3 week old night time sleep help!

[Snoozysleepthief]

I appreciate that it’s early days for us but hoping someone can offer some advice! My lb is 3 weeks old today and since we brought him home from the hospital he has been a great day time sleeper. He’ll nap in the car, the pram, the sling and in the house he goes down in his sleepyhead with no problems at all and will generally nap for up to a couple of hours at a time before waking for a feed (bf ALOT!)

Our issue is night time...he’ll generally sleep from 9-11, feed and then from 12-2/3ish and wake for another feed and after that he really struggles to get back to sleep. He is in a next to me attached to my side of the bed and in his sleepyhead in a grosnug. We also have a Ewan the dream sheep and I have tried using white noise from my phone to get him back to sleep. He has struggled with trapped wind so I tend to keep him upright for 20 or so minutes after a feed and then put him back down. After his middle of the night feed he’ll go down soundly for half an hour or so before he starts kicking his wee legs, grunting, groaning and straining. I’ve been thinking that it’s more trapped wind so getting him up to cycle his legs, massage his tummy and we’ve been using Infacol before every feed but nothing seems to help. From then he is up pretty much for the rest of the night until I get him up and washed in the morning and then he’ll quite happily go back to napping in his sleepyhead!

Sorry for rabbiting, being constantly awake from 3am pretty much everyday is exhausting me and my dp is back at work so there’s not really that much assistance that he can give me! I just want to know what I can do to help my wee man, he’s so content except from that period through the night and I can’t work out why!!

Any help or suggestions are very welcome!!

3 weeks is so young, I found my ds had his nights and days muddled for the first 6 weeks. Just had to ride it out really. I started the Gina ford routine soon after that and he has been pretty good sleeper. By 11 weeks he was sleeping from 7-10.30pm when I would dream feed him and then back down till 6/7am.

Very normal and not really anything you can do about it yet i’m Afraid. It will soon change.

That’s good to know that it’s normal, it’s just stressful hearing him strain so much and not being able to do much to help him! Being awake through the night certainly doesn’t affect him, he’s currently wrestling away quite happily with my boob! He’s also farting away like a wee trooper so hopefully he’ll be less uncomfortable tonight!

My DD is 2 weeks and 2 days and is exactly the same as you describe! She sleeps so peacefully during the day but at night is full of wind, refuses to burp and has really bad hiccups and then won't settle for hours. How long have you been using the Infacol? We started it last week before each feed and I think it's maybe starting to make a slight difference.

It’s hard going isn’t it and you feel totally helpless for them :( we’ve been using the Infacol for 5 days now but I’m not convinced that it’s really making a huge difference...the HV said to persevere until he’s 4 weeks and if I’m still not convinced then to try gripe water. I’m just not sure if it’s one of those things that will just sort itself out as his wee system matures and the medicine is really for my benefit so that I feel like I’m at least doing something to help him! I found a great video on YouTube with massage techniques to release the gas from low down in his system, there are three different actions for you to do - waterworks, sun and moon and I love you. I’ve actually found that probably the most effective but it’s taking a lot of perseverance and willpower to do it in the middle of the night! Worth a try though!

After he's had his night feed, try laying him on his tummy in his bed and hopefully this'll help to bring up a big burp. It's really hard when they fall asleep when they need to be winded because as you say, they wake up shortly afterwards in pain.

Once he's burped, you can turn him over again.

Also try swaddling in case he's startling himself awake and a dummy to help with comfort sucking and the wind.

Thanks rockin, I’ll definitely give the tummy trick a try...he always falls asleep as soon as he’s fed in the middle of the night so hopefully that will help and stop him being so uncomfortable so soon after. His arms are swaddled in his grosnug...he doesn’t sleep in that during the day and doesn’t move his arms around but when he’s struggling at night I can see him trying to wriggle inside the snug. I tried him with a dummy for the first time on Sunday and he was not a fan but I’m persevering!!!

I don't know why but when you put the dummy in, if you tap it with you nail on the plastic bit, it makes them start to suck it.

Also probiotics can really help their digestive system. Biocare do some which are suitable from birth. They have great customer service if you want to give them a ring to discuss. My ds takes the infantis powder

I have two, the second now 6 months, and what I’ve realised is this ... newborns don’t do well sleeping flat on their own. They struggle with wind increasingly through the night (some more than others). I had huge problems with my first and then realised that the trick is a chair you can sit them up in, in their sleeping bag, and rock them to sleep. Start them in their cot then do this when it gets to that time of night when they’re griping and won’t go down again. Try it, trust me! Being that bit more vertical really really helps. And they will gradually not need it...