Won't Settle After 3am!!! Help!!

[SH27]

Hello,

My 5 week old son sleeps from 11pm/12am to 3am, then has a feed and will then not settle back to sleep. He lies in his crib grunting and grumbling. He will only settle if we cuddle him and put him in our bed. My husband then has to go and sleep in the spare room.

I know we are making a rod for our own back and I am very uncomfortable with him sleeping in our bed for safety reasons but we are not sure what else to do. It seems he loves being snug and close to me.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Many thanks.

SH27

I did the exact same at this stage and I woudnt worry about sleep routine till 4mths or more anyway or whatever suits u and ds , just enjoy snuggly cuddles in bed, I found dd2 would settle lovely those times. Have you thought of using a pacifier for sleeping que only? DH was also banished for a short while. dd2 has now quite nicely gone into going to bed at 7pm like my dd1 3yrs old. Wether she sleeps past 3am is another thing altogether at this stage !!!!!

Are you winding him properly after the 3am feed? It is tempting not to when they are asleep at that time of night but maybe that is why he can't settle? i was doing exactly the same when my dd was that age as she also wouldn't settle after feeds during the night, and I was also worried we were making a rod for our back but it is still such early days at 5 wks. The fact that you are thinking about it means you won't let it be a problem later! Lots and lots of people do it in the early days - i don't think i know anyone who didn't take their baby to bed at some point in the first few weeks.

As melsy says don't worry about sleep routines yet. I would agree 4 months is about right - it was around that time for us. Until then enjoy the closeness and the sleep!!!!! And if you want to do little things about it now you could try moving him back to his crib once you've settled him in your bed (that worked for me), putting him down in his crib during the day/evening when he's sleepy but awake so he gets used to settling himself, not feeding him to sleep all the time etc - all useful when you want to move him out of your bed and get it back to yourselves!!!