Baby won't fall asleep without crying its eyes out

[LadyRenoir]

So, my lovely baby boy 13 weeks today never goes to sleep on his own. Maybe that's a wrong choice of words... He cried when he is tired (or even more, he screams!) when he gets tired when we play with him and it gets a bit too much etc. But he will not be able to fall asleep when put in cot- we tried swaddling etc. He used to fall asleep on our chests, but a few weeks ago that went out of the window and now he just shuffles and rubs his head against us and cries out of frustration.
His eyes will be wide open until we take him up in our arm and do a lot of 'shhhhhhhhhhhhh', at which point he screams more for a few minutes and then just falls asleep, and after 15 or so minutes we can put him in his cot. He just does not go to nap or sleep at night in a different way, same with his night feeding- we finish the feed, and then he needs to scream for a minute of five before falling asleep like a log. It's been like this for a few weeks and it's really frustrating and tiring, I don't understand why he just can's normally feel asleep without tiring himself like that!

Sleep regression and you're probably letting him get overtired

My baby couldn't sleep in his cot properly until he was 10 months old. I had a Moses basket and then a small side sleeper crib. He also had to fall asleep in a vibrating bouncer for a long long time...

Not wanting to fall asleep alone/in cot is totally normal, and that's a separate issue to the crying.
I agree that maybe you could look at how long between naps it is in the day, it's easy for them to get tired or overstimulated.
Try maybe seeing if he fancies a cuddle or downtime 2 hours after each wakeup. Their needs for naps change as they develop, try to be flexible and see if offering more sleep helps.

How are you feeding him, bottled milk or breast?

SORRy should add, if he’s bottle fed he could have become intolerant to the milk hence the screaming..maybe he’s getting a sore belly..
my nephew was a screamer and would hold his breathe as well practically going blue,
i should point out it’s been years since I had a baby I just associate screaming with - belly pain or hunger..sorry can’t be of more help
.ask your nurse when you take him for his checkups though..
Hope you find your answer there’s nothing worse than being tired and your baby’s on full on scream mode

We used to miss our ds’s sleepy signals and he would then be overtired. We learnt to spot the first eye rub or yawn and then try and get him to sleep. It was still a struggle but we often would take him for a walk, rock him, bounce him in his chair, carry him in the sling or go for a drive. When he was older we worked on falling asleep by himself but that wasn’t until he was 9 months or so. I bought the book ‘teach your child to sleep’ and it had routines, information and techniques that we found invaluable.

Our baby is bottle fed.
He does not give us signs if he is tired. He has a short attention span and goes straight from playing in the bouncer happily to full on screaming when tired/frustrated, or hungry.
He has reflux and we will be pursuing checking for CPMA, but our GP is pointless and paediatrician is in 4 weeks' time, so we have to wait until then to resolve anything.
He actually sleeps pretty well at night ONCE put in, from 7/8-11 pm when he has a feed, then wakes up at 3, then around 6. But it just takes forever to make him sleep. He is comfortable on our shoulders, but only for some time and will not fall asleep on the shoulder as he likes looking around and being carried around the house (so not sitting on sofa for us). he only falls asleep on his back while lying in my arms, screaming. Otherwise he just lies there for some time with his eyes wide open before crying. Once he cries for a bit he falls asleep.

Now, he starter doing this two or so weeks ago or so. Around the time he stopped falling asleep on our chests- which did not involve any crying or shuffling.

he does seem overtired, but he only falls asleep in the sling during the day and wakes up instantly when put in the crib, and half the time it's not even a proper sleep, but 'resting' (I can see his palms opening and closing, he is clearly not fully asleep, his breath is not very slow).

