10 week old only sleeps when held and carried. Am so TIRED!

[Amberjee]

Hi there, since birth my LO has been a terrible sleeper. He only likes to sleep when held or carried in my sling. He used to be able to sleep out in the pram, but now he even manages to stay awake through that.

I am able to get him to sleep in his cot in the evening at about 8.30 or 9 (have tried earlier to no avail) and he will often settle himself eventually and sleep a few hours, feed sleep a few more hours, and then from about 1 or 2am, he is completely restless. He falls asleep for a few minutes, only to wake and flail around and make a lot of noise, sleep again, flail again etc - I've taken to wearing earplugs at this stage. This can go on for a while, but eventually he'll cry and needs to be held for the rest of the night.

He does not nap in the day unless held. I've tried having consistent nap times, or even waiting a long time until he is deep asleep, but he always manages to wake up within a few minutes if I put him down.

As an aside I think that he has reflux and maybe this is impacting his sleep, though sometimes it just seems as if he's a terrible sleeper and nothing to do with the reflux waking him up. I've tried giving him gaviscon, but he vomits it up. It's also quite difficult to give if you want to keep breastfeeding.

Anyway, we're very tired and I just wish he could nap in the day or have a better nights sleep, so we could all get some rest.

If I don't carry him in the day so that he can sleep, he is in a terrible mood and cries alot. But generally he is quite happy if I can get him enough sleep.

What a drama! Anyway, just wondering if anyone has been through this and has any thoughts. I'm hoping he'll just grow out of it and learn to sleep at some point, but I'm afraid that I'll need to intervene to get him into better sleep habits and I really don't know how old he should be before I do this.

Thanks!

Have you tried swaddling? The flailing around may be half the problem.

If he has reflux, he will struggle to sleep lying flat, have you tried propping him up? Will he sleep in his car seat?

Worth asking for a Gaviscon alternative if he's throwing it up. Imagine being forced to lie flat when you have heartburn, horrid

My ds was the same, he slept on one of us day and night for months, but it was a bit different as we were both at home. No way I could have put up with it if I'd been at home on my own.

I haven't got any useful sleep advice so can only suggest coping strategies, I'm afraid:

What kind of sling have you got? Is it comfy for you to wear for long periods? If it is I'd be tempted to say just carry him all day and let him nap when he likes. If it's not, see if you can beg / borrow / hire some different styles and find one that is comfy.

If he wakes himself up flailing in the night, swaddling is def worth a bash.
Once he's done the 1am wail and you've picked him up does he sleep happily in your bed?

He's still very tiny and (in my opinion) too young to worry about 'bad habits' yet.

My ds2 is the same, wakes every time he's put down so I, or someone else, just hold him most of the time He's 9 weeks on Thursday. He doesn't sleep great either, last night he was awake until about 11.30pm and then woke at 2am, stayed up for a while and then slept, woke again at 4 for milk, then again at 5. This is normal for him most nights. During the day he hasn't been sleeping much either but he has a cold which is making it hard for him to breathe through his nose so I think he'll sleep better when it goes.

Thanks for your kind responses. I do carry him around most of the day in a carry me sling - I find it quite comfortable, but still tough when you do it 8 hours a day or so. It's the only way to stop him being cranky in his awake periods.

I've tried having him sleep in our bed all night, or just from 1am - its still the same result really, unless we hold him or let him sleep on our chest. I've gone with the cot, because at least i can sleep a little while he's grunting and flailing. I tried swaddling him every night, but no matter how tight, he eventually ends up in a right state with it, he just kicks and kicks until it is no longer tight on him.

i am giong to invesigate the reflux more , seeing a homeopath tomorrow, and will report back to the dr about vomiting the gaviscon. its jsut strange that he always seems to sleep those first few hours of the night in the cot, but then not at all after (and not in the day).

Anyway, its a big mystery to me!

We seemed to have battles to get ds to sleep when he was that age too. We found lying on the bed with him tucked up really close to one of us worked quite a lot of the time, he's nearly 9 months old now and we occasionally do the same thing if he's really unsettled. Good luck, I'm sure it will be better soon.

Forgot to say that we co-sleep and find that works well for us and we did the same with first 2 children.

wow, jodie - how are you coping? i'm finding it so hard. at least now, he can cope with sitting in his chair while he's awake so i can have something to eat or shower - in the early days we couldn't put him down at all!

Ideally, I'd like to co-sleep with him. I just found we actually both seem to sleep worse. He wakes me with every move, and I wake him. I end up sleeping in a really uncomfortable position jsut to avoid moving and potentially waking him. I have him in the cot next to the bed, so he's not far. I try to nap with him up close to me in the day, but he still won't have it! People keep saying babies get a lot more civilised at 3 months (here's hoping!)

Hi
no advice really just empathy I have a 9wk old who is the same. My first dd was the same aswell and barely slept of a night but all of a sudden at 7mths she slept from 6.30-8am and still does at 15mths old. I am just hopeful that the same will happen with DD2. Although I will say both of them have suffered with reflux and DD1s was quite bad so she ended up on the enfamil AR formula, as yet DD2 is just on the infant gaviscon but has stopped being sick as much. I would recommend a sling I have a fab ring sling that I wear to keep hands free.

Hi

Just wanted to send loads of sympathy your way - you must be exhausted!

I had a very hard work baby, who suffered awfully with colic. He too needed lots of body contact for the first three months in order to sleep. They promise that 12 weeks makes a big difference - he waited until the end of the 13th week then settled loads - so hang on in there.

We also tried cranial osteopathy, which worked well for us. (We tried it with ds2, but it didn't help him as much.) DS1 was an assisted delivery - ventouse - and the osteopath thought that he might be getting headaches/headpain, when she gave him two treatments. He fell asleep during the treatment on her table - unheard of - and was certainly much better afterwards.

