Newborn won't sleep

[bunnymum96]

My dd is 5 weeks old today and we feel like we are completely failing. She sleeps okay in the night (sleeps in next to me crib, goes down okay, has full bottles of 5oz). She can sleep up to 4+ hours in the night in one stretch.

However, in the day time she just does not sleep, or not much. She might have 30 mins or so every 4+ hours. She can regularly go 4-5 hours without any sleep. We have tried to establish a routine with changing/feeding/burping and rocking and she drifts off but wakes herself screaming and is then awake until the next feed. She seems to sleep very lightly and when we stop rocking she wakes up for hours. She will not be put down at all, we try 4/5 times each time, once we have settled her. We use slings and she sleeps but wakes herself up so often, and she sleeps on walks in pram but wakes often and then as soon as we return home.

She is bottle-fed, and has anything from 2 1/2 oz-5 oz every 2-3 hours. We use colic bottles, burp for ages, do massage, use Infacol.

The days are just becoming impossible, it has been like this for weeks and weeks now. We both hurt from the constant holding and rocking/bouncing, and her screaming in the day is making me so anxious I feel like I can't look after her properly. We don't go anywhere as she just cries/screams, and feel like we have to explain the situation to all our visitors.

Also another vote for swaddling here.

By rights the baby should still be inside it’s mother being rocked to sleep gently to the sound of her heart and other internal noises and fed on demand.

Not being left to self settle. 😡

My first baby was like this but I tried to focus on the good night time chunks of sleep We had a battery rocking swing it was great as she would nap in there for short periods. It gets better as they get older 5!weeks is still very early days. Try to zone out from the crying if you can and put her down for periods of time if you need to get stuff done. A bit of crying won't hurt her and being carried everywhere isn't practical when she gets heavier

You'll be slated because it's nonsense.

Get a white noise machine off Amazon, look at the rockit (a machine you attach to the pram to keep it rocking even when you stop pushing) and just try to relax.
I was exactly the same as you with my DD, she is 1 next month and I promise it gets easier.
Does sound like she is overtired though which would make sense at her age and the screaming etc. A routine as such won't work at 5 weeks but I do feel like you need to be timing her awake windows and making her sleep after say 60 minutes as 4-5 hours is huge for such a tiny one.

Please don't listen to this OP.

If your baby needs you, then respond to her in any way you see fit.

Colic is a symptom that something else is going on. Your baby could have silent reflux in which case she needs something to keep it under control. Or she could be allergic to cows milk.

See you GP and find out the cause, you don't just have to live with it.

Most babies will not self settle if they are in pain. So if they're crying it's because they genuinely need you, even if it's just for comfort.

I responded to every single one of my daughter's cries and she started sleeping independently at 3 months when her symptoms got better. We still rocked her to sleep but she was able to stay in her cot for naps rather than holding her. I always rocked her to sleep or laid with her in bed after 6 months when she wouldn't stay in her cot. She's now 19 months and falls asleep on her own.

It does get better, you're doing amazing.

She's 5 weeks old. What a load of nonsense.

OP - it's the 4th trimester, she wants to be cuddled to sleep, you don't need to worry about ludicrous statements as that one - you can't spoil her at this age, you can't get into bad habits - sleep training is definitely not for a 5 week old. Not now, not ever.

Also I will back the cranial osteopathy.

Worked wonders on DD1.

I had exactly the same with my first baby. Screamed for 8 hours a day everyday. Didn't nap more than 30 mins at a time. He had reflux and CMPA.

It's not normal despite what people on here will claim. Or useless doctors for that matter. My second baby did not scream all day everyday.

Thanks everyone. We have a chair that swings on its own and she doesn’t settle in that. We don’t mind the having to hold but it’s the constant crying when awake (which is a long time) that I’m finding so difficult.
We’re going to ring the doc tomorrow and try to rule out pain. Also will think about trying to follow the same or similar routine as night time.
She’s still up now, last slept properly between 11-2pm, and light napped between 6:30-7pm. Looks so tired and red eyes.
Lots of people saying to not leave it as long for naps etc but we don’t really time them, our day is just play/change/feed/burp/try to get her to sleep and then if she doesn’t we restart the process after an hour or so.

I had this at around 6 weeks and mine only slept in the day when I gave him a dummy! Good luck, it will get easier I promise

Came to say maybe have a read up on silent reflux if your brain will compute anything right now.

Another vote for white noise, Ewan the dream sheep was our friend for both DC's but lots of other options out there these days.

We took the dummy route for DC2 as she was similar and helped her settle.

Swaddled at night but not for daytime naps- game changer and wish we'd swaddled DC1.

Keep seeking advice from HV's/ baby clinic for weighing etc etc. speak to friends who have had babies.

A little side note-
Lower your expectations, 5 weeks old is still so tiny and new (but I do hear where you're coming from, it's to hell and back in a day sometimes) but I reiterate, lower your expectations in most aspects of life right now and make peace with that. Life can wait a little while.

Congrats on your little one, you sound like you're doing great. We're all winging it. I still am with a 9 year old and a toddler!

How would you do this if she needs to be held all the time? (play white noise on phone?)

I would play white noise in a dark room whilst rocking my newborn. I'd put tv on with no sound and have subtitles on so I could watch something. When he was v little and tv light would disturb him then I'd just rock him in complete darkness (for hours on end ).

It got easier when we sleep trained him at 3.5 months. Hang in there x

I would be jealous of mums saying 'let him sleep on your chest' cos mine would NOT sleep like that - he needed constant movement.

