7 week old wont sleep

[miriaminmx]

Our seven week old girl is very difficult! There are many problems we are encountering but the sleep is the hardest.
During the day she wont sleep at home. The second we try and put her in her cot she screams. She screams if i try to read to her or put a grobag on - anything that says sleep. Occasionally i can get her to sleep on me - but resent having to do this. She will sleep in the car or buggy - but even cries there sometimes.

Once she settles at night, she is great. But settling her can take hours. We have done a bedtime routine from early on. And by routine, i mean bath then feed. But she'll scream most of the time except the bath. Once she has finished feeding she can take 1-1.5 hours to sleep.

A recent trick she has developed is waking up 20-30 minutes after going down, both during the day and the first time i put her down at night. She wakes up screaming and can only be consoled by feeding.

It is worth mentioning that she is extremely colicky, but screams most of the day not just in afternoon/evening. Her poo recently has been mucusy - we had tests done on it and are waiting the results. I have given up dairy,chocolate, caffiene from my diet. But nothing seems to be helping.

When she is calm she is absolutely adorable. But we probably get 2, 20min slots a day of calm.

For me fixing the sleep problem will be a bit help. For her and for my sanity.

Any tips?

It could be that your daughter has some allergies or food intolerances, as your post suggests. But equally it might just be extreme over-tiredness causing the screaming and that if sleep is sorted, there may be no need for an elimination diet.

In terms of a reference point, a baby who is feeding well, sleeping well and enough and has no health issues may cry for a few minutes at a time when a need is clear (like the need for a feed or a sleep), but for the vast majority of the time should not be upset when that need is met.

No daytime sleeping in a cot is no big deal. Quite normal at this age, perhaps you just need to adjust your expectations here?

Babies like movement to sleep in these early days. As you have found - car journeys or pushchairs work well for this. At home many swear by a sling for carrying baby and rocking/bouncing/walking baby in that. Personally I prefer a bouncy chair - it is fantastic for daytime sleeps. Foot bouncing from the sofa (remove the play arch from the bouncy chair).

If you are insistent on cot daytime sleeps, try a swaddle and dummy - both great ways of calming and soothing to sleep.

I'd try a dummy anyway. It is natural for a baby to take comfort from suckling to sleep.

Also set your expectations in terms of awake time and asleep time. Pay most attention to time awake, not time asleep. A 7 week old shouldn't expect to be awake for longer than 1 hour without a nap. Even a short nap. If it takes a while to get baby to sleep then it might be better for you to start trying to get her to sleep after half an hour awake.

That might mean very little time spent 'playing' with baby. Literally just wake, feed, nappy check, quick cuddle, settling to sleep, sleeping. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

For daytime sleeps use a bouncy chair. Baby will no have a good routine for weeks yet. Basically, her 'routine' will be based around demand feeding. Feed her when she shows hunger cues, usually just after she wakes up and again just before she wants to sleep. Forget about setting up some sort of routine around timings/putting on grobags, it needs to be more based around the baby. My hv said not to worry about controlled crying etc until baby is 6 months old because before that demand feeding takes paramount.

If your baby cries for a long time and doesn't want feeding and can't be rocked to sleep she may have colic which usually passes in an hour, and usually happens in the late eve when digestion is slowest.

If she cries any time she is flat, she may have reflux which you'll notice if she looks like she is sick, even if it doesn't come up all the way and then cries as if it hurt. For this, try sleeping her in a bouncy chair or angle her cot so it is on a slope at night time. This will help keep the acid down.

Both reflux and colic get better with time, but in the meantime demand feed as a priority rather than organising a sleep routine, because the feeding will set the routine rather than the sleep.

Above all else, pop in to your weigh in clinic and the HVs there are great at giving advice on sleep...

popalot I think the routine that the OP is talking about is a bedtime routine, rather than a daytime sleep/feeding routine. Completely different thing.

I think FATE's advice is spot on. It really sounds like overtiredness. Tiny babies need sooooo much sleep which means their awake times are very short. A lot of babies struggle to fall asleep and need a lot of soothing to get there.

No advice nut just to add my 12wk son has never yet napped in his cot. Tbf I haven't ever tried, he is still very little and likes to be with me. He sleeps on me, in the sling, car, Pram and sometimes the bouncy chair. He's started to fight naps though so is currentlybeing rocked in his Moses
basket.

posted too. soon.

Meant to say, I struggled very much with the lack of naps in the beginning and his need to sleep on me as i wanted to get stuff done in the house (haha.....) I have found it easier to deal with once I adjusted my expectations. He's a small baby and wants to be with his mum.

I found going for a half hour drive was long enough to get him into a deep sleep and he would stay asleep when we got home, same with the pram.

This sounds kind of normal to me. my daughter (now almost 4) never napped in her cot during the day. It was just the wah it was. Then when I went back to work my husband would rock her to sleep and she'd nap on the sofa. Have you considered Co sleeping?

Mine napped in bouncer with vibrate setting, later on buggy. Rarely napped in cot ever, and wouldn't go in there at night either. Just too big for a tiny baby to feel secure I think. Advice above is spot on I'd say

A sling/carrier does make things easier for a baby who wants to sleep on you, not in a cot. I put DS in it before he's fully ready to sleep and start pottering about with it on, hanging out washing etc. Usually after about ten minutes he's nodded off.

Also, I don't think the feeding when she wakes up is necessarily a bad thing. I always put DS on the boob when he wakes in the night as it's the quickest and easiest way to get everyone back to sleep with minimal upset.

You say she takes 1.5hrs to get to sleep after feeding, then wakes 20-30 minutes later. I would say that's because she's ready for another feed. I was lucky to get 2 hrs between feeds at 7 weeks.

sorry op, it's really hard but I think your expectations need adjusting a little. My ds had every nap either on me or in his buggy until 7-8 months and he was by no means unusual-I don't know of any babies who would go to nap in a cot with a story at this age! When you say "a bedtime routine" i'm assuming this is at around 7-8ish? it might be worth giving this up as a bad job for now and just feeding her and keeping her with you. That's what we're doing with 13 week old dd and will be doing for a while yet.

For naps I agree with pp and think it's best to focus on time awake. They really can't be awake for very long at this age before they get over tired. There is nothing worse than over tiredness. Since she was around 4 weeks I've been putting dd to nap in her bouncy chair. At first it was when she'd been awake for 30-45 minutes I'd put her in the chair, cover her with a blanket/muslin, dummy in, vibrate on and started bouncing. Tbh op if she was my first I'd just settle down with a dvd and cuppa and let her nap on me (this is what I did with ds). What is it you resent?