind so much how many there are.

Don't worry, this phase doesn't last for ever and you'll probably regret it (just a little bit) when it passes.