sleep help - desperate!

[JLbaby]

Morning all

lo is just over 4 months and is an absolutely terrible sleeper, hardly naps - yesterday she slept a total of 10 mins the whole day. Her night time sleep is fairly similar, will sleep 40 mins at a time and then be awake for hours, she's been awake since 2.30am now and showing no signs of wanting to sleep or being tired when I know she must be knackered. This has been going on for weeks now, hv is useless and told me to wean early, I don't want to. Am bf but happy to give her formula but she won't take a bottle (another story entirely!) So am stuck really. I've had 1 hours sleep total the last 3 nights and am about to crack up I think. Can't nap during the day as I have a 3 year old.

Please help?! Am thinking of taking her to GP but surely they can't really do anything?

That is one exceptionally sleep deprived baby. It is quite unhealthy to be having so little sleep as 10 minutes in 12 hours. That is very, very bad.

You are therefore at the point of do anything to get that baby to sleep. Get her to sleep anyhow, anywhere. As often as possible for as long as possible.

Ideally I'd be aiming for 45 minutes sleep in every 2 hours though the daytime. So aim at getting baby back to sleep after 1 hour awake.

If needs must, take baby on a car drive just to get her some sleep, so she can catch up.

I'd recommend getting a bouncy chair (minus play arch), dummy and tank thant baby up with as much milk (breastmilk and formula) as you possibly can through the daytime. Big feeds every 2 hours at least through the daytime.

• Change nappy.
• then full breastfeed
• then try formula top up
• then put baby into bouncy chair
• Put dummy into baby's mouth
• put chair on floor by the sofa, make yourself comfy on sofa (tea, TV remote, phone, book etc) and with your foot bounce, buunce, bounce, bounce that baby into sleep submission.
• Reinsert dummy whenever needed
• Bounce back to sleep at the slightest stirring
• After baby has been asleep for 45 minutes stop bouncing and allow baby to wake naturally next time he stirs.
• No more than 1 hour awake and then start the whole cycle again.

This is an emergency, needs must suggestion because basically your baby will be significantly suffering with so little sleep and it needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

• Bounce at eve

I agree that your baby definitely needs a better nap routine during the day. I took my son on some very long walks to try and persuade him to do this. I'm sad that also putting him in a sling and doing the ironing worked well (score for feminism there!). He never slept for long, about half an hour, but he did get about three/fours naps per day.

What are you doing already? We can try and think this through with you a it. Much sympathy on the sleep deprivation front - it's deeply unpleasant.

Thanks both. I've tried bouncing and rocking, she will close her eyes and then doze but won't go to sleep, will keep waking up as soon as I move.
I also have a 3 year old so limited amount of time I can spend trying to get her to sleep! I've pretty much given up, at least she's awake and happy rather than crying I guess?! What is wrong with her?!

She won't fall asleep in the pram even with the hood
right down and no stimulation, sling - that used to work but doesn't now.

She won't take a bottle, believe me I've tried and so have several other people, different bottles, different times of the day, temperature etc etc

Keep trying with the bottle (and dummy), she will get it in the end. Some babies just need a lot longer to practice than others.

I have four children so understand the difficulties of looking after baby when you have toddlers around too.

Her older sibling should ultimately be good for her sleep. My children have all learnt to be deep sleeper since they had to sleep in the same room as brothers/sisters playing so couldn't be light sleepers.

I would worry about just giving up on trying to get baby to sleep. For her health and well being, she does need naps. Even if they are short, as long as they are frequent it is fine. But sleep in a small baby is very important, it can affect development.

The bouncer is probably easiest if you have a toddler too, because it means you can sit on the sofa or floor and be playing with your toddler whilst also bouncing the baby.

Does she feed to sleep? This was frequently my saviour.
I realise that that's super boring for the toddler, but perhaps until she gets into a better routine you could divert them with something monstrous like television ;)

I'm sure I'm telling you what you already know, but getting those daytime naps in should help your nights too.

Has reflux and cmpi been ruled out ? My baby was like this until I got her diagnosed at 6 weeks. Does she hate to lie flat ?

She will rarely feed to sleep.

Definitely not reflux and cmpi, reason I know that is because DD1 had exactly that so I knew what to look out for. She's a very happy baby and hardly cries, just never sleeps!