Why don't they come with a manual? I haven't a bloody clue what to do

[TheFantasticFixit]

Oh lord.. i'm knackered. DD is 5 weeks and i know i'm only on the tip of the iceberg but i really need some kind of advice. Basically she won't bloody sleep until 4am.. and then wakes at about 6am for about an hour, and then appears to be absolutely shattered so I put her down again until about 11am.

She often then sleeps for about 3 hours in the afternoon but all this daytime sleeping means that come 10pm, thats it, she is completely and utterly WIRED until 4am! I am trying to sleep when she does but god the 6 hour stretch from 10 - 4 is getting unbearable.

She doesn't cry loads as well by the way - she appears to whinge if anything because she doesn't want to be put down. As soon as i pick her up she is fine, alert, smiling - completely happy (and gorgeous!)

I'm definitely not leaving her to cry for long - literally she has to murmur and i am there which of course she may be responding to now.. should i leave her to cry for a bit, and if so, how long?

I really feel like i haven't a bloody clue - ANY advice is appreciated at this point!

Try putting her down in her cot and holding her hand through the bars and singing to her at the same time until she fall asleep, then once she has leave the room. Keep doing this for a couple of weeks, until you get to the point of leaving her while she is sleepy but awake, then move onto putting her down a song and then kiss night night mummy loves you, close the door. This is what i done with my son and he now goes to bed wide awake but still settles. An occasional exception ie new years eve, strange place, lots of noise or when poorly. But then sleeps right through. My little boy was a menace until 7 weeks. Waking up 3 or 4 times during the night but then dropped feeds until he started going from 8pm til 8 am. Might seem hard now, but it WILL get easier. x

There is a manual. It doesn't work for all models but it suited mine. The Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford. Not all of it applies to all babies but I'm sure most parents and babies will get something from it.

I would try to set her bodyclock with as much daylight / outdoor time as possible through the day (I read once that 12-4pm was the optimal time for getting babies daylight), and then keep the house quiet and dark from about 7pm. Hopefully she'll start to get the hang of it.

The CLB routines were actually quite a good guide sleep-wise for my babies (the feed times I ignored completely - no idea how you'd follow these if you were bf - ditto the "methods" which are not me at all), but she's still very little. Mine were more like 4/5 months before I got them ino a predictable nap routine (which I did by getting them to sleep any way that worked - feed / buggy / sling / car etc etc - as long as it was roughly at the "right" time), although both knew night from day early on (this didn't really mean that they slept for long periods at night unfortunately, but more that when they woke (frequently) it was only for a feed and for help getting back to sleep, not to get up and play).

Re the leaving her to cry, I personally wouldn't, not properly, anyway. However, with DS2 I inevitably "left" him to cry a little, because of things like DS1 needing a wee the minute I put DS2 down for a nap. It was never more than a few minutes, but he did surprise me by sometimes just going to sleep all of his own accord after a little grumbling, and since birth he has been able (mostly) to self settle. So it might be worth not absolutely running to her at every squeak, if that makes sense. IME the ability to self settle / re-settle is quite inherent to some babies while others just don't have this - I am fairly sure that DS1 would have screamed to the point of being sick rather than get himself to sleep for a nap (until he was almost 2 years old). However not even trying to get them to self settle for the first 6 months of their life is probably a dead cert way to ensure that they won't be able to!

Good luck!

Agree with Nearlythere about daylight/outdoor time. with both DD's I made a point of getting out during the day with them from about 1 week. And doing lots of interaction during the day as well.

You could also wake her early from the afternoon nap so she gets tired earlier - Do it gradually, 10 minutes a day.

With DD 2 have been doing bedtime feed/sleep routine from about 4 weeks which is working really well. (She is now 4.5mths.) Change nappy and put in PJ's around 5.30. Start big feed about 5.30/6.00 (mostly bf - as am mixed feeding) for about an hour on my bed in a dark room. When she is very tired and dropping off put her in cot and she sleeps well. She is feeding loads in the night but is basically out until about 6am.

On the downside is very difficult to get her to sleep in the day!

Big Gina Ford advocate here. Adapted slightly to your own situation though.

She was my saviour. No family, just me, DH and DS. It was incredibly smooth. We followed from day 3. Our DS slept a lot more than GF suggests during the day, and he didn't sleep through until three months (I just fed him at night whenever he wanted and it just got less and less).

However, other than this, I tried to follow GF to the letter.

And you know what? It bloody worked. Our boy slept and ate like a dream, and just seemed... well, contented, I guess!

And now 17 months, big, boisterous and collapses in his cot at 7 and doesn't make a squeak until 6.30.

Good luck
x

You poor thing, my DD is 17 weeks old and although her sleep is still pretty rubbish your post has reminded me that its a lot better than it used to be as I could have written your post in the early weeks. DD even stopped sleeping in her crib and night from about 4 weeks and we didn't get her back in until 11 weeks. However, we found that she started to sleep longer during the night and less during the day just naturally as the weeks went on and by about 8 weeks had a more obvious difference between day and night. We implemented an evening routine around 6 weeks ish and that seemed to help with getting her to understand when to wind down. Also agree with the others about lots of light/noise etc during day hours and keeping it dark/quiet at night. Not really sure this is any help, and its not coming from the mum of a good sleeper, but sending lots of sympathy your way!

I would go the other way and say just bring her into bed with you. She wants to be close to you because she's hard wired to want to be close to you - any trying to change this is just making things more stressful for both of you.

Make your bed a safe place for her and plan to review in 3 months, 6 months, a year or two or however long you think "Argh I really don't want her in my bed at X age!".

Poor you, my son started sleeping though from 8 pm to 8 am at about 7 weeks. Although JUST before bed he wanted about 30mls of milk. x

Agree with BertieBotts. A lot of the CC gina ford stuff is about trying to force small babies to behave like older children before they are developmentally ready. If you leave a baby to scream on their own, they will go to sleep, eventually, when they are utterly exhausted. So will adults. I wouldn't recommend it for either.

Sleep deprivation is awful. Try and sleep when your baby does, or when you can - don't try and do too much - accept your baby is small, needs you to survive and you are the shining centre of their world, and they will get older and change in their own time. Co-sleeping can be a life saver. I wish I had done it earlier, it would have saved me
and my partner a lot of anguish and exhaustion.

fruity GF does suggest CC, but only if nothing else has worked, and only after 6 months, definitely not at 5 weeks. And she has strategies for dealing with what the OP is struggling with that totally involve feeding and cuddling, very often pre-emting some situations and averting them.

as long as u dnt take any routine book too literal and adapt them slightly to whats good for you then i agree gf is good for helping teach babies between day and night. i have followed bits and pieces from day1 my dd doesnt actually sleep thru but she def know night time isnt play time. i didnt start following the feed times until she was about 6/7weeks old but always made sure she breastfed every 3hrs. tbh i dnt get why shes so controversial, if u read the book properly (i mean like 10times) its actually no where near as bad as ppl make out.

also gina ford doent say 2 let ur baby cry themselves 2 sleep just give them a chance to fall asleep on there own. my dd is my 1st baby and is 6mo now and i wish id left her for a few min when she was younger. if shes still unhappy after 3/4min then go in and see.