Newborn sleep

[minime1991]

I need some advice regarding sleep with my nearly 3 week old baby. She will not sleep anywhere but on me or my husband and every time we put her down in her moses basket, next to me or pod she will get cranky and get herself in a tizzy. I understand this is the 4th trimester but I'm literally at my wits end and struggling to cope with it. My and my husband do shifts during the night so we can get a few hours sleep each but whoever is downstairs with her, ends up falling asleep with her laying on our chest. I know this is not a safe thing to do with it being a SIDS risk but even when we feel ourselves getting sleepy, we are unable to put her down anywhere without things kicking off! So many people have said to try putting a t-shirt around the mattress for her to get the scent from, white noise, dummy, swaddling. None of it works, the only thing that works is her sleeping on us albeit "unsafely" especially during the night. I really don't know what else to do. We're not overly keen on co-sleeping in case one of us squishes her! Do we keep shifting it during the night with her on us or keep putting her back in a moses basket that she absolutely hates?

please try co-sleeping, and first look up how to do it safely on the Lullaby Trust website.

What’s happening at the moment is incredibly dangerous. Falling asleep with a baby on a sofa is one of the most common ways that they die (sorry to be blunt), because it’s so easy to squish them.

If you're falling asleep with her on your chest then safe co-sleeping is 100% the better option. It's far more dangerous in terms of positional asphyxia to fall asleep with a baby on your chest.

At the moment you are co-sleeping anyway but doing it in a very unsafe way, so research safe co-sleeping and do that. These days are brutal, your newborn is behaving normally and you can't stop yourself sleeping through willpower alone. This is exactly why people (safely) co-sleep. Baby next to mum in c position, you won't roll on her x

It’s really not safe to sleep with them on you. The danger is them rolling off and falling, or you squashing them. It only needs to happen once. The newborn stage is hard but completely normal. You need to do shifts and the person with the baby stays awake. If you feel you’re going to drift off, switch.

Just echoing what everyone else has said. Mine was exactly the same, he would just scream the moment I tried to put him down in the carrycot or crib, would only sleep on me and was perfectly happy once he was being held, I tried white noise, dummy, swaddling, nothing worked. So I just co-slept and followed the Lullaby Trust's safe co-sleeping guidelines, baby slept, I slept. Are you breastfeeding by the way? If you are, one of the breastfeeding positions is where you and baby lay on your sides, I did this, just left a boob out so baby could latch on and off as he pleased.

I'm formula feeding. I don't really understand what position I should should sleeping in for co sleeping. I've looked at lullaby trust guidelines but still confused 😕

There is a YouTube video from Lullaby Trust that goes through everything and shows pictures. Basically you lie on your side and baby lies on their back next to you (baby between you and edge of bed not between you and partner). Obviously newborn baby can't roll but don't have baby too close to edge of the bed. I had the Next2Me crib with side down next to the edge of the bed anyway for peace of mind. Then you can just use your arm and cup it around the top and side of baby and sleep like that (should be demonstrated in the video). The most important thing is no smoking and no alcohol if co-sleeping and pillows/duvets/blankets must be kept away from baby (apparently most babies that have died from SIDS is because of being smothered by loose covers 🙁). Watch the video, give it a try, see how comfortable you are with it?

Yes it’s better to plan to co sleep and make it as safe as possible. However you could try an arms up swaddles and white noise in the crib

Mine would sleep in the next to me with my arm around him - so on a separate mattress, but still felt close to me. Not very comfy but better than falling asleep on the sofa. Have you tried that?

Otherwise you'll have to co-sleep. It's not forever, the newborn stage will pass - I promise!

Yes completely forgot about this! Arms up swaddle bags are great, my baby did settle more and sleep longer stretches on his own in the crib when I used one of these.

I just used a love to dream swaddle with arms up and womb noises got an hour in her moses basket with a few wriggles and pats on the tummy! She then had enough and is now asleep with me lol

I formula feed too, and also not keen on bedsharing - for us (and I'm very aware that this is not right for everyone but it works for us) it is all about the routine, consistency, and just practicing with crib naps/sleep.

I really, really liked Charmian Mead's book the 7-7 sleeping baby routine. We used it from about day five! We've relaxed it now that he's 4mo but still use all the same premises.

People thought we were off our heads but me and my husband have dinner together, alone, every night and he naps in his crib. Not being smug, just saying it can be done - and especially as your baby is so young you can definitely start now!!

We often bring him in to bed with us if he wakes up before 6am but that's it!

My DC was like this initially but we had success with putting them down on the bed right next to me, then gradually (over a number of nights) shifting them over towards the crib.

I also found a big difference with their night sleep vs day naps. Night sleep she was a bit easier to settle on her back in her next to me. Day time was contact naps every time. Maybe focus on day time naps together being held and night time naps laid down