My baby has been awake for 7 hours. Why won't she go to sleep?!?!

[andthenthereweremonkeys]

She's 11 weeks old but only 4 weeks corrected. She is completely exhausted. She'll start to doze off and then immediately flick her eyes wide open and she's awake again. She at least seems to have settled down from the 4 hours of crying/screaming. I'm sitting in a dark room with no sound, she is feeding/ comfort sucking, I've tried playing her womb sounds, I've tried rocking, bouncing, putting her in the sling. I'm completely out of ideas now. I think I just need to resign myself to the fact that she is going to remain awake forever and I will cry tears of exhaustion 😩

:( that sounds very tough. I have no advice but lots of sympathy! My DD did this once, was awake for about 8 hours and screaming for about 4, refused to feed or comfort suck or anything. Eventually she did two massive burps and conked out for hours ! Hope your little one is asleep now??!

Id either go for a walk in pram or a drive in car. Hopefully that does the trick

I hope things have calmed down for you now. It can feel never ending but I promise it ends eventually. My limited experience tells me sometimes there's a cause, sometimes not. Dd2 had reflux and needed meds to help and those early sleepless nights were really hard. Good luck.

You have my sympathy x I had a non sleeping baby - dr told me some babies don't need much sleep - he got "a look" and told well some mummies need sleep and I'm one of them! My dd sleeps beautifully now for 12/14 hours at a time ! However she is nearly a teenager x

My dd would never go to sleep in a dark room with no noise. When she was very small she'd fall asleep in a pram being pushed/ in a bouncer in front of the telly/ fall asleep for a nap on me on the sofa with the tv on. If she napped in a bouncer and the washing machine was going she'd be in the deepest sleep of all! Once she was asleep I'd transfer her to the sofa/ bouncer and she'd sleep as long as there was background noise and the lighting level didn't change too much. Put her in living room = fine. Try to put her in cot for daytime sleep= awake within 5 mins. Does she sleep in the pram if you walk her about?

She eventually went to sleep! And then I made the mistake of trying to put her in the cot and she was wide awake again. She hates her cot but we're trying to get her to sleep in there because holding her all day isn't sustainable long term. I will go insane if it goes on for much longer. I just don't know what to do anymore. She's only slept for about 2 hours in the day for the past couple of days, that's the same as my 2 year old! Why do my children hate sleep? My eldest has always been an awful sleeper, surely I'm owed a good sleeper this time!!'

My 7mo pretty much only ever sleeps two hours during the day and has done from about 12 weeks. Occasionally she has a bumper day and we might get 3 hours!! I've given up worrying about it. She is a happy healthy super alert baby so I guess she just doesn't need as much sleep as supposedly she should! I know how frustrating it is tho

I think she does need more sleep though as she's exhausted by the evening. I think she has colic as well which isn't helping. Technically she's only 4 weeks old so I can't believe that she can cope on only 2 hours sleep during the day, especially as she's only getting around 8 hours of broken sleep in the night. The thing is she falls asleep a lot - when she's being fed or held, but the second we lay her down she's awake. I get to the point where I hold her just to let her get some sleep but that's not really doing her any favours long term. Or me. Or her big sister who misses out on Mummy having her hands free. I just wish she would settle in her cot. Other people's babies do it, why don't mine?

At 4 weeks old I couldn't put DD down either. She pretty much slept in our arms or in her buggy during the day. We probably started to be able to put her down around 12 weeks and even then it was hit and miss!! It must be hard when you have another child to look after. Do you have a sling? I know some of my friends babies would only really nap in a sling for the first few months, then you can have your hands free?

I do have a sling and she does like it. It's the next best solution to putting her down but I get really hot wearing it! I've ordered a summer one so hopefully that will come soon and it will be cooler to wear. Today I put her in her cot and she slept for about 35 minutes which was progress but still not as long as she'd sleep in our arms and she woke up obviously still tired. I fed her and got her back to sleep, put her in her cot and she looked perfectly settled. She woke up less than 10 minutes later. DH has just gone up to her and he's apparently got her back to sleep and he just sent me a text saying "should I lay her down?" I said its up to him. I do think that if we keep laying her down then eventually, at some point, it will stick, but in the meantime it's crap because she's losing out on sleep.

I know how you feel! You want to hold them to get them enough sleep but also want to teach them to like the cot!! For a long time DD would only sleep about 30 mins in the cot and I would have to do what felt like endless naps per day! She'll sleep longer now but it's still so variable, yesterday her lunchtime nap was 2 hours (an absolute first!) and today was an hour. I'm walking with her in the sling now as the mid to late afternoon nap battle almost always fails in the cot! ;)