9 day old won't settle without me

[clairerow7]

My little girl will not sleep on her own.
Even if she is asleep and we put her down she wakes!
I know that she needs us and I know she needs reassurance but every night I am falling asleep with her on my chest after feeding and I am terrified I will wake and she has been smothered or fallen!!
Anyone have any advice?
When did your little one start sleeping in their own bed?

We had a cot with the side down pushed up to our bed when she was newborn. I'd spend the night half lying on her cot mattress cuddled around her as she wouldn't sleep otherwise and eventually learned to feed her lying down too (breastfed) to maximise my sleep!

After a while (few months?) It got to the point where I could roll away from her and leave her sleeping, but she didn't really start sleeping properly until she was in her own room at 6 months.

Yours is still really little! But I have heard other mums have had success by putting something that smells of you in the cot can help (like a shirt - as long as it's put in safely)

Hi there, have you googled the 4th trimester?

What your baby's doing is totally normal. The big wide world is so scary for little newborns so they just want to be cocooned and held all the time. Once they get to 12 weeks it all gets a lot easier I promise.

Oh and the only thing that our little one would sleep in was a sleepyhead. Magical things!

It gets better!

In the meantime:
Google isis safe cosleeping guidelines
Let your other half hold her while you kip
BF lying down, then roll away.

She won't go down at all... has to be with me! Won't even settle in our bed. Even if she did, that's not happening!! Won't settle next to me either. We've tried a t-shirt in the Moses but that's doesn't work.
My partner always has her so I can sleep when he can.., when she allows it!
I know she needs me right now and that's absolutely fine I'm just worried we will struggle to get her out of this.

Honestly you won't. She'll just grow out of it by 12 wks.

Thank you so much 😃

Very normal for such a tiny baby. My DD was like this too, and it was such a shock to my system! I found things that replicate sensation of being in the womb help:

-Swaddling (we had to persevere with this, but she loved it in the end!)

• White noise
• Dummy to suck, which is very soothing
• gentle patting on her chest (sort of like a heartbeat rhythm)

Other people find using a sling, breastfeeding (for comfort sucking) and co-sleeping work, which also help replicate those conditions.

Congratulations on your baby. And before you know it these mental newborn days will be over, and your baby (and you!) will be sleeping!

So glad you said you had to persevere with swaddling, our little one HATES it! She's such a wriggler and it restricts her too much.

Yes, it took a while, then she loved it - was in it until 6 months!

We used a miracle blanket, as she wriggled out of every other swaddle on the market!

My baby was like that, he's currently fast asleep in his cot upstairs, and sometimes, if he's off colour, sleeps next to me

He's nearly 9mo now and has slept at least part of every night in his cot for probably 5 months now

Definitely the best options are:

• safe cosleeping

Or

• dummy and swaddle

Mine refused a dummy (I persevered for 5 months) and was totally distressed in the swaddle. So cosleeping worked for us.

It is all entirely normal.

Here is some advice on safe cosleeping
www.dur.ac.uk/resources/isis.online/pdfs/ISIS_bed-sharing_2014.pdf

My DS son was completely the same until we bought him a sleepy head, It costs a stupid amount for a glorified pillow but it worked wonders for us!

We're going to look into a sleepyhead. I don't want to co-sleep! It's a risk I'm not willing to take.

Yes I second a sleepyhead, forgot to mention DD was swaddled and then put in sleepyhead. I also didn’t want to co-sleep.

Hope you all get some sleep soon.