23 days old DS only sleeps in my arms - help!

[phdlife]

For the first two weeks he was the Best Baby Ever (tm), slept like a champion. Now he's decided he won't sleep in his basket during the day, only on my chest or in my arms. He's also sleeping much less, on account of waking howling if I dare try to put him down - I think he's making himself desperately overtired (certainly the effect he's having on me!)

I can't bear to let him lie there and cry as MIL suggests; nor am I coping with going whole days unable to do anything but act as a human mattress! What can I do? How long do you let tiny ones like this cry to see if they will drop off? He's done that only twice, mostly he just winds himself up and it's doing for me! (He's good at night - wakes for a feed every 2hrs and goes straight back to sleep.)

get a sling.......then you can carry on and do stuff whilst he is close to you

at 23 days, he doesn;lt realise he is seperate from you yet..let him be close to you and enjoy these new born moments, they go so quick

hi phdlife my dd was the same, i think they are so sleepy for the first few days that it takes them a while to become a bit more alert. She also never slept in the basket during the day, but i would sneak her in there once she had fallen asleep on me so I could do stuff, but I'd wait until she was really asleep. I also used to put her in the sling to get her off to sleep at least that way i had free hands!
I wouldn't worry - your ds is still very little and new - I didn't regularly start putting dd down awake into her cot until she was around 5 or 6 weeks old, now she's nearly 10 months and I would love it if she still slept on me occasionally! Sounds like he's great at night which is fantastic at 23 days - mine took months!!!!!

it doesn't matter how sound asleep he is - max. 10 minutes after he goes in the basket he's awake and howling. I'm only getting some laptop time now because DH is at home and DS is sleeping on him - don't know what I'll do when DH is at work full time.

might try a sling but DS is already over 10lbs!

they all want to do this - it is normal. Just go wtih it for now. your baby needs you like no one has ever needed you before

As the others have said, this is really normal for this age. It will slowly decrease over the next few weeks. HAve you tried co-sleeping? I had the same situation as you & wished I'd been brave enough to co-sleep.

We coslept and by six weeks, this problem just sort of disappeared. DD now sleeps happily alone at night but she's still a bugger for wanting to be cuddled to sleep and held in the daytime. (She's six months).

As others have said, at the moment your baby doesn't know the pair of you are separate and frankly, life is scary, especially when your son has only just discovered that there are arms and legs that flail but he can't control yet.

Also, try swaddling to make him feel more secure if you aren't already.

sling is a fab idea.

If it is any consolation this was me - my ds only slept when held = I felt like it would be forever, it wasn't.

I know this is no help whatsover-but when I read the thread title I just thought "aaawww how sweet".
It seems very sweet to me,never to return to the baby stage.
Sorry bit of a hijack

What about a dummy?

sounds a pretty typical small baby thing! beware of leaving him to cry - not only imo mean but also he'll just get loads of wind then be up half the night - when mil is not around to deal with the fallout!
a sling is a brill way to deal with this stage - you could get a cute pouch and snuggle him up in it - my freedom 'coorie and carry' is good

What Lulumama said.

Enjoy these early days cuddles - they dont last long

Its a popular 'trend' these days to insist babies sleep all by themselves without need for cuddles or feeding. It is of course, crap.

This little thing was curled up in your womb for 9 months - its what he is used to.

I had the same, I used a baby sling all the time as we were moving house and there were builders all over the new house so I couldnt put him down anywhere most of the day. They used to laugh that I had the quietest baby they had ever seen. He was also pretty big and my back and hips used to ache like mad by the end of the day. It was a great excuse to kip on the sofa with the baby for an hour or two each day. At about 6 weeks I started to get him down for the odd nap. He is now eight and I cant get him out of bed!