Newborn not napping well in the day

[bleachblondemom]

My baby is 3 weeks old and for nearly a week he’s struggled to nap during the day. Sometimes he has 2-3 hours, but a lot of the time I can only get him down for about half an hour. He spends so much time awake it worries me as I’ve read they should only be awake for about an hour at a time at this age. His feeding is all over the place because he wants to eat when he wakes up then by the time he’s ready to sleep again he’s also hungry. He’s also noticing he’s hungry faster because he’s awake so gets into the habit of eating little and often. Advice online is confusing me because it says to keep day times bright and noisy, but that baby needs quiet and darkness to sleep. So how do I do both? For a start my house is not dark at all during the day so I can’t even take him to a darker room just to get him off to sleep. By the end of the day he is very grizzly and overtired because he hasn’t had much good quality sleep in the day/evening. But to be fair to him he does sleep some really good 4-5 hour stretches during the night. I feel like I can barely breathe when I put him down to nap during the day as I know he will wake up at any moment. Also feel like I’m having to force him to go to sleep rather than being able to spot his sleepy signs and just put him down and let him go happily to sleep. Any advice?

Not much advice I'm afraid but a lot of empathy. The night before I last I was so overwhelmed and said I hated him and to shut up, and then burst into tears and told DP to give him to a better mother who would look after him better. DP ended up taking him and I cried myself to sleep and we then slept in shifts all Saturday during the day to catch up on sleep.

Last night he slept a couple of hours in his Moses basket and I actually managed to sleep too, but then the next feed he slept for an hour even though I couldn't drop off and then woke up gurgling and coughing and burping and really uncomfortable and wouldn't settle on his back.

Didn't help that DP was talking to his mum on the phone and let slip that he took Saturday off work so we could both sleep as he was up all night with DS as I hadn't slept in a couple of days. I could hear her saying 'well she can sleep during the day, you have work etc' and that he needs to sleep in his bed and he'll get used to the sling if we just keep putting him in there.

All well and good but if he can't sleep on his back wtf are we supposed to do? I just feel like a failure now.

@addler same here, I started to get really angry with him earlier and threw his dummy at the wall :( I felt like I hated him and hated being his mom. I don’t shout at him but I do start to get really harsh with him and then I feel horrendous. DH came upstairs and took him off me and I didn’t even hand him over gently I just shoved him at DH like please take him away from me. He’s took him out for a walk. We couldn’t do all this earlier as DH was out doing the big shop, and i was still insisting he would go to sleep.
‘Sleeping when they sleep’ is easier said than done. He slept for 2 hours Friday afternoon, I was in bed with my eyes closed for the whole 2 hours and didn’t sleep at all. I was too tense, thinking he’d wake up at any moment. It’s great that your DP did that for you and took time off to help you out, his mother should be pleased with him for doing that not having a go at him.
I feel like a failure too. If I told any doctor or midwife my 3 week old was only having one proper nap a day they’d be horrified.

It's so hard isn't it? The negative feelings hit me so quickly and so strongly, I can go from just being a little tired to suddenly feeling a huge rush of anger and frustration and I just want him away from me. Then other times I just want to hold him and be with him and I'm crying because I love him so much.

I hope this gets easier for both of us.

@addler I know exactly what you mean. I had to apologise to him earlier because I felt so bad (not that he understands). I’m always worried that he’s going to associate me with negative vibes or that he’s going to see my face upset and crying and get upset himself thinking that I don’t love him.

Same here, it doesn't help when he'll be crying on me for ages and then DP takes him and he's quiet immediately, or he'll cry when he gives him to me. I know it doesn't mean anything but in the moment it's tough

@addler if you ever need to talk you can send me a private message, if you need to just get stuff of your chest but don’t wanna do it publicly x

Thank you, same to you. Definitely makes it easier knowing there's someone else in the same boat

I’m glad it’s not just me, my 3 week old is either brilliant sleeping in the day then up all night or vice versa.

