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?

LOL that you think that’s what I am doing.

Yesterday we walked for two hours in the pouring rain with him in the sling tucked under my coat.

I have two of these so I don’t need to put him down.

He is held, cuddled, loved so much.

He still doesn’t sleep, or not for the last three days. I think he might have finally zonked out now.

This is not me being some sort of Gina Ford routine-obsessed mother. I just want him to sleep for him, not me. Because then he’s happy and content and lovely. When he doesn’t sleep he is miserable. He cries at nothing, he is sensitive to noises, he is jumpy and scared.

bleach, he’s got one of those but I’ve got him a baby straitjacket, I need to stop his arms somehow!

@Ahorsecalledseptember that sounds good, we have the one where the arms are up but he doesn’t like it, we tried it for 3 nights and his sleep was actually worse so last night we went back to just a blanket and he slept normal again. But I think the arms down one would be so much better as it stops them from smacking themselves awake lol, hope it works for you. Crossing everything for a bit of sleep for you and LO (and for us!)

That top looks really nice, I’ve never seen one of those before only the slings.

I have read most of the thread but I stopped..... I'd recommend following Mother Rucker on Facebook. She is my local sling library expert and parent consultant and she is amazing, I think she is doing online consults. If you read through her posts, just reading them makes you feel calm. She is very pro gentle parenting, which differs from your style but you may decide to follow some parts... I did.

Good luck, you have got this!

@darlingsweetpea my style isn’t meant to be cross with him for not doing what I want him to do, I want to be gentle with him :( I just get worried for him when he’s not sleeping because it makes him unhappy, and because I’m tired and emotional that makes me react badly.
Thank you for the suggestion I will definitely have a look at that on Facebook.

@bleachblondemom you're doing a great job and remember that. Think of all the different things you are trying, you are doing so well. You'll probably find he wants to sleep on you and nowhere else will do....take it as a compliment!

Ahorsecalledseptember hope you’ve managed to grab some sleep.

You mentioned he hates the pram. Obviously likes the sling though. Just wondering are there any signs he might have silent reflux? Acidy smelling burps or crying when laid flat?

He’s finally sleeping properly. Nodded off at about 9, slept until midnight and then had a bottle of expressed breast milk, now he’s asleep again. Just expressing some more milk for him

Sorry I hijacked your thread bleach, just we seem to be having similar issues!

Reflux is possible. He brings some of his formula back up every time, but not the breast milk. I just wish I could produce more so I could give him exclusively breast milk or even 60/40.

DS and I had a terrible sleep last night. He was doing the exact same thing he did this time last week, not settling well after feeds and then being noisy and uncomfy and then burping and being a bit sick when I picked him up. Every 45mins-1 hour. Even our new plan of DP doing the holding upright after I feed so I can go to sleep before he gets put in bed didn't work because as soon as DP got in bed DS started waking up and then that repeated all night.

We were both finally asleep and then DP's alarm went off at 5:20 and woke both of us up (but not DP )

I don't understand how he could've slept really well all week and then the same thing is happening at the same time as last week. Now I'm worried tonight is going to be worse as last Friday was when I was at breaking point and told him I hated him and to shut up.

In one of the snatches of sleep I also had a really awful dream that DP and I broke up, he was mocking me and laughing and being really cruel when I was trying to say I needed help and was struggling, and it felt horrible. It's also very unrealistic and DP has never mocked me or been unkind, he's a very laid back gentle person.

He's asleep in my arms again now and is quiet and settled but I know that when I put him in his bed and try to sleep he'll start being noisy and possetting again, and I can feel the anxious reaction to his noises creeping back in.

Make sure you’re drinking plenty of water and oats are really helpful for milk production. As is baby being in sight when you pump. I exclusively expressed for a year and had ups and downs. I think I did 7-8 pumps a day at this stage. Further down the line when production slowed,fenugreek capsules helped, but I wouldn’t get into that at this stage.

(You need to replicate as much of normal feeding as possible, so pump as many times a day as you can and in a couple of days you should see more milk come through. It does get better.)

@Ahorsecalledseptember no problem at all, this thread has been good for both of us. Really glad you both got some sleep!

