3 week old night sleeping

[s2204]

My baby is 3 weeks old and takes a lot of rocking and cuddling to get to sleep, we had a Moses basket which she would sleep in fine in the day but soon as we put that same Moses basket in our room at night she’s having none of it! We’ve resorted to buying a sleepyhead and a next to me crib.. she slept in that fine for about 2 days and now won’t settle in that! The only way I can get her to sleep is if she’s asleep on my chest or in between me and my partner! She’ll sleep for a solid 4 hours if we put her in our bed! we’ve resorted to sleeping on little cushions and have the duvet at waist height while she starfishes in the middle!

Any tips of how we can get out of this habit! I know the logical answer is keep putting her in her crib but she just screams after about ten minutes once she realizes she’s on her own! And for any of us to get abit of sleep it’s just easier to put her in with us

At this age it isn't a habit, your baby is still brand new and in the fourth trimester. Cuddling/rocking/feeding to sleep is totally normal and won't impact in the long run. Four hour stretches are a huge ask for such a young baby, who will be right at the age of a huge bout of cluster feeding. Jeeze, with my youngest we dint get more than an hour and a half sleep at a time for nearly a year and for both DC sleep was very up and down for ages after that.

You'll find that as soon as you get used to a behaviour/routine/feeding pattern, baby will change and you'll have to start again.

The sleeplessness is very hard work, but it does end eventually.

Enjoy the cuddles, mine are now 4 and 6 and I miss the snuggly baby cuddles so much!

Totally normal I’m afraid - be happy at the amount of hours you are getting! There isn’t much you can do. If you force it, it won’t work, and you and baby will just spend your time frustrated.

Me and hubby did shift work - one looked after baby asleep on chest while the other slept! It doesn’t last for ever and now at 8 weeks baby still needs rocking but she sleeps in her crib fine when she goes down :) and she’s a crappy sleeper compared to many! I only get 3/4 hours out of her now if I’m lucky! :)

Thank you for reassuring me that it’s not just my baby 😂 and I’m
Glad there’s light at the end of the tunnel! When I tell people about how we rock her to sleep and she’s in our bed I get the reply “you’ll be doing that forever and she’ll forever be in your bed”. Glad to know that’s not true xx

Both my DDs were the same for the first few weeks, would only sleep on our chests, it was exhausting half sleeping/dozing all night... but both times we just kept trying each night and they gradually learnt to sleep on their own. We used to warm the Moses basket up with a hot water bottle (obviously removed before placing them in)... sleeping on my tshirt so they could smell me, white noise works wonders. DD2 is 5 months and still has her white machine on every night. Keep trying, she’ll get there and these early days will be a distant memory! Congratulations by the way.