Do you have a health visitor you can speak to?
i think some of the problem may be partly yours, it’s a mistake most mums do esp first time mums and that is have your child fall asleep in your arms. It’s the worst thing you can do because they expect you to hold them all the time. You’re going to have to have a lot of patience to try break that habit he’s gone into, he needs to learn to fall asleep on his own not you holding him.
Now I remember years ago reading a baby mag when I had my kids, it was put the baby down in their bed and leave the room..if they cry let them cry for no longer than 10 minutes then go back in give them a cuddle, calm them down and repeat the process until they go to sleep...this was years ago they’ve probably changed that advice now!. but you’re child is screaming so I really do advise you to go speak to a baby nurse or a health visitor and don’t wait weeks as your exhausted and I totally utterly sympathise with you as my nephew was a screamer as well

Ok..call up tomorrow ask for an urgent appointment I think you need help and advice more than what we can give you

My little girl was like this. Absolutely zero sleepy signals, and would go from this to absolutely hysterical screaming because she was tired. The problem was if we tried to put her down after a certain amount of time preemptively she wouldn't be tired.

It was a real problem as I also had a 20 month old and really struggled to get baby off to sleep for every nap. There was so much work involved with it and she'd hardly ever feed to sleep.

My son wasn't like that at all! I can't remember when it started to get better! I think it was something that just took a while for her to grow out of. Even now that she's 18 months I still have to hold her to sleep for her nighttime sleep, already ugh she goes to sleep at lunchtime on her own.

Sorry to not offer much advice, it was a real struggle for me so i hope you find something that works!

I had a similar baby who seemed to need to cry before falling asleep.
He became a toddler that went to the toilet in the night, crying all the time until he put his head back on his pillow.

At some point, I just let him cry himself to sleep, with regular reassurance at short intervals, but he did fall asleep within 5-10 min whereas he'd cry for much longer if he was held anyway. And he did sleep for longer.

I think (and I passed this age a while ago) that babies this age usually need a nap every hour and a half/ 2 hours so if they're awake for much longer than this they get easily overtired.

Remember that bright lights/ toys/ faces are stimulation for them so it doesn't take much.

You have a child who can't fall asleep in their own which is tricky. My first just put himself to sleep but my second and third needed effort to get them to sleep. Dark room, cuddling, quiet or a walk in the buggy.

You need to take charge and sort of decide, right sleep time for you and persevere. It's so hard I know! But he is very tiny, it get easier.

I should add that DC2 and 3 are like little Duracell bunnies. They go and go and go and then crash! The trick is to catch them before they go over the top. I'm still working on it!

You can never hold your baby too much. You can hold them too little and before a year you should not be doing any sleep training.

There are lots of old wives tales out there.

OP ypu have done nothing wrong. You can't hold a 13 week old too much!

I really think overtiredness may be your issue. Will he sleep in the pram or in the car? If you can get him to have more quality sleeps, he will be more chilled and more likely to go to sleep on his own.

DD is 11 weeks. At night she sleeps like a dream. 10 hours straight with 1 short feed. (It is genetic I think as mine have all been like this )

However during the day, she really struggles to get to sleep, like your DS. She will sleep in the pram and I find if I get a good walk and therefore sleep in the morning, she sleeps better later in the say too.

Good luck OP x

@benandhollysmum

I don't think cuddling a new baby to sleep can ever be wrong personally. And whilst I have used controlled crying with older babies, 13 weeks is way too young for this.

OP is your baby on any medication for reflux? He sounds a lot like our reflux baby who is only able to settle when he's on ranitidine and omeprazole.

go to gp get infant gaviscone and Ranitidine, my son was like that at 3 weeks once we got the reflux sorted he was like a different, happier baby x

Reflux is a possibility, as my baby slept sitting up at times.

My baby is 24 weeks.
At 13 weeks she was hysterically crying before bed most nights, getting herself into such a state. She wasn’t awake for too long between naps, I was a slave to whatever the guidance time is for that age. She also only fell asleep on me, and all naps were on me.
Around 5 months the screaming went (95% of the time theres no bedtime tears now) and she now refuses to sleep on me. I didn’t have to take any drastic action for this, she just got biggr.
Keep cuddling!!
I hated the crying, my stress levels were through the roof every night

My DS was similar so signs of tiredness until overtired and thenwoukdnt nap well. I found looking for patterns and giving plenty of opportunities for naps worked well like in car, sling, pram. Cot baos didn't happen for us for 6 months and prob 12 months before we could put him down with minimal intervention.

Every baby is so different but sounds like you need to lower your expectations a bit