Hoping for some advice please, should I be doing more to help 6 week old sleep in the day?

[Beatricebotterx]

First time mum.. and I feel like I have no idea what I am doing!

Baby is just over 6 weeks and she is terrible at sleeping in the day, so yesterday she only slept 30 mins, on me, in about 7 hours during the day! As a result she is getting grumpy, and hard to settle, coming off my boob and generally doesn't seem very happy. At night she is probably getting around 7 hours sleep, 1-2 hours on DP downstairs (I go to bed), and then she wakes up every 1.5-2 hours for a feed, change etc. Is this enough sleep over night?

I think the last few days has caught up with her as she has been asleep most of the day today which is unusual (she is feeding OK and doesn't seem unwell) I feel guilty as I am sure she is exhausted from not sleeping enough.

The problem is she hates to be put down, and really fights sleep, even on me! I am just wondering whether I should be doing more to encourage her to sleep? Does anyone have any advice or tips? Yesterday I tried to settle her in my arms and then slowly transitioned her to the moses basket, but she got soooo upset, it took me an hour to settle her down after.

I am at a loss, how much effort should I be making to encourage her to sleep in the day? Generally she doesn't sleep in the pram bassinet as she loves looking at the sky, if she's not awake looking around in the pram, she is crying! We also have just bought a carrier - only tried it this morning, she doesn't love it but its early days I know!

Oh and she doesn't like dummies either, its about a 30% hit rate, she usually gets frustrated spits it out and then gets annoyed that its fallen out, which does the opposite of soothing her! I've tried quite a few different ones, not sure whether to leave them, or to persevere?

Mine never slept as much as the books said !
Does she sleep in the car ?

I can remember feeling very confused by how much a baby is supposed to sleep 😂

I used awake time periods. At 6 weeks they shouldn't really be awake for more than an hour at a time so after 55 minutes of being awake, aim to be settling them to sleep again. This is either in the car, in the pushchair, bouncy chair etc. It can often, but not always, be much easier to settle before they seem tired. When they seem tired, they're pretty much overtired.

Try and be consistent about how you settle to sleep so they start to recognise the routine. The bouncey chair is quite good as at least they're not on you when they finally go over.

To try and promote good sleep habits I tried to avoid feeding to sleep so feed them when they wake up.

In an ideal world, it goes:

7am wake up and feed
7.55am settle to sleep
10 am wake up and feed
repeat, repeat

Babies unfortunately don't read the books that their parents have though so in reality, I just tried to look at the time and remember in 55 minutes to start settling to sleep again!

Good luck, it really is just survival mode in the early days.

She is 50-50 in the car really, if she's been fed and is tired she will usually drop off but other times she just cries!
How much did your baba sleep in the day? Did you have to encourage him/her to sleep?

I think DS genuinely sleeps more at 3 years old than he did at 6 weeks old. Never got the memo about being sleepy and just drifting off, he needed so much input. Look up ‘high needs baby’ - a lot might resonate.

I think your amount of input depends on how they handle tiredness. DS was regularly an overtired cranky mess and had awful witching in the evening, so I did everything within my power to get him to nap. Meanwhile my nephew who was also a pretty bad napper didn’t seem to be too affected by it, so my SIL didn’t worry so much.

I found that walking round outside with him in the carrier usually did the trick. He’d scream initially in it but then usually exhaust himself to sleep and would often have a really decent nap in there. Occasionally breastfeeding him to sleep in a dim room with white noise worked. I wouldn’t put him down when he was asleep - id either sit and hold him and enjoy the break or transfer him to the carrier if I wanted/needed to go out.

Pram never worked for us, DS was too alert. Likewise car seat. He could scream in that for hours.

It gets better, 5-9 weeks was probably the absolute roughest time for us. They have a big growth spurt and developmental changes and are just generally a lot more cranky. DS needed naps facilitating for a long time but they came a lot more predictable by about 4 months.

In my experience the key to getting the daytime sleep is to follow the awake periods guidance - it’s so easy to lose track that they’ve been awake too long and then they get overtired and much harder to settle. At this age, @tensmumsnot is right, you should be trying to get them napping an hour after they woke up. The naps tend to be quite short, but an hour is the maximum of their wakeful window.With DS1 I didn’t realise this and I was keeping him awake for far too long! Which meant he was much harder to get to nap. I’d start trying to get them asleep after 45 mins of being awake.

My toddler is 18 months and I have a 10 week old. Toddler had huge wake windows maybe 3hr at 6 weeks and fell asleep easy on me whilst nursing or in the carrier.

10 week old doesn't comfort nurse (probably coz fast letdown and over supply, so gets milk if just wants comfort and is then sick), but likes a dummy. However, since about 6 weeks I've had to work for her naps. She'll only nap on me (since 3 weeks), which is absolutely fine & natural but since 6 weeks around 75% of the time she needs to be in the carrier/sling, and then I need to walk around or sway lots for 5-15 mins before she drops off for a sometimes 20 min, sometimes 3.5hr nap. If she wakes after 20/30min I walk/sway more for up to 15 mins to see if she'll fall back to sleep, which she often does

She def needs to be in the carrier and walked to sleep 6.30/7pm every night without fail (often during our meal time), otherwise she'll full on scream non stop for 2hrs as well....