@addler sorry you had a rough night :( I have those dreams all the time too where DH is being horrible to me or we’ve broke up and he’s doesn’t care. I think it’s because my relationship before him was abusive so I’m dreaming about DH acting like my ex. I feel so relieved when I wake up and realise it’s not real. Same as you, my DH would never in a million years act like that.

@addler I don’t want to speak out of turn here so ignore me if you wish but have you spoken to your HV about how you’re feeling? It seems a bit worrying that you told your baby you hate him and to shut up? Plus with the dream as well?

@Sls668 no, I know that I don't mean it and that saying one thing in the middle of the night after being woken up every 5-10 minutes for two days isn't representative of my mental state, it's just an outburst of exhaustion. I know I don't hate him, I hated the situation I was in. I cried immediately afterwards and told DP to give him to a better mother, but he knew as well that I didn't mean it and just needed a break. He took him for that night so I could sleep in between feeds and then we slept in shifts for a day to catch up. PND is something we're both aware of watching out for after a difficult pregnancy and year but I don't think my reactions have been outside the realm of ordinary considering the circumstances. It's something we're very aware of keeping tabs on though.

@bleachblondemom thank you, I think it's going to be a permanent sling day just so he can get some sleep. He's got hiccups again for the second time this morning already, and the only way they stop normally is if he cries but I don't want to just put him down somewhere so he cries to get rid of hiccups, even if they do stop his sleep!

DS’s first stretch of sleep last night was 11pm to 4:30am... but I couldn’t sleep! I had a 5 and a half hour window and I lay awake for most of it. I was getting so annoyed with myself, I was so so tired but just couldn’t drift off. I told DH this when DS woke up so he did the night feed again so I could carry on sleeping. How irritating! I could’ve had 5 and a half hours! And I don’t know why I was too anxious to sleep as we’d had a good day and I was confident it was going to be a good night (which it was). Argh :(

Is baby position in the sling ok? His face isn’t covered at all, I can see his whole face when I look down. And his neck is supported. Just wanna make sure his back and legs look ok.

Two from this morning as well

Looks good, nice curve to his back. As long as his bum is lower than his knees you're good, if not you can hold his thighs and tips his pelvis towards you to fix it. He looks very cosy!

Had a feel and yeah I think his bum is lower than his knees. The first time I tried wrapping this sling I was like, no way am I ever gonna get this secure enough! Then on the second go I did it! And again this morning :) go me lol

It definitely take a bit of practice! I found this site really helpful and made things feel a lot more secure www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theslingconsultancy.co.uk/amp/stretchy-wrap-issues

@addler thank you that was a good read, the bunching is the one that annoys me most!

@addler sorry if I sounded like I was being a busybody, sometimes lots of people give suggestions on how to help the baby but not how to help the Mummy as such. I know it’s so hard, I’ve just spent 20 mins trying to get mine to sleep in her chair and just given up and let her sleep on me after spending 2 hours trying to get her to stay asleep in her Moses basket in the middle of the night (gave up then and let her sleep in our bed too!)

I’m really surprised by how many people are going through a similar thing to me. I don’t know why, I felt like it was just me, and I was totally alone in having a baby with these napping problems, and alone in how low I was feeling. Thank you everyone for all of your comments, it’s been such a hard week but yesterday was a much better day and I’m feeling positive about the rest of the weekend.

@Sls668 no not at all! I think it's something that needs talking about and being more open about, as it is really common especially at a time like this.

DS had nearly three hours in the sling this morning so at least he's feeling more rested! I'm going to keep a food diary and see if his refluxy days coincide with something I'm eating that's affecting my breast milk.

@bleachblondemom I'm glad you're feeling better. It's amazing how quickly lack of sleep or a bit of sleep can affect everything else and make it seem so much harder. I was feeling so low and miserable last weekend but this week has been really nice, I've enjoyed our days together.

I know @Ahorsecalledseptember is having a really tough time at the moment, I hope she can find something to hold on to in your experience, because it sounds like she is where you were a couple of days ago. And if things are brighter for you right now it shows how quickly they could be brighter for her.

It might get dark again temporarily for all of us, but it'll come around again in the end.