Tired signs - will he be emotionally stunted if he is awake and alone

[Athrawes]

I am trying to get used to tired signs as a signal to pop baby back into his bed. I am so afraid of the overtired baby who won't sleep that I may be putting him back to bed too soon, before he is really tired. Will he be emotionally stunted, a Romanian neglected in a nursery baby, if he lies there on his own for a while before falling asleep? I have the light on during the day and evening and a radio for him to have a constant background.

Well the short answer is no, he won't, but how old is he?

He will be fine and it teaches him an important developmental mile stone of how to self settle.

DC 2,6 will often lie in bed and not actually go to sleep! He just lies there quietly and eventually falls asleep. He is a perfectly normal 2 year old and I don't think it has affected his emotional development.

Is he crying when you leave him? Doesn't sound like it from your OP

He is ten days old! I am new at this. If he cries I leave him five minutes to self settle, then go in and sooth him. Repeat three times before admiring defeat and picking him up to re- feed. This is the advice of the MW but all depended on me being able to see the tired signs - which seem so mysterious and subtle!

At ten days old i wouldn't worry too much about tired signs, self settling or leaving him to cry.

Right, well, at ten days old they can't self-settle, and they don't really give off tired signs; they just fall asleep.

And most of them won't sleep alone in a bed at that age either, and that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

He's tiny tiny tiny, and he's only ever known movement and warmth and your heartbeat and your sounds. To expect him to go from that straight to lying flat in a bed without any company is too much.

I don't mean he'll be a neglected orphan child, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty - certainly five minutes on his own isn't going to be harmful. I simply mean it won't work yet.

At this age, they often will only sleep on a parent because they're just a little bundle of primal instincts, and the safety of a parent is their only chance of survival pre-civilisation. If he sleeps in a bed, fine, but don't worry if he doesn't. He will, later. And he will start giving you tired signs, later. And you'll get the hang of it, and it will be fine.

But for now, just give him what he's telling you he needs - warmth and comfort and probably motion - and love him as hard as you can.

And congratulations on your new son!

that your mw told you to leave a newborn to cry for 5 minutes!

WTF do they teach these women when they train them?

I would never leave a newborn alone while awake. At all. They really need you at this stage.

Look at the dr sears website for an alternative way of dealing with babies - written by doctors with a large number of babies of their own.

As others said, no, lying alone and quietly is not a problem, mine both did this, and now they can lie in their beds with books/toys for ages, but at 10 days he is not going to manage to self settle. he might lie and watch things/mobile etc and then drop off but he will not consciously be going to sleep on his own.

hang on, xposts, is he crying when you leave him or is he just awake? If he's crying then pick him up, don't try sleep training until they are much older as it just won't work.
Oh, and give your MW a slap from me next time you see her, cow.

To be fair to the midwife (maybe) I read loads of books and things that said about tired signs and self-settling, and not one of them said "oh by the way don't bother about this until they're a few weeks/months old".

I remember my daughter being 10 days old, and I was worried that I didn't have a suitable bedtime routine for her yet - you know, thinking I should do bath/songs/jammies at ten days old and feeling guilty that she just conked out in her babygrow.

So I mean maybe the midwife was talking generally, as a "going into the future, this is the sort of thing"?

What tortoise said

with my 2 I certainly tried to encourage self settling from a couple of weeks in, but it only worked sporadically and the rest of the time I let them fall asleep on me before popping them into bed. It was a good couple of months before they started to fall asleep more consistently by themselves.

I really wouldn't worry about making sure there is light/noise either. At 10 days, if they are tired, they will sleep through a nuclear holocaust. But in a few weeks, if you always have light and noise, you might start worrying about them bring dependant on having the radio on to get to sleep!

and congratulations!

The MW has read the Baby Whisperer. Tracy Hogg says to start 'as you mean to go on' the day you leave hospital and she's obsessed with 'sleep signs' and how you're a crap Mother who isn't listening to their child if they miss the second yawn.

I hate that bloody baby whisperer book. "EASY" my arse.

