5 week old too tired to eat, too hungry to eat - help!

[BellaCB]

When DD doesn't nap properly during the day, by the early evening she ends up cranky and stuck in a vicious cycle where she is too tired to eat (bottle-fed) more than a few mouthfuls but she is too hungry to sleep more than 10 mins or so.

Help!

Any tips or suggestions?!

What are her naps like? How do you get her to sleep?

She has never been a fan on napping and so we are still struggling with it - hence why it occasionally goes very wrong. She still really only wants to nap about 3 times a day for 30 mins or so, sometimes for an hour maybe. We've been swaddling her for the past week which has made a huge difference, but we still have to rock her to sleep. She is generally fine once she is asleep at night (touch wood, she is sleeping well at night for a newborn) but I think because she just doesn't want to nap much during the day we quite often get into this situation in the evenings.

Today she barely napped at all despite 2 decent walks and us really trying to put her down for her sleeps, so tonight she is INCREDIBLY wound up!

Will she sleep in your arms or a sling maybe? I'd start trying to get her to sleep about an hour after she wakes up in the morning, and then no more than 1.5-2 hours between naps after that.

Just realised my title is wrong - oops! That's how much i'm coping with this tonight!

Thanks Rita - she does sometimes sleep a bit better in our arms, so I think I might be being overambitious on putting her down in her basket to nap sometimes. We are also trying for that nap routine (aiming for a rough EASY routine) but she really struggles to go to sleep or stay asleep . I know she is still v young and it will take time to get her there...

Very ambitious trying to get her to sleep in a basket. Will she feed to sleep? I know BW doesn't approve but babies are naturally primed to fall asleep on a full stomach.

At that age my ds mostly fell asleep feeding, or in a sling with a dummy, and either slept in my arms, in the sling, or in bed with me.

She's generally very happy in her basket at night, but it might be that she isn't at the moment during the day. She sometimes feeds to sleep but at the moment in the evenings she is 'inconsistent' (for lack of a better word!) with what she wants to send her to sleep. I think I will try feeding her to sleep last thing in the evening going forward.

Tonight, though - think it might be out for another walk to calm her down...!

Once you get the day time naps sorted, the evenings should get better!

had exactly the same here, until she reached about 6MO when she decided she wanted to nap in her cot. Up until then I did actually walk her for EVERY BLOODY each nap as she would sleep for about 1 hours 30 if in sling or pram. This was a bit of a nightmare and I got to know the streets very well, but it meant that we got the daytime naps sorted and so bedtime followed nicely as she wasn't overtired and we had hardly any crying. I then decided to move her last nap of the day into the cot and I did this with a little feed to sleep and then gradually they moved to the cot as she started refusing to sleep int he pram, she seemed to want her cot. I really thought early on that she would never take to her cot. I stopped feeding tosleep at about 9 MO and ended up rocking, and have now done a gradual retreat thing at 12MO and she is self settling. HTH...depends if you are up for the walking or not!! I lost all my pregnancy weight from it

maybe if you don't want to walk for all naps, you could try a lovely cosleeping nap in the morning where you give a little feed to sleep and then nap together cuddled up in bed. Then a walking nap middle of the day to ensure that you get a good amount of sleep in her middle of the day so she starts the afternoon refreshed, maybe in the sling and go marching for an hour or two, and treat yourself to a take out coffee and chocolate on route, and then another lovely cosleeping nap with a little feed to help her drift off in the afternoon? i did something similar to this if i didn't fancy walking, or if it was raining etc. the morning and afternoon nap will be shorter than you might want, but longer than if you put her in the cot on her own, but the middle one can make up for their length to a certian extent. I didn't count these feeds to sleep as actual feeds, they were extra, just as a way to help her drift off. don't worry too much about feeding to sleep at the moment, she will grow out of it, and right now it is probably more importnant to get your LO in the habit of getting some daytime sleep. Once she is in the habit of sleeping it will be easier to start readjusting how she gets to sleep - In my opinion anyway. It worked for us.

Thanks, that's really helpful! Think I will try a mix of walking and maybe co-sleeping - or at least chilling with a book in bed while she naps. She has taken so well to her basket at night that I think I am probably expecting too much of her for the daytime naps too, so I'll go back to basics and just get her to nap wherever she wants during the day so she gets used to the sleep.

Good, pleased it's useful. let us know how you get on! x

Just wanted to add that we also had no problems with her sleeping in the cot at night and i was really concerned about setting bad sleep habits by cosleeping in the day/ sleeping in the sling and pram, but it had no effect on her sleeping in the cot at night - she seemed to realise that it was different at night than in the day. Also, by doing a combination of ways for naps (cosleep/sling/pram) she didn't become accustomed to anyone way. In a way it is good to get them used to sleeping when out and about, I have friends whose little ones will ONLY sleep in their cots and so they can never go out for a full day.

Today she napped mainly in her pram or on me, and got slightly more sleep than usual, so that might be the way forward! Tonight we are experimenting with putting her in the cot in a darkened room while she still only half-asleep, not fully out... still merrily gurgling over the monitor... fingers crossed!