daughter only slept 3 hours

[Hopex3]

hi all,

my 5 week old daughter has, on average, genuinely only slept about 3 hours in the last 19 hours. not only am I frazzled and dragging myself around like a zombie I am really concerned about her. surely this is not normal. sometimes she is fussy and crying others just wide eyed and awake. I know all babies are different and can sleep more or less than the average 18 hours a day but this is crazy. I feel for her aswell cos if I feel as tired as I do surely she does. any ideas? should I talk to my HV?

help :(

might add days like this have been a regular occurrence last few days. I have tried white noise, feeding, rocking, swaying, talking to her, keeping my arm under her when trying to put her down, skin to skin - not working. thinking maybe giving in to a dummy and maybe a sling for during the day

I would totally give in to the dummy. I held out with mine as I really didn't want him to have one...gave in at 4 weeks and he fell asleep so quickly. I was weirdly upset for a couple of days but got over it really quickly when I saw how much it comforted him. We limit it to sleep times only. It can be taken away again when things have settled. Slings also saved us in the first couple of months....we had a comfy wrap one to start with and it was great.

Talk to the GP to check for medical issues. Is she showing signs of reflux or distress?

I don't know if there is a 'normal' when it comes to babies and sleep to be honest but It's not going to hurt to speak to hv if it puts your mind at ease. I would also give in to a dummy. My dd is now 2 months old and we used a dummy from about 2 weeks because we simply couldn't put her down without her screaming the place down and we were doing shifts through the night holding her. She settled so well with a dummy. Hope you manage to get some sleep soon

I'd check for medical issues too, particularly allergies

My baby did this , used to stay up for hours. I think it was growth spurts as within a day or two he’d go back to normal and catch up on sleep. I’d have to tell myself that he was going to have to sleep eventually and try and power through it it was awful I feel for you

sh13 - I think that might be what shes doing as she slept better last night and has had naps today thankfully! will keep an eye on her, yeah its exhausting hopefully wonr be a continuing theme

Get a dummy. My eldest DS never napped in the day. He had reflux which I think caused a lot of the problems. He did get a good stretch at night, but in the day would only sleep for 30 minutes at a time.