4 week old suddenly won't go to sleep by herself

[Magic13]

My baby since birth has always been great and just falling asleep when I put her down in her cot but over the last week or so she will only fall asleep while being held and rocked and it now takes over an hour to get her to sleep this way. The whole time she's fighting the sleep. Any suggestions on how to help her sleep better? I've tried white noise and low light but it doesn't work.

At 4 weeks DD was with us, usually on one of us, all the time so just nodded off when she wanted to.

Do you definitely mean 4 weeks and not 4 months? If so you’re going to lose your mind trying to get her to sleep, or be put down, if she doesn’t want to. Certainly don’t be wasting hours trying to fight her to sleep!

She should be sleeping in the same room as you for naps and nighttime.

Read up about the fourth trimester. She’s barely been in the great wide world a month, she probably just wants to be close to you.

Your baby is 4 weeks old! I remember posting stuff like this when I was a new Mum. But it’s all normal. It would be more worrying if your baby was sleeping through at this age and not wanting to be held!

Sleep is something that comes with age. I had to breastfeed my little girl to sleep until she was around 11 months. I remember constantly googling stuff to ‘fix’ her sleep but it’s just a natural part of development and the 4th trimester.

It’s really hard when you’re in the middle of it but try to enjoy the cuddles, roll with it and it will get easier. Also look at daytime naps. I think in the beginning I didn’t appreciate how much DD needed her sleep and it lead to a lot of overtiredness .

Entirely normal for a 4 week old im afraid. I feel like at that stage they become ever so slightly more alert to their surroundings and need helping to sleep a bit more. I remember spending hours rocking my son to sleep.

Also, dont worry if you're not 'enjoying the cuddles'. I despise that phrase. I remember people saying it to me and thinking there was something wrong with me because I definitely wasnt.

At 4 weeks they're still a bit too young for a sleep routine, they dont know the difference between night and day, at this age they will be going through physiological and brain changes which tends to make them a bit more cuddly etc so that could explain the "change" then they will settle again.

It's hard to get a proper routine when they only sleep 1-2 hours at a time, when they're older and sleeping longer that's when you want more routine in place.