Told you this advice is not acceptable on MN 😂

But it isn’t ‘nonsense’ - it makes sense and the current trend for rushing to baby whenever she whimpers/letting her sleep on you constantly is what causes sleep problems in older babies and mothers who then take to these threads in utter exhaustion.

I will give up now and I hope things work out for you, but I just wanted to pick up on this:

By rights the baby should still be inside it’s mother being rocked to sleep gently to the sound of her heart and other internal noises and fed on demand.

???

Babies are born. Why should she ‘still be inside her mother’ (unless she was more than 5 weeks premature??). At what age is it ok for her to be out in the world if not what nature decided?

Now that’s nonsense.

It’s not sleep training. I didn’t say anything about that.

By rights the baby should still be inside it’s mother being rocked to sleep gently to the sound of her heart and other internal noises and fed on demand.

???

Babies are born. Why should she ‘still be inside her mother’ (unless she was more than 5 weeks premature??). At what age is it ok for her to be out in the world if not what nature decided?

Now that’s nonsense.

Here comes the science bit:

In order for humans to walk on 2 legs our pelvises have to be narrower than other mammals that walk on 4 legs.

The pelvis is now too narrow for a fully gestated baby’s head to get through. So human babies are born approx 3 months earlier than they should be (see how other mammals are born able to do a lot more than human babies can, eg stand and move around).

So all human babies are born premature, biologically, and that’s why the first 13 weeks is actually the 4th trimester and they want all the things they had in the womb.

Doesn’t suit GF fans who would rather treat babies like a household appliance but that doesn’t make it nonsense.

OP, is the problem that she doesn't sleep well in the day or that she's always crying when awake? The former is normal - neither of my babies are/were good nappers but both slept well at night - the latter is not. Constant crying while awake suggests pain or another source of discomfort.

Assuming you've checked for easily fixable things, the problem is most likely either reflux or colic (by which I mean generalised abdominal discomfort caused by gas, difficulty passing stool, cramps and other side effects of an immature gut). It can't hurt to speak to your GP to see about treatment for the former but you may just have to wait it out. Keep trying to comfort, don't bother trying to put her down to sleep in the day and know that it will end!

The Fourth Trimester is a transition from the womb to the big wide world.

Yes it's a thing, but to suggest full term babies are "premature" as OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide is not helpful to the cause of helping new parents understand. It's just disingenuous gaslighting.

Anyhoo...

@bunnymum96

Some things that may help your baby sleep better and feel more contented

• Swaddle. Fairly tightly around shoulder
• Dummy. Try different types. Sucking is nature's way to calm a baby
• Expect baby to mostly sleep 24/7, so very limited time awake at this age.
• When baby wakes, follow a cycle of: Wake > feed > wind > tummy time > first cry, life, wind, back down on back. > Second cry > nappy check/change > topup feed and work on getting baby back to sleep. Whole thing might only be 30 mins from waking to back to sleep
• Work hard on getting baby to sleep. It is much harder than you might imagine.

Yes it's a thing, but to suggest full term babies are "premature" as OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide is not helpful to the cause of helping new parents understand. It's just disingenuous gaslighting.

Wow. That’s rude.

As a new parent I actually found it helpful to understand why my baby was needing certain things - hardly gaslighting to provide scientific explanation!

It's not scientific though. You have used some scientific language, it's very much not factually scientific though - which usually must realise surely? Full term babies, by the definition of premature, are not premature.

I get what you mean, the sentiment. But don't claim science.

The fact that modern medical science has determined the length of a full term pregnancy to be 40 weeks (and thus define premature from that) isn’t the fault of evolutionary science!

Words can have more than one meaning. Human babies, born at 40 weeks, are biologically premature compared to other mammals due to the fact that we now walk on 2 legs rather than 4.

Given the way that pregnancies are dated they aren’t scientifically accurate either! So it’s pretty hard to label prematurity even based on 40 weeks!

Well it's all relative, isn't it? Human babies are born at an earlier developmental stage than other great apes, sure, but all great ape babies are less developed than baby sheep, and more developed than newborn mice.

I had a real premature baby, btw. She faced a set of challenges not faced by typical term babies because she was born earlier than she was evolutionarily expected too.

Surely it only really makes sense to define prematurity relative to other members of the species?

(Sorry OP this thread has been a bit hijacked!)

You're digging yourself into a hole OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide. Completely needlessly because I do agree with the concept of 4th Trimester. But it remains that describing it as scientific or factually "premature" is just devaluing the real point here - that baby's first 4 months need to be treated differently due to the transition from the womb.

That doesn't mean babies are born too soon, or "prematurely". They are born at around 40 weeks due to our advanced brain size compared to other animals. We have evolved, which means we have changed. If we didn't change, we wouldn't have large brain capacities.

Derailing the thread with your non-science is not helpful to your case, or the OP. Especially so since I agree with your sentiment, just can't bare faux-science such as this.

Thanks everyone, doc today ‘diagnosed’ colic and maybe reflux, so some baby gaviscon sachets for her milk and he recommended gripe water too.
We are worried we might be over feeding/feeding too fast. Midwife just said feed on demand etc but she has:
Between 3-5oz every 2-4 hours. In a day roughly about 30oz a day. She tends to have her feeds finished in about 10-15 mins. (This is with stopping to wind in between). When she is finished she still roots and mouths, but then screams if the bottle is in her mouth and stiffens and throws herself back.