Sanity Check - 6 week old cries before every sleep.

[LadyJCB]

Hi all,

Just looking for a bit of a sanity check and any advice or suggestions if we’re missing something.

My DD is 6 weeks old on Saturday, and she’s never gone to sleep without crying or screaming first, whether that’s in the pushchair, in our arms, or in the car. She literally can’t seem to drift off without crying beforehand. Even if she’s been calm, smiley and content, as soon as she gets sleepy she cries.

I know lots of babies who will just fall asleep in the pram with the motion or noise, but my DD always needs that cry first.

We haven’t really questioned it up to now as she’s always been this way, and we just cuddle and soothe her through it. But it feels so sad that she seems upset every single time before sleeping.

So I suppose my questions are:

– Is this normal?
– Are we doing anything wrong?
– Is there anything I can do to help her settle more easily?

Thank you in advance, feeling a bit unsure and would really appreciate others’ experiences

Both of mine were like this

DS was often an hour of crying (later discovered reflux and allergies). We were on our hands and knees.

DD was usually 3 mins or so. A dream!

I think they dislike the 'really sleepy' feeling.

Ah! So we aren’t alone in these trenches!
yes DD, takes around 20minutes to finally fall asleep. We’ve tried ‘getting ahead’ but we just see to anger her.
I fear her. 😅

Yes, they are basically crying because they are tired and don't like it! All mine cried before sleep as babies, unless I breastfed them to sleep.

Gosh. I’m glad I asked. I feel better knowing we aren’t doing anything wrong and she’s simply unhappy she’s sleepy!

we will carry on as before. Thank you so much for sharing!

At only 6 weeks, generally they feed to sleep every feed. Are you doing that? It’s usually a wake, change, interact a bit, feed, sleep cycle.

Generally, if they are crying when falling asleep, if not in pain (reflux, CMPA, etc), they’re hungry or over tired.

I would think it’s quite soon to easily fall asleep being pushed in the pushchair without being fed at least to very sleepy first and then put down. I’d mostly just feed mine and hold them for naps while I watched tv or read.

can you try bring the naps earlier, maybe she’s getting too tired and upset, but she might go down a bit more peacefully 15-30mins earlier?

Both my babies cried before they slept unless breastfed to sleep. It was like a way for them wind down before dropping off to sleep.

Some babies (and even older kids) do this.

My friend had a child who did this every night until he was about 8! He just cried when he was tired, there was no other reason and no solve for it.

Not feeding to sleep.
she often wakes during winding and then cries to settle herself back to sleep.

we do try to get there before she gets tired. But all we do is anger her.
hut maybe we simply haven’t figured out the timing! Perseverance is key!

Thank you for sharing. It does seem like her way of ‘switching off’ if that makes sense.
im glad we aren’t alone and it does sound relatively normal.

Thank you, I am hoping that as she gets older it subsides. That being said it would be just our luck if she continued until her teens.

Glad we aren’t alone and it sounds relatively normal for babies to do this!

It might be because biologically she’s programmed to feed to sleep and you’re not doing that…

It can be normal. My DS is 10 week old and if hes overtired/overstimulated he will cry himself to sleep.

Unless he had a bottle and then hes knocked out while drinking and we have to stop because he will snore and choke😅

Maybe try feeding to sleep, if not do you use dummys? Might be worth using one for sleep!

So do you mean she falls asleep feeding and then you wake her up to wind her or by winding her, And then she cries? Mine didn’t cry to sleep unless overtired but if I woke them up accidentally they were very upset
does she definitely need winding? I realised about 6 weeks that mine didn’t and I was unsettling them needlessly. Obviously some do but I’m saying because it hasn’t occurred to me until that point that winding them wasn’t the law!

Not because I don’t want to.
She needs to be winded and she wakes when i wind her.

if I then offer her a little milk after wind to help aid her sleep she will refuse the bottle. I couldn’t think of anything worse than force feeding my daughter. That’s awful.

She’s waking up during winding. She didn’t bring up wind ver easily and she gets frustrated. We have been using infacol as recommended by our midwife and GP to aid.

unfortunately she does need winding, she’s doesn’t bring it up herself yet, and then gets trapped wind which is far more painful for her.

My DS hated being winded after feeding - he was so happy post milk and fast asleep and then would be (understandably) furious that he had to sit and be winded. I would react the same, to be fair!

I ended up doing a mid-feed wind (in the sitting position) and then a shorter one at the end over my shoulder so he was less disturbed. This helped deal with the crying until he was a little older and his stomach could deal with feeds better. Also worth experimenting with different bottles/feeding techniques (angle of bottle etc.) if he seems particularly gassy.

Before having children what I knew was babies fed a lot, slept a lot and pooed a lot.
What I didn't know was they didn't know how to do any of those things!

I have a 5 yo who screamed constantly for 5 months and I have a 4 month old who is great if he sleep when he wants to sleep but if you missed that window or he wakes soon after going to sleep he screams. I'd try the infacol, it was helpful for my daughter as she had issues with wind, try a mid feed winding session and then try and delay the post feed winding by 10-15 minutes as they might be in a deep enough sleep that they can be winded and stay or go back to sleep easier.

aah okay sorry. I misunderstood.

As per pp, will she take a dummy?
I had a similar windy dc and the dummy really helped.

For winding - has anyone shown you the technique they use for prem babies winding?

I've used it on all of mine (bar the eldest as I didn't know) and it's far more effective than any other technique I've seen used.

Sit her on your knee. One hand supporting her back, the other supporting her chin and front. Then gently rock her round, like she's a weeble. Just slow circles.

With DS1 when I was shown it was like he was a different baby as he was properly getting his wind up.