5 week old co sleeping problem!

[SparklingNarwhal]

My little man is 5 weeks old and has started to not sleep on his own unless being hugged or next to me on the bed.
I've looked all over the internet, tried all the tips, a baby nest in his cosleeper cot, hot water bottles, white noise, swaddling (he can roll on side and break most swaddles I do) tilt the cot, hand on him and shhing when he get disturbed, using a grosnug instead of blankets (he kicks those off in minutes) and were creating a bedtime routine.

But the problem is, once we're got him asleep and try to put him down in the cot, he wakes up. Either immediately or in 10 mins and starts to fling his arms and legs.

Worried we're creating a bad habit. A lot of baby books arent really helpful as they cite the same tips we're trying with no success. Is he too young for sleep training? His crib is colder than our bed but a hot water bottle only heats up a tiny patch and only for the start of the night.

He did sleep better at night in the first few weeks, is this a phase?

It depends. My almost 5 week old is the same but for us we are happy to co sleep. Do you feel comfortable co sleeping? Do you get sleep? Then crack on.

I should imagine he is too young to sleep train. I think it’s 3 months +.

I don’t think you should be worrying about creating bad habits at this age. Baby is still so tiny and new. Nothing wrong with extra bedtime cuddles if it helps him to sleep.

Absolutely not following guidelines in the slightest but I was at breaking point here...

The only thing that gave me a bit of sleep at night was putting our feeding pillow (just a big v cushion) inside the Moses basket making a big squishy donut shape and sort of wedging her into the slit so she was more upright and being "hugged" by the cushion. She would settle like this for an hour or so atleast which was better than the 20 minute cycles she usually had.

She ended up using the cushion in her cotbed and as a pillow in her normal bed as she grew too so I think it was a comfort thing

The tips you mention did not work for our children either. We persisted with our first, which meant the nights were a hell of constantly resettling, and trying to get him to sleep in his moses basket, then later cot.
We didn't do it with the next 2 and just coslept. Our first child did sleep better as an older baby due to all the endless resettling in the cot(we never did cc), but I genuinely don't know if it was worth it.
I guess it is up to you what you do, but it is totally normal for none of the suggested sleep tactics to work. Good luck, it is very tiring having a baby that won't settle.

You can get a microwave 'hot water' bottle from Amazon which stays warm for about 10 hours so you can put it back in his Moses basket when you get him up.
How heavy is he? Is he ready for a proper sleeping bag?

Swaddling was the only thing that worked with mine at this age. With practice I could swaddle him tightly enough around his upper arms that he felt secure and couldn’t roll out of it. Without it he would just startle and wake himself up.

He’s now 13 weeks and has just started being able to wriggle an arm out so I’ll be weaning him into a sleeping bag soon.

My 10 week old was like this (still is a bit).
It was absolute hell. I don't know how we made it through the nights.
We introduced a routine at 7 weeks ish, bath at 7pm then into dark bedroom for feed to sleep then into cot. Wake up. Back to cot. And repeat. She finally started going down for a few hours about 11/11:30. When she was 8 weeks she had her vaccinations and the next day she did not sleep the entire day and that night she went down at 7:30pm and didn't wake until 3:50am! Every day since she's stayed awake all day and slept similarly at night. After her big chunk of sleep she's still rubbish and won't go down for more than an hour or so but at least we're getting a chunk of sleep! I think she just doesn't need all the daytime sleep that most babies have (disclaimer, I don't actively keep her awake and she'll snooze on the boob or in the car but quickly wakes up again).

Nice to know I'm not alone.

I'm partially ok with the cosleeper thou I am a tad worried given all the info out there. I'll look into that 10 hour hot water bottle thing, could be useful. Since the purflo baby nest didn't work at all I'm going to remove it. It seemed to just create a barrier between me and him

He's currently 10 pounds 3 ounces, the grosnug sleep bags seem to work, no more kicked off blankets!!! He was born super strong, step reflex and lifting his head. I think he fit a normal sleep bag pretty soon.

I tried breastfeeding him in the cosleeper ... Super uncomfortable ...