FWIW I remember reading all the guff on sleep signs and feeding cues and then being so exhausted myself it needed DH/friends/complete strangers to point them out to me while I was holding dd's

Quality

some babies just don't give off sleepy signs either (until it's too late, then doom doom), with dd1 I always went by the clock as I didn't have a clue and she rarely yawned etc; dd2 much more obvious

I loved the Baby Whisperer while I was pregnant with my first. Turned out my daughter had other ideas when she arrived, and the whole lot got thrown out the window in about a fortnight.

To be fair to MW this advice came after two days of baby not sleeping more than ten minute spurts at a time and me being utterly exhausted. Since have applied the five minute crying thing he now sleeps for an hour or sometimes two and I can rest!
He isn't on a schedule - no timetable, just that if he falls asleep in my arms during the day he wouldn't then stay asleep when put down. I needed help!

Have you tried a sling? I found with dd's in a sling they woudl sleep for hours and I could still sit down (upright) and doze for a bit.
Or falla sleep with him in the bed, good for everyone!
I do sympathise, it's a special kind of hell for sleep deprived mothers, everything you do or experience is magnified to traumatic and disastrous proportions!

Yeah, really hard to get perspective. Falling asleep with him in bed with me just wasn't working for me - I can't do it. Spend the whole time awake afraid of him being smothered. So at night or for naps with mum he needs to be jn his Moses basket - right up close to me but seperate enough for my subconscious peace of mind.

What tortoise and Trafficcone said.

My DS didn't really show tired signs until around 2 months IIRC. From when he was 3 weeks old I tried to follow the Baby Whisperer plan. Because I was waiting for tired signs which never happened, he ended up staying awake for far longer than he could handle and after a week he wouldn't get 'tired' but would flip straight into overtired hysterics. It would take up to 2 hours to calm him down and that happened every time he needed to sleep (6-10 times a day). That carried on for the next SIX weeks until we got a sling and he had all his naps in that. I was a nervous wreck by that point.

Try helping him off to sleep before he's been awake for 2 hours max; probably an hour to an 1.5 hours at that age. Cuddling, feeding, rocking are all good.

Babies are unlikely to be able to self-settle at all before 3 months. Many take a lot longer. My DS is 6.5 months and can't self-settle. That's totally normal and you know what? it really isn't that much of a problem, despite what the health professionals say.

Ignore any advice which suggests you should let your baby cry to sleep before the age of 6 months.

Lying on his own for a few minutes while you have a shower or get dressed etc won't do him any harm, though.

Congratulations on your baby.

My baby is a dozer. She never shows clear tired signs as she dozes through all her feeds, in the sling, when held etc. So I can't just lay her down after an hour or two hours wakefulness as it's never happened that she's spent two hours with her eyes open the whole time.
And I can't and won't leave her to cry even for five minutes as she screams and goes hoarse!

Have you tried swaddling? That often helps babies stay asleep. Waiting 15-20 mins before trying to put them down can also help.

Quality - my daughter is 20 months old and I still don't know her "hungry signs". Even my mother, who spends a lot of time with her, agrees that she's a kid who just doesn't exhibit said signs and never has. In the breastfeeding days I used to just put her to the breast all the bloody time, but if I didn't, she wouldn't ask. Now, if she's hungry she gets irritable but will still turn down food until I coax her into the first bite, after which she gobbles the rest up. And despite the fact that she's got a fair vocabulary and chats constantly, she will not, ever, ask for food or water, unless she sees someone else having some.

Some children have stronger 'signs' than others, is all I'm saying. Athrawes, nothing you're doing sounds bad at all, I just didn't want you to feel as if the rest of us magically know about Sleep Signs and you didn't, because that's how I felt when mine was the age yours is now.

There's really good advice on here but just thought I would add - my DS is 8 weeks old and his tired signs have become a lot more obvious in the last few weeks (or maybe I am just better at spotting them now!). He often does a little 'lizard tongue' thing before yawning, then once he's really tired he'll clench his fists and kick his legs and do jerky movements. He also sucks his fists sometimes, which is a bit confusing as that's his hungry sign too! But I use the amount of time since he last fed to gauge if he's hungry or tired now (like if it's 1 hour since he last fed, he's probably tired, not hungry again). I think it's all about confidence in knowing and learning what they want and mine has definately grown since week 2 (first time mum here too!).

ps. agree on the self-settle thing! I really think they're too little to do it themselves at this stage. We cuddle/ rock/ pram to sleep.