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Original poster

advice needed - 10 wk old sleep problems

18 replies

vicmum · 09/01/2006 16:53

Hi, I have a 10 wk old baby and would like some advice on sleeping... He is good at sleeping at night and sleeps from 11pm to 6am most nights without waking. However, during the day he doesn't sleep at all unless he is in the pram, so every day we have a long walk for a couple of hours when he sleeps. When we try to settle him in the evening (around 7-8pm)he will not go to sleep.
He seems happy enough and seems to be getting enough sleep, but DH and I would really like to get him to sleep in the evening so we can have some time to ourselves...after a feed he will fall asleep on me, but when we move him to the carry-cot he wakes up. We have tried rocking the cot for up to 40 mins but with no success....Does anyone have any suggestions or advice?

OP posts:
fastasleep · 09/01/2006 16:54

No advice, mine does this too (12 weeks) and DS did it for months and months! 11-6 is heaven though! My DD still goes 12-5 some nights and then sometimes 12-3 then 3-6...ugh!

rummum · 09/01/2006 16:57

When my children started sleeping throught the night I started to move the bedtime forward half and hour each week... till they were going to bed at 7pm and waking up at 7am...

Do you have a bedtime routine?? like...
Play
Bath
Massage
feed.... in a darken room.. no talking..
Bed...

HTH..

Original poster
vicmum · 09/01/2006 17:00

thanks for the reassurance fastasleep - as he is my first I am just not sure what is normal, and everyone I talk to seems to think he should be sleeping all evening. I am very happy to have six hours sleep at night and would much rather he sleeps at night than in day or evening

He used to wake up at 4am, but he has stopped this in the last few weeks. I am bfeeding and I always give him a really long big feed at 10-11pm and that helps him sleep through I think...

OP posts:
fastasleep · 09/01/2006 17:03

it's definately normal, there's nothing wrong with him in the sleep department!

Kelly1978 · 09/01/2006 17:04

agree with rummum, u have to slowly bring it back, and eventually you get there. I used to bring it back an hour every 3/4 days. I had mine goin to bed at 7 by 16 weeks. I know how you feel about the evenings, I can't wait til 6.30 when all mine are in bed! You might need to get a dream feed going if you want an early bedtime. I fed mien at 10 still at 9 months, as there isn't time to fit a bottle in after tea. When they were younger the dreamfeed was essential to them sleeping most of the night. You are lucky he is sleepign thru tho, mine have only jsut started taht!

Original poster
vicmum · 09/01/2006 17:20

thanks - will try to slowly bring his bedtmime forward then...is dream feeding when he is still partly asleep?

OP posts:
Piccalilli · 09/01/2006 17:20

No advice I'm afraid as my 12 week old is exactly the same - however a friend of mine who had the same problem said things started to get better between 3 and 4 months - so I guess we just keep trying to settle them in the evenings and hope for the best...

rummum · 09/01/2006 17:41

I gave my son a dream feed every night for about a year. (he's allergic to dairy products and I was concerned about his calcium intake.. don't know why now.. )
I used to pick him up, cuddle him in a dark room and give him a 8 oz bottle... (I miss those cuddles)
burp him at 7 oz and then give him the last OZ..
and put him back down.. he never even woke up... when I came to my senses and decided to stop!
I just cut it down every night till I only gave him 2OZ

clear as mud

marytee · 09/01/2006 18:10

Hi Vicmum

DD is nearly 14 weeks and a couple of weeks back it was the same. In desperation i went and bought the baby whisperer book (always swore i would avoid 'parenting books'!) and found it really useful. Have successfully tried to follow her ideas about sleep and encouraging DD to settle herself. I now realise that she was getting nowhere near enough and was permanently tired. It is a lot harder for her to settle if she has got over tired. Things have turned around incredibly quickly. I put DD in her pram today and went to get my coat on. Previously she would have started to moan and cried if i had done this, today she was almost asleep before i returned to the pram. Might not be the same for your lo re tiredness, but the principles are pretty good anyway.