Today he’s barely slept. A few cat maps here and there but he was screaming the place down earlier and I couldn’t help. I also find myself feeling frustrated and depressed about it. Added to which, I’m expressing milk for him and having the time to do this when he’s crying is a nightmare.

It helps knowing it’s not just me that feels like this. I have not enjoyed a single second of looking after him today. I just want to go to bed and start again tomorrow.

I had a really awful day too I think our babies are the same age, mine was born on the 16th.

He’s a little sweetheart but he just struggles to get to sleep. Once he is asleep you can do anything with him and when he’s well rested he’s so snuggly and sweet but when he’s tired he’s fractious, his limbs are jerky, he pants (which scares me) howls piteously. It’s awful.

How regularly are you feeding your little boy bleachblonde?

@Ahorsecalledseptember my boy was born 16th Dec too!
Sometimes when he’s asleep a bomb could drop and he wouldn’t stir, other times a slightly creaky floorboard can ruin everything. I never know what I’m gonna get. He’s been so fidgety and restless all day and I know it’s because he’s tired, he had one long nap that was about 3 and a half hours long, but that’s just not enough for a baby his age :( I’m about to put him to bed right now, he’s been up for 3 hours and had 2 feeds.
He’s not always crying or fussing when he’s awake, sometime he happily lies on his playmat or in his basket for ages, but I know he’s tired. Why can’t he just fall asleep if he’s tired :(
He is formula fed, has been right from birth. How about you?

Mine is the same! I dropped a stack of plates earlier when unloading the dishwasher and he was asleep in the sling and didn’t even stir. Then I opened a packet of crisps in the afternoon and woke him up!

We are mixed feeding - I really wanted to breastfeed him but didn’t work so I am expressing milk and topping up with formula but there’s added pressure to get the milk he needs in time for the next feed which is so hard when I don’t get a minutes peace.

Whereabouts are you, if you don’t mind me asking? Im East Midlands.

@Ahorsecalledseptember that does sound stressful 😕 would you consider dropping the expressed milk or do you want to persevere? Or can you do mainly formula with some expressed? I don’t really know how it works.
He’s been up since half 7 and I’m trying to get him down for a nap but it’s not working. He sleeps on me, sleeps in his cot for about 2 minutes then wakes up. I really really don’t know what the problem is. Last night bedtime was 11:30pm (we tried from 10pm but he was resisting) until 7:30am. That’s 8 hours without taking away the hour he was up in the night. That is not enough nighttime sleep for a baby his age, no where near enough. It really worries me. But I don’t know what the hell to do :( I feel like I’m trapped with this permanently awake baby who constantly wants something from me.
Since yesterday he’s constantly flailing around every time he goes in his cot, his hands are all over his face, knocking his dummy out which then sets him off. When I’m trying to wind him he’s thrashing around as well. No idea what’s gotten into him :( he’s doing it right now, trying to sleep but won’t stop bloody moving. I try tucking his arms into the blanket but he always gets them out.
I’m West Midlands :)

Mine us exactly the same with the arm thrashing. It’s quite stressful.

When he’s well rested he’s an absolute delight but when he’s exhausted he doesn’t know how to get himself off to sleep and becomes a bit of a nightmare and I can’t help. I need to figure out how to get him to sleep!

@bleachblondemom have you tried a swaddle, but one that allows his arms to come up if he likes to self soothe with them? DS has always had his hands in his mouth since he was born and would escape normal swaddles but would flail and wake himself up if he wasn't swaddles. He's in the love to dream swaddle up bags now and they're working really well

Mine doesn’t like being swaddled, he’s a handsy baby. I had to have two 20 week scans because he had his hands in front of his face for the first one!

