My LO hates sleeping it seems. He will NEVER just fall asleep on his own in the day. I either have to put him in the sling or buggy or rock him (usually this makes him hysterical and eventually he will go to sleep which I don’t feel great about). I’ve seen other people’s babies fall asleep with a gentle rocking/or time in a swing but my boy just doesn’t do that. Even if I try to gently rock him on my chest he gets so furious and hits my chest with his hands and head. I really don’t know what I did to make him like this.
At night he is equally awful. I try to get him to nap a lot in the day (once he has been awake for an hour I wind him down and eventually get him to sleep) so I don’t think the issue is that he is overtired come nighttime because my whole day is devoted to getting him to have a reasonable number of naps. He definitely knows it is nighttime because he behaves differently after a feeding at night - he will feed to sleep at night but won’t in the day for example. At the moment he needs resettling after almost every sleep cycle so we are talking hourly wakings. He seems to wake himself up with his arms and legs when he moves into lighter sleep and can’t soothe himself. We don’t jump on him straight away if w hear him wake and on occasions he might settle for another cycle but mostly he starts to cry and needs resettling by us. Resettling him can sometimes be quick - a pat/dummy/quick hold in arms. But basically me and my husband are up and down like a yo-yo in the night. At night he seems to want to feed every three hours...if I try to feed him at every waking he gets angry. He is EBF. He has always been like this so i don’t think it’s just linked to a wonder week or growth spurt.
I honestly feel like I’ve done something wrong. I have friends who talk about 5/6/7 hours stretches and we have only had a couple of 3 hour stretches without resettling.
At first I wasn’t too bothered about his sleep because me and my husband have a good shift system so we both get enough sleep but I’m just getting increasingly worried that’s he isn’t getting proper rest and that this is never going to end. It makes the daytimes really hard to enjoy because I’m constantly obsessing about getting him to nap. It’s a nightmare.
He’s on medication for silent reflux and I’m completely dairy and soya free after he had lots of feeding issues (which seems to be gradually improving). He seems so restless when he is asleep - I often let him nap on me in the day just to guarantee some decent sleep so he isn’t furious and overtired but even then he seems constantly agitated whilst asleep. I don’t think it’s gas because he burps really well.
Any ideas/similar stories with a happy ending.