Help 7 week sleeps at all the wrong times - I need a routine!

[nike73]

My 7 week dd sleeps all am and not lunch then falls asleep around 5pm and then awake all evening till 10pm or so. Find it so hard to keep her awake when she is supposed to be - especially when I cant stay awake and am in floods of tears.
Rough routine is :
6am wakes and feeds and can stay awake for an hour then sleeps till 11am feeds and then awake till 4pm then sleeps till7pm and awake again till 9pm and we have to wake her for feed at 11pm or she wakes 2-3 times at night. Busy working on getting her to drop 2 am feed using dummy wish some success (some nights it works) and then she feeds again at 4am. I am frantically reading the books but getting very confused. I have the blue Baby Whisperer book 'secrets of' and find it very vague. Dont really know if it mentions PUPD , shh/pat that others here talk about (maybe sleep deprived brain not helping me read) Is it worth getting the 'Solves all your problems one? Getting deperate - especially as reading Gina too - so too much info.
Sorry if really garbled message - havent slept for more than 3 hours at a time since her birth.

Hi there - we are doing the baby whisperer book with loads of success. OUr 6 week old naps 3 times a day for 1.5 hours each and sleeps from 7:30pm to 4am with a 10:30pm dream feed, then from 4am til 7:30am ...

Here is our routine :

7:30am Wake and Bottle
45 minutes activity (in the beginning I had to dance him round the kitchen and sing to keep him awake)also change nappy in this time.
Then sleep til next feed
10:30am Wake and Bottle (In the beginning I had to go in and wake him up - its not cruel its just what he needed)
Activity again
Sleep Again
1:30pm Wake and Bottle
Activity Again
Sleep Again
4:30pm Wake and Bottle
Activity
Sleep
6:45pm Wake him
Pants off on the change table, Bath, Big Bottle and
7:30pm Bed (usually nods off on the bottle)
10:30pm Creep in pick him up and put bottle in mouth
Usually sleeps til 4/4.30ish when I feed again and back to bed until 7:30am...

You have to keep them awake by any means for the activity in the beginning and you shouldn't let them sleep past a feed.

Its working great for us - but I can understand some people are not suited to routines so it might sound a bit harsh...

Let me know if you need more info....

Justine

Nike

I think Babywhisperer book for babies is just "The Babywhisper".

Points to note:

don't do pick up put down before 6 months (this is what she recommends), so keep that for later

try to do the E.A.S.Y - eat, activity, sleep, (you rest) - this is about a three hour cycle from start eating to start eating again

try to sleep when she does - it doesn't matter if the house is a mess - plenty of time later to fix that up

at 7 weeks, unusual to have a "routine" per say - some do - but I believe they are either very very lucky 0.5% of population, or lying

about 3 months, things level out and you start to feel normal again - hang in there - i am told this is because they have such little tummies that they do actually need food every three-ish hours, but about 3 months their tummies are getting bigger and they can take more in at one time and therefore sleep longer

she us inly 7 weeks old, give it a bit of time. I know how you feel, my dts were pretty much the same at that age. Personally it sounds as if you should stop reading GF. Some of the stuff is good, suc as techniques to get baby to go to sleep by themselves. But I am a firm believer of letting baby set their own routines. Eventually they get the idea that being awake in the daytime is much more fun than at nightime. Mine still wake up during the night if they haven't had much food during the day but they go straight back to sleep. One still has a dream feed too. Mine are 7 mnths now, and it doesn't bother me a huge deal.

YOur first line says it all - you are struggling to foolow a routine which isnt working. Let her sleep when she wants to, and u sleep as well. even if u spend all morning in bed with her. Be as dull and boring as you can be at night, and try to be bright and entertaining during the day. keep the room subdued at night, and maybe dress her in the mornings, or at least cahnge her babygrow. She will quickly get the idea, and find her own routine without the stress for you.

My 8 week old is woken at 7am every morning (have to have her in some sort of pattern as have a 20 month old as well) for a feed. I change her nappy straight after her feeds to wake her up a bit and she stays awake for about an hour and a half each time. She goes about three hours between feeds apart from over lunch when she'll go four hours (has a long nap) but she is quite big (nearly 12lb) so she can manage that. At 7 weeks your dd should be having about 5 feeds a day. It is better to think of a routine that suits your dd rather than a schedule aka GF as your baby might not like the one you have in mind and she's still very young. Have to go and feed so will stop there!

hi nike - sounds like you're doing well for life with a 7 wk old! it depends so much on the child, as already said, some/most aren't ready for strict routine yet, esp if you're bfeeding. I'd recommend roughly following the 3 hour cycle of EASY - maybe you could tweak what you're doing a bit by keeping baby awake some of the time 4pm-7pm - feeding/kicking on playgym, having a bath etc so that you get her down for the night earlier. also BW talks about cluster feeding prior to bedtime -eg I often find myself feeding 10 wk old ds 4pm then 5pm, then 6/6.30pm and even 7ish before he finally goes down for the night. we then sometimes wake him up for an 11pm bottle (dream feed didn't work for us, he took nothing!). sleep has improved - he now either wakes 1x at around 4am or on a good night may go thro from 8pmish to 6amish.
HTH

Thanks everyone!
Tedebear - does your ds have 4 naps a day before 730pm or three? Just need some guidance? And what do you do with a wee baby if they cry when put down (and I mean cry not just fuss)- I cuddle her till shes calm but it often starts again immed I put her down.

He has 4 but the last one is a bit short - sort of like a catnap...before the bedtime routine starts...

Unfortunately with the crying I had to sit with him (put a chair/stool) and pat him back to sleep whilst he was in the cot - little ones can't get themselves past the 20 minute jolt on their own so you need to help them for a week or so to get the knack...

Misschiefs post is great advice too - although we're the opposite - we couldn't cluster feed but he takes a full 5ounces at dream feed...so you need to be a little flexible exactly as she says!!

I wouldn't try to cut down a 7wo's nighttime feeds. She's still really little and if she's waking up hungry, she needs feeding.

Some small babies will start to go down from 7-7 soon after that age, but the vast majority won't. She actually sounds like she's getting plenty of naps during the day - can you sleep when she's asleep to try and catch up?

Her routine will change in the next few weeks anyway - I'm really not sure it's worth letting the routine dominate your thinking if it's not helping you. I bought the Babywhisperer when ds was a couple of months old, stressed about it for a couple of weeks, then binned it and felt much happier. Some babies just aren't that fixed in their routines IMHO.

The lack of a full night's sleep is horrible at first but you kind of get used to it. I haven't had a full night's sleep for over a year now, not that that's any consolation to you .

Hi Nike73
Have you tried the Cozy Cocoon, it is based on the swaddling principle and has been scientifically proven to aid sleep and is 100% safe. Normall swaddling allows the baby to wriggle free so that they can still do the moro reflex (jerking).
Please email me [email protected] for any more info
thanks