I'm hoping it gets easier to Amber! It is hard at the moment with all the lack of sleep, he actually stayed awake the whole night one night last week but luckily for me dh is really good and helps loads. I know it doesn't last forever and keep on repeating that to myself hehe.

Hi,

You poor thing, re the reflux, we found with our dd, propping up one end of the cot with piles of books/bricks so the baby is sleeping on an incline works well, also, make sure you wind the baby really well after each feed. In the day my DD slept well in a baby bouncer type chair, we had the baby bjorn one. With the swaddling, I think there are special shaped swaddling cloths you can buy, that can be fastened with velcro,which could help with the untucking?

Good luck, I hope some of the advice you've received on the thread helps soon.

WA

Amberjee, what a sense of deja vu! My dd didn't have reflux but I carried her around in a sling to sleep during the day for almost six months. In the end I'd just totally run out of jobs I could do with her in the sling, even got fed up of surfing standing up (I couldn't stop moving or she woke up).

My solution was an Amby nature nest off ebay, started using it at 5.5 months and after about two weeks persistance she slept happily in it until I stopped it when she was almost one because she was sitting up in it! Expensive, but worth it - and they have good resale value. It was fantastic - she got to the stage where after a resettle at half an hour (she never got the hang of bouncing herself back to sleep) I was getting naps of up to two hours.

I'll try a link here but there are other sites.

Its supposed to be good for reflux too.

abida - at least we're getting good exercise with all that dancing and jigging with our LO's. I have one of those fitball/birth ball things that you can sit on and bounce which is a saviour for when i'm tired, or want to surf the net.
I have seen suggestions of the amby bed before - i'm just reluctant to part with the money if it doesn't work. I'd part with it in a second if I knew it would work. So you had to persevere to get your LO to sleep in it? Was it tough? I'm kind of hoping things will magically get better around 3 month mark, but who knows.
The homeopath gave me a remedy today which she is 'sure' will work. me, however, i am not so sure, but a little hopeful perhaps.

he he, just realised i wrote "when i'm tired". what the hell, i'm ALWAYS tired!

Umm I was wondering if it could be a temperature issue. My DD was a bit like that and we eventually figured out she was too cold in her nursery and that's why she liked snuggling up.

Alternatively you could try a comfort object. Like a comfort square, stick it up your jumper so it smells like you and then let your LO cuddle it.

Or you LO could just be a little sod and will grow out of it (this is more common than you might think . Sorry!

Tinkerbell, i think its the last! Though I still love him for it. I tried putting my worn tshirt under him to sleep, but didn't work, and have played with temperature to no avail. he sleeps in our room, sometimes in the cot and sometimes in our bed. he doesn't even like cuddling up to us much. well he does like it, but it certainly doesn't make him sleep any better. sigh.

Amberjee
sounds just like my son, was bf and for what seemed like the 1st 3 months could only sleep in my arms or on my chest
thought he had reflux and gave gaviscon, difficult if bf but mixed it with a drop of expressed milk and gave it via a syringe
in the end think what helped was:
just accepting he wasn't like my daughter, so called "angel baby"
letting him sleep on my chest at night in bed !!!!
a dummy even though swore wouldn't use one
someone said the sucking helps with the acid

suddenly after about 13 weeks or so he would sleep in his cot and you know what you miss the little b*gger lying on you at night!
it'll be a distant memory soon

It wasn't too bad, and i think would've been easier if i'd bought it earlier. Sometimes if she couldn't sleep in the sling she would cry, not upset, more 'I can't get to sleep', and it was similar in the Amby. As she got older I gor better at recognising the signs of when she was ready to sleep - which was a skill i'd not developed with the sling cos I'd just stick her in it whenever I thought she needed to sleep!

For me it was worth the money - at first I actually kept track of how many minutes she'd slept in it, so I could say 'xpence per minute' .

Hi Amberjee

Little sodness aside, I think give the choice of course he'd prefer being next to you, it's warm, familiar and you smell nice (to him I mean, I don't think I've ever sniffed you ).

But training him to fall and stay asleep another way is another thing. Don't suppose you fancy sleeping in his cot for a few nights (I resorted to this ONCE -we have a cotbed), it was actually surprisingly comfy. After one night my DD kicked ME out though (hurrah, hurrah!)

Have you tried elevating the head end of the cot so he doesn't have reflux acid pain.

Also make sure you don't do what I did and reinforce the waking up by talking to him, changing him, turning lights on. Now if she wakes up we have milk, pat, back to bed, no negotiation. She didn't like it for five days. Now...well I've got time to post this so clearly the little ratbag is sleeping!

Oh and they go get better over time anyway, so even if nothing works it will get better.

Having said my brother taught his first son only to sleep on his chest FOR THREE YEARS!!!! He only stopped when my brother got a hernia!

ha, i had thought of me sleeping in his cot, alas i won't fit! had him in the bed last night, but i had to sleep so still and hardly move after BF, lest i wake him up. as soon as he is awake, he is completely alert and a sod (!) to get back to sleep.
anyway, last night he managed to delay his 'sleep on chest' routine until 4.30am which was really incredibly good by recent standards. will see what tonight brings.

abida - that is conscientious budgeting! how many pence per minute did it work out at?

Try Miracle swaddling blanket from Mothercare. Lnow plenty of people who swear by it and it was a godsend to us. If you put it on properly then he will be a real Houdini if he manages to get free (my dd ocasionally managed one foot, but never more!)

It says use up til 12 weeks, but we did up until 17 weeks. My research showed that there was no probs swaddling for 6 months if it worked for you...as long as they got to wriggle about normally during the day obviously!