2.5 week old Falling asleep / starting routine!

[elizabethy20]

Hi all,
Wisdom for a first time mum greatly needed please! Hoping for advice on teaching little one to sleep when we say, rather than when she feels like it...

Currently she can be awake for 5 - 7 hours sometimes (thankfully this has been during the day... So far..) doing a mix of plenty of eating, contentedly being awake & crying... But I worry she gets over tired. I've tried watching for sleep cues, there isn't anything obvious I can see... We try rocking & singing her to sleep (not ideal I know...) But then often we put her down when we're sure she's asleep, & she's awake 3 minutes later!

How do we start a bedtime routine when we have no way of knowing if she'll fall asleep at the end? Does that make sense? We'd like to create sleep cues that we can control, but how do we link them to sleep when we have no idea if she's about to sleep.. Don't want to get into bad habits...

She only is sleeping about 12 hours a day currently, midwives say that's fine... & when she does fall asleep at night, she's sleeping a long time, which is great. But it's hard work when she demands cuddles / attention / food etc for 6 hours continuously in the day!!

Thank you all :) x

So ideally her awake time is about an hour. Once she's been awake for 50 minutes, swaddle her, then cuddle to sleep doing shh-pat. I would also use a dummy.

The waking up after 3 minutes is the startle reflex which should be helped by the swaddle, as will the possibility of getting cold.

It is entirely normal for her to need a lot of help falling asleep and to hide the tired cues.

See this site for help. www.mybabysleepguide.com/2013/02/average-sleep-charts-by-age.html?m=1

www.amazon.co.uk/Comfort-Harmony-Original-Swaddle-Raindrops/dp/B00KZBXSCG

She's very young! I don't think you can teach a 2-3 week old baby to fall asleep when you want or to have a routine.

Forget a routine until baby is 12wo, or 6wo at the very minimum - this is the earliest they can tell day from night. Read some of Sarah Ockwell-Smith's blogs. They are really interesting and reassuring.

We had a very loose bedtime routine around 3weeks- bath( when needed), lullaby playing when am changing ready for bed, white noise ( Ewan dream sheep) with milk in darkened room, story then place in cot. We did this the same time every evening (7pm) but in early days it definitely didn't mean that he went to sleep then!! Used to signal end of day and calm down but sometimes he would still be awake at 10 etc.
We stuck with it and he has been asleep at 7pm since about 8-10weeks, now 6months.

I wouldn't worry about a routine when she is so young. You can't cause bad habits in a 2 week old. Google the fourth trimester, lots of babies wake when they are put down, she just wants to be close to you. Nothing wrong with rocking/singing your baby to sleep if that's what she needs.
In the early days DS2 would stay downstairs with us of an evening, cluster feeding and sleeping on us. At about 3 months he started grumbling to go upstairs about 7ish and that's when we started a very loose routine. No bath as he gets too excited but upstairs, dim room, pj's on, quiet voice, bf and sing some nursery rhymes.

I've got a 6 week DD2 and we're just starting a loose bedtime routine. We do feed, bath, massage and then bed by around 7pm. It often takes a couple of hours to actually get her to sleep - putting her down awake doesn't work and she wakes up the second we put her down in the cot.

It's infuriating and I miss having some time to myself in the evening but I'm hoping that by being consistent that she will learn to recognise the cues and go to sleep. Fingers crossed.

At 2-3 weeks, we were just going with whatever she liked. Her longest sleep would be from 10pm.

So I would hand tight for a little longer and then work on a bedtime routine from the 6 week mark.

She's 2.5 weeks! She's meant to sleep when she feels like it, I wouldn't bother with a routine until about 12 weeks, it's probably futile and will just stress you out.

6 week olds don't respond to routines either, hence why it takes you hours to get yours to sleep!
'Infuriating' - you have a new baby. What did you expect?

I echo the others when I say that, at 2.5 weeks, your baby is just too little. I know it's hard when you're in the moment, but just enjoy having your baby snooze on you in the evenings. It's where she wants to be, and I agree with the advice that you read about the fourth trimester.

We did start a bedtime routine with our twins around seven weeks, and now, at nearly six months, they settle for bed nicely at seven every night. But you can start the bedtime routine whenever your baby shows signs of tiredness, rather than at any particular set time. So, you can do bedtime when you go to bed.

I didn't worry about any bad habits until very recently. It all went so wrong at the four month sleep regression anyway, so we kind of started fresh once that passed. Just enjoy those lovely newborn cuddles and work in routines and habits once she's a bit older.

Yeah if the bedtime routine is taking 2 hours she's clearly not ready for one, stop and try again in a few weeks (it will still probably be too early but if you insist), don't try and force these things it's no good for anyone.