Are you using a dummy? We have avoided introducing one so far but i suspect that she may have learned to sooth herself earlier if we had given her one. She really likes to suck! In the past few days she has found her thumb and now sucks this before going to sleep! This makes it much easier to settle herself.

Just a couple of thoughts. Hope it gets better soon!

Holymoly321 · 09/01/2006 20:32

Have you tried a swaddle? When our DS was a few weeks old, he wouldn't sleep and we had to have him up with us till all hours. Then a friend gave us a ready made swaddle and it was a miracle! At nearly four months, he now goes to sleep in a sleeping bag - we put him down at the first sign of tiredness and this is usually about 6-7pm and sleeps through till around 5am. HTH.

Yummymummy24 · 09/01/2006 20:36

Hiya vicmum, it sounds excellent sleeping time at night to me, i bfed both ds and never got more than 2hr at a time. Sounds like you're doing a fab job. I swapped to bottles at about 3mnths and sleeping improved, also got a structured routine during day which i wrote down and really stuck to. Ds2 now cries if i miss feed/bath/meal or sleep. They worship routine but i was a bit worried about implementing one as was told to feed on demand. Thats why i swapped to bottles. Good luck

tammie · 09/01/2006 21:32

i have a 6 week old baby that suffers from night time colic and i feel like i have had 3 hours sleep in six weeks sometimes he doesnt settle til 5 in the morning does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Yummymummy24 · 09/01/2006 22:50

infacol colic drops after every feed. lie baby on your arm head at elbow,feet at your wrist, on his tummy and gently swing around. Thats all i know, mine had it too, very tiring. Try to get someone to have him overnight, and sleep during day if poss. Also you can try changing milk if he's on formula you can get special colic ones.

rummum · 10/01/2006 09:47

If your bottle feeding.. try a different flow/make of teat...

A good piece of advice I had was to get different teats and find one that suited your child...

I found the vari-flow ones usesless for mine, and some of the teats they sucked in, unless you kept stopping to let the air in (can't think how to discribe this....but if you've bottle fed I'm sure you know what I mean)

Liamsmummy · 12/01/2006 16:30

Hi tammie, I use Colief drops - much more expensive at 10 quid a bottle but I believe you can get them on prescription - I also switched to Cow & Gate Omneo Comfort milk to help with digestion and I changed to slow flow teets. We have no problems with colic or wind now (ds is 12 weeks old)

bumbleweed · 12/01/2006 16:54

My 12 week old sleeps okay during the night but only after 1-2 hours of soothing to try to get her to sleep.
Main prob is trying to get her to nap during the day - she is a different baby when she has had a couple of long naps during the day - happy, alert, smiley. But most days wont nap for more than 20 mins at a time and gets really restless and grumpy screams as soon as I put her in the cot.
Any ideas? - I want my happy baby back!

Emmecanary · 18/01/2006 22:35

I was never able to suss the daytime nap thing and now DS is 13 months he will (finally!) nap during the day! I was always really envious of my friends whose babies regularly slept for at least an hour, twice a day. As soon as DS started moving around more he wore himself out and would succumb to the 'evil sleep'- at least an hour - hurray. We just stroke his back, sometimes takes a while but usually works.
Re: the colic - we also tried some homeopathic tablets. I'll try and remember the name as they seemed to work even better than Infacol. Oh, and BFree bottles.

jenweber630 · 19/01/2006 00:13

Well - my son is 13 months so I'll search my memory of what we did... We started an evening routine around that time though it still may be some time before he starts going to bed earlier. The idea of trying 30 minutes earlier every few days is great - we eventually did that but I think not until around 4 months old. We also swaddled for bed until 8 months because ds kept waking everytime we moved him no matter how deeply asleep he was and it worked great. I found a huge, slightly stretchy blanket to do the over swaddle and then I put a folded blanket under him then folded it around and under his arms so he couldn't break out of it. It worked SO well. However, a 7 hour block of sleep is fantastic and it will slowly but surely get longer. It's just a matter of time before you and dp get that much needed evening time to yourself.

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