Baby beyond tired

[orangepoppies]

My 8 week old just will not nap and I have absolutely no idea what to do.

He sleeps around 6 hours at night in 2 bursts but barely at all in the day. Today he's slept twice for 20 minutes since 5am so in 12 hours. He's therefore chronically overtired and so grizzly, but his eyes are wide open and he wants to look round at everything. I don't understand how he can physically stay awake.

I've tried the swaddling with a dummy and white noise, rocking, singing, dark room, moving pram, still pram, bouncer and on me and nothing will work.

This is pretty much the same every day and I'm almost beside myself as he's either feeding or crying for basically 14 hours a day

Congratulations. Sorry to hear you're having a tough time. It does get eaiser. There's loads of advice online and in books on sleeping but they all boil down to;

1. Baby has to fall asleep on his own without props. So no rocking etc. Dummy probably ok at this age but can become an issue. White noise and swaddling are good though. I found a dark room essential for both mine. Like literally pitch black otherwise they'd wake up quickly.

1. Some sort of routine. With an 8 week.old first nap should probably be 60-90 mins after waking then every hr or 2 thereafter.

This is MUCH easier said than done. My first was in a great routine by 3 months... 2nd was 9 months!

Sure you'll get some other good advice
Good luck

Hi Op - I will be disagreeing with the PP (no offence intended!) but really I think when baby is this overtired you need to do anything to get them to sleep. So that's feeding, rocking, dummy, whatever needs to be done. I do everything babyled, I appreciate not everyone does things that way but in this situation of absolute chronic overtiredness (and he is still tiny!) do anything you can to encourage sleep:

• feed lying down (breast or bottle in a dark room with loud white noise on. I use rain
• have you tried a swaddle
• have you tried a dummy

My baby didn't take either of the latter but @FATEdestiny swears by them and I know others have great success! But the first one works for us.

Good luck

X

Oops sorry @mixedupmummy I didn't realise you had already suggested darkness and white noise! In much agreement with you there but I also think feeding and rocking is fine - I still do this 7 months in but at 8 weeks I think it's definitely ok to do that x

White noise, rocking and a dummy in a dark room is our winning formula when all else has failed. I also have to disagree with getting them to go to sleep on their own (as lovely as that would be!), they need your help at that age, especially if they're overtired and he must be exhausted bless him.

I really feel for you that's really tough when they get so over tired. I would suggest concentrating on getting the first nap of the day sorted first. this is normally between 1 and a half hrs to 2 hrs since you LO wakes. I don't always wait for signs of tiredness I just think right you've been awake this long... it's nap time. Agree with others try white noise. Does baby startle a lot? I found that swaddling with arms in helped a lot. we then used a love to dream swaddle... look at jo jo Mamen.. this really transformed my DD sleep. I really feel for and hope some tips on here make a difference x

I agree with @crazycatlady5 that you should do anything to get him to sleep and not worry about bad habits right now. You are both still getting to know each other so make it as easy as possible for you both.

It's much easier to deal with habits when baby is older and you know him better so just focus on getting him to sleep in anyway you can. As lots of others have mentioned, swaddle and/or dummy. Try persevere with both for a few days at least - I really wish I knew this when mine was that age and I had tried harder.

Do you drive? There was nothing like a moving car for making mine drop off, especially if they were needing a sleep. I used to time my days around sleepy time, hanging off going to the shops until nap time so it wouldn't be a nightmare and then sitting in the driveway with a sleeping baby in the back because I didn't want to wake him bringing him inside.

Also feeding to sleep. I know a lot of people won't agree with this but needs must when you're shattered and so is baby. As he's getting older, his bottles are reducing and awake time increasing so I don't see it as a rod for my back.

Dc1 would only nap in a quiet dark room, anything going in would distract him so much he wouldnt sleep. I had an awful time until we worked that one out. The only thing that worked for DC2 at that age was feeding to sleep or walking to sleep in a sling. On a bad day I could be pacing briskly around the house for 20 minutes to settle her. Every baby is different - when you do get naps what are you doing, what does yours need?

I'd work on getting your baby to nap by any means, I'd only bother trying to cut down how much help you give getting them to sleep once they have got the hang of naps! Both of mine got much easier from about 5 months when they started to settle into a routine.

I had this with my baby until it culminated in her staying awake from 9am-9pm one day. We were both at the end of our tether! I happened to have a GP appointment the next day and she suggested that I insist on a lunchtime nap whatever it takes. I thought it would never work but two weeks on from this not only is baby having a long lunchtime nap, since then I've got better at noticing tiredness signs and she's now having a mini nap (maybe 40 minutes) in the morning at roughly 8.30am, then the two-hour lunchtime nap at midday, then another mini nap at 4ish. I have had to work hard at getting DD to sleep for these but she seems to be getting the hang of it and she is noticeably a happier baby on more daytime sleep!

Are you breastfeeding orangepoppies?

Lie down on a carpeted floor (or your bed if you're not bothered about watching tv) and breastfeed baby lying down, with no intentions of moving. Position yourself so you can watch tv or use your phone or just sleep (safely) while baby feeds.

Alternate emergency methods would be:

Drive around in your car without music or talking until baby goes to sleep. Keep driving for 30 mins after baby goes to sleep. Note time baby wakes. In 1 hours time, repeat. Repeating 1h awake > drive to get baby to sleep > keep driving for 30m > wake and have 1h awake time > start again with car rude. Repeat from when you wake to when you go to bed.

Do the "any sleep any how" for a week to get baby out of this over tiredness exhaustion. Only once baby is actually sleeping can you begin to tackle settling methods. Make sleep as easy as possible.

And give baby a dummy. They are ace.