@Ahorsecalledseptember Same! Every scan including the private and 4d ones he's had his hands up by his face. He still does it now, when he feeds he has one hand on my boob and the other is curled into a fist and he rests his cheek on it

We’ve tried swaddling and he seems to hate it. The most I can do is tuck his blanket over him really tight but he always gets his arms out.
I’ve just worked out he had about 10 and a half hours sleep in the last 24 hours. That is appalling. I’m scared he’s going to make himself unwell or it’s going to impact his development. He napped 10:30 to 12:30 earlier today. It’s just took me an hour and a half to fight with him to have an afternoon nap. He’s asleep now and I’m terrified to leave the room to get a drink or go to the loo in case he wakes up. He gets into this cycle of eating, winding, falling asleep on me, going in crib, waking up and fussing/crying when he realises he’s in crib, then he’s hungry again before I can get him down again. And this 11/11:30pm bedtime is just ridiculous. But I’m scared that if I try to get him down any earlier he’ll just keep waking up all night and I’ll be up for an hour each time getting him back to sleep.
I feel like he hates me because I’m this horrible person who’s just crying at him all the time, I’ve got no time to play with him or make him feel loved because we’re always battling towards the next nap time. Sometimes when I hold him he doesn’t even want to look at me. I feel so sorry for him causing him all this upset, I feel like he’s got a miserable life with me.

He woke up after half a fucking hour and I’ve just spent another half an hour trying to get him back to sleep and now he’s fully awake (but still tired and yawing, seriously why is he doing this to himself???)

I was the same the other day bleachblonde, honestly it’s awful isn’t it? I felt really angry and cried myself.

I know sometimes people firing suggestions is so annoying. Some of these have worked for me but none are foolproof. So I sympathise massively if you tried and it didn’t work.

• car journeys, ds and I did a midnight trip about a week ago.

• bath, I had a bath with him yesterday when he was frankly hideous and I was ready to return him to the hospital. He didn’t sleep but he did stop crying and it relaxed us both. (OH decided to do a Costco run ... hmm convenient!)

• sling, I’ve just been walking around a cold wet dark Misty village with ds in a sling, he did nod off. It’s a pain though as you have to keep walking.

-‘do you have a snuggle pod, I have come to realise ds doesn’t like hard flat surfaces. He sleeps in his Moses basket with a pillow underneath the mattress and he likes his crib with this pod in it. I think he’s like me to be honest - I don’t like a hard bed!

Also does he seem to struggle burping? Colief really helped us.

Oh and I felt like ds hated me too ... it’s just crazy. I feel like screaming you are warm, safe, fed, clean, exhausted ... GO TO SLEEP!

But they are all the same, it is NOT you. The babies from my NCT course are exactly the same!

That sounds really really tough and shit @bleachblondemom, I'm sorry

@Ahorsecalledseptember he does nod off on car journeys however we haven’t done a nighttime one yet specifically to get him to sleep, but I would be up for that if I felt like I needed to.
I’ve bought a sling that has come today so that’s what I’m trying tomorrow. At least I will have two hands free, when I’m sat with him on me it restricts me so much and I end up not eating or drinking properly. And I imagine he will sleep if he’s in it as he’ll be near to me. Fingers crossed anyway.
Bath is part of the routine every night and it has helped relax him since we started doing it, I think it signals the end of the day to him. It doesn’t automatically make him sleepy but I do think it’s good for him to wind down.
When he’s down in his cot/basket at night he sleeps fine, it’s just getting him to go to sleep in the first place, so I don’t know if he does have any problems with it being too hard.
We are going to try swaddling again tonight as we have a swaddle suit thing someone bought us, but last time we tried to put him in it he was mid-tantrum and wasn’t having any of it.

The sling is definitely a life saver for us. I use it most of the day to get things done, go for a walk, and just have my hands free while he naps on me.

We've found it's the quickest way to get him to sleep during the day, and once he's in a deep sleep I can sometimes transfer him to his crib. Doesn't last long in there though so I normally leave him on me during the day.

The only thing I’ve found with slings is that ds loves them as long as I’m moving around. If I sit down he doesn’t appreciate it!

I have an ergo baby wrap and a ring sling.