3 week old just won't go down - desperate help for a tired mama

[miniworry]

Our 3 week old is most definitely a Velcro baby. Will sleep for hours upon hours on my husband and I and I know about the fourth trimester but I never had this kind of situation with our little girl who would sleep anywhere and I feel it's starting to affect my mental health now 😢

For the sake of sanity my husband and I take the nights in shifts- he does 10-2 and I do 2-6am before our toddler wakes. We have both a snuzpod with a purFlo inside next to our bed and my husband is able to successfully put him down at 9:30/10 and he will have almost a 4 hour stretch until he wakes for food. Once we swap over however, it's a different story. I can cuddle him until he is in the deepest sleep, and the minute his head touches the bassinet, that's him wide awake, grunting and screaming. If I pick him back up he's asleep in minutes. The most I've been able to get out of him is 35 minutes. I don't breastfeed so it's not the smell of my milk.

Please does anyone have any tips for this desperate mum? My husband goes back to work this week and I honestly don't know how I'm going to cope, I'm so so tired 🥱

I had this due to my baby having reflux, same shifts too with my husband! Some nights were worse than others, we found sometimes a hot water bottle in the snuzpod, taken out a minute before putting him in, helped as the transition from warm parent to cooler bed was waking him up. Hope you get some other tips, it's hard having a velcro babs!

@Imisscoffee2021 thank you for your words of solidarity! We've inclined the snuzood just incase it was silent reflux (he isn't hugely sicky at all) but it's made 0 difference. Can I ask how long it lasted before they finally started going down? I need to know there's some light at the end of the tunnel 🤦‍♀️😵‍💫

DD who is now 4 months was like this for the first few weeks and it was hard work. I was also dreading partner going back to work because we had also been doing shifts in the night of literally holding baby as she wouldn’t go down at all without screaming. We found swaddling really helped. We used the Tommee Tippee swaddle bag. She also had a dummy. She preferred her Moses basket to her bedside crib, I think because it was smaller. So I used to put the Moses basket inside the bedside crib. She now happily goes down in the bedside crib awake and drifts off to sleep and does this after night feeds too, so just know that it probably won’t last forever even though it seems like it now! In fact, she refuses to nap on me now and it makes me a little sad.

Thank you @Fleur240 that's so helpful to know it doesn't last forever! We've tried a dummy but he isn't interested in the slightest and just gags or spits it out 🤦‍♀️ we are swaddling so will keep up with that! We also have a purFlo sleep nest in the snuzpod to attempt to make it feel smaller but I'm not convinced he likes that so I might try the Moses basket!

It's normal for a 3 week old but if it doesn't start to improve over the next few weeks it might be more problematic silent reflux. The first line of treatment is to add a thickener to the milk and if this doesn't help omperazole to reduce the acidity of the milk.
Propping my daughters cot up didn't make one bit of difference. She's 3 now and has to sleeps on 4 pillows so she's practically sat up so the incline was probably never steep enough.
Most of the babies in my NCT group had issues going into the cot at 3 weeks but by 5 weeks it was only mine that still didn't

@Superscientist thank you for that, I will certainly keep an eye on it over the next couple of weeks with that in mind ☺️

We had the same issue with the dummy so we tried a different brand and she took it. Had Tommee Tippee ones at first but then got the mam ones and she liked those better. I also forgot to say when I used to put her down I put her legs and bum down first and then slowly her back and head and kept my hand there a bit until she settled and this used to help

I don't have solutions for baby sleep at 3 weeks, both mine were hard going! It will pass. You need to split the load and find chunks of time to rest.

If he does 10/2, how early can you go to bed? 7/8pm til 2 would at least give you a decent chunk of sleep.

I mean you're not really 'splitting' the nights if he goes down well for your DH before bed and you're covering the portion of the night when he actually wakes up?

Poor you, this sounds so hard (although I miss the days of babies napping on my chest I very much enjoy sleeping at night!). I personally don't think it sounds like silent reflux from the information you've given - baby would be getting very upset after feeds if this was the case.

3 weeks is very very young. I don't think either of mine liked the snuzpod much at that age. I think by 6ish weeks they were happier with it but it's all a bit of a blur!

Babies - people in general I think - sleep deeper in the first part of the night. So it could be the timing of your 'shift' that's the issue. Perhaps you and DH could try alternating so he gets the 2-6am stretch sometimes? And whoever is doing that shift should get themselves to bed at 8pm. It's miserable but it's only for a very short time.

@Fleur240 we've tried 3 lots of dummies so far and I still just get the disgusted face 🫣 but I will definitely keep persevering and will try the laying legs and bum down first with the sleeps tonight!

@nc22124 I didn't really think it was silent reflux either as he happily chugs down his milk and then will fall asleep soundly on us straight after. Very little spit ups too.

I shall keep the 6 weeks in my mind to hopefully give me a bit of sanity- I honestly don't remember this with my first, whether I've blocked it out or not I don't know!

We were exactly the same and I thought I'd never sleep again!
Once DD was a bit bigger (9 weeks ish, had been small since birth) we switched her from a blanket as she'd started kicking it off to a Tommee Tippee swaddle bag and ut made the world of difference and she suddenly would go down for both of us not just DH! Also blasting white noise helps.
I find a hand on the tummy when she first goes in helps too as it feels like they're still on you.

It gets better, we had 7 hours last night!

Thank you @FirstT1meMum .. we do currently use a swaddle bag, the purFlo ones which he does seem to tolerate. Have white noise playing too all night and I try the hand but once he's screaming that doesn't make any difference- it's good to know you're coming out the other end!

@miniworry how was your night?