5 week old (40+5 adjusted) stays awake for up to 5 hrs during day. Help

[HJ82]

My LO is a dream through the night but come 8-9am she's awake and wide eyed. I've tried soothing her and walking in pram etc but she gets overtired and won't sleep and then only stops screaming on boob. Pram walks help but I can leave the house at 9am and push her around between feeds all day!

Help!!

My little girl was like this and it was exhausting!! It turned out she had a cows protien allergy and was actually in pain all day

Have you tried a sling?

Overtired yes. We had a nightmare with this. How long is she awake before you start trying to get her to sleep? At that age it should be really short awake times, I can’t remember exactly but maybe 1 hour max.

Agree with the sling suggestion, much easier to walk round the house in a sling all day than outside with the buggy. Although my DD hated the sling but I wish I’d persisted. Also wish I’d persisted with a dummy.

How’s her feeding? Feeding problems = sleeping problems with young babies. DD turned out to have tongue tie and a crap latch which was causing lots of wind and probably a bit of hunger as she gave up on feeds too early and got full of air.

Also overtiredness is a vicious circle so it really is worth walking round all day with the buggy for say 2 or 3 days if that helps her nap more - at the end of those 2/3 days she should be less overtired and so will nap more easily / for longer.

So does she fall asleep on the boob? If so, she falls and stays asleep for naps like a normal newborn. If you’re trying go make her fall asleep off the boob, that’s your only problem.

Always fed mine to sleep, they are so small that's what they want. They will change as they get older.

Should have explained a bit better. Some days she will sleep after feeds just fine she falls asleep after a feed/burp/cuddle

But on most days after her 9am feed she won't sleep after subsequent feeds and just remains awake no matter what I do. (Apart from falling asleep in pram) By 2pm she won't soothe at all without boob and I have to have her on it for hours. As soon as she comes off it she will scream. Takes forever for her to eventually fall asleep. My issue is I need to get her sleeping between those am feeds when the sun is up. She doesn't fall asleep on boob then! Only when last resort and been up all day.

Thanks everyone!!

@minipie interesting- thanks! I'm taking her out in pram straight after her first sun up feed tomorrow 😬

@minipie tried sling. Doesn't fancy it.

@MissMoodyMoo yes my friend has this. Was awful getting baby diagnosed. Mine is still BF though and I don't eat dairy so no chance it's that. She also had formula in neonatal care for a week and no issue then.

Birthing ball, pat the bum, bounce gently side to side and watch TV. I it's worked with both of mine who will only ever sleep when forced to.

Awake time at that age should be 45 mins - 1 hour. I've always gone by the magic second yawn. First yawn I feed, nappy change and grab a drink, second is time to sleep

Oh and I can count on one hand how many times my boys have fallen asleep on the breast, they always seem to chill and look dopey, but then snap themselves out of it and want to play. Monsters!

She may be getting over-tired which will make it difficult for her to fall asleep so you need to catch her at the right time. At five weeks old, 45 minutes is the amount of time she should be awake, so your day looks like this:
8am - she wakes up. Let her have time in a bouncer while you have a quick shower and breakfast. Start looking for sleepy signs from 8:40 (staring into space, rooting, a yawn). Get the kettle on - get a drink and a snack ready for you.
As soon as you spot the sleepy sign/s, park yourself somewhere comfortable in front of a TV or phone with drink/snack and stick her on the boob. Whenever she stirs, put her back on the boob to put her back to sleep until she eventually feeds to awake.

Start counting 45 minutes again. Start looking for sleepy signs again after 40 minutes and get ready with your drink/snack/Netflix/MN as soon as you spot the first sign/s and stick the boob in again.

Repeat.

And repeat.

Maybe make one or two of those naps a pram walk for variety, but chuck her in the pram at first glaze over/yawn - don’t faff about and miss your window or it will be harder for her to get to sleep.

Doing this, she should have around four 45 min to 1.5 hour naps per day. She’ll be happier and more put downable during awake times which is when you can get stuff done, and you can have plenty of sit downs, snacks and trash TV under a baby getting enough sleep.

My overtired baby didn’t yawn or do any of the classic tired signs, she just got steadily more crazed and unhappy throughout the day. (Still like that age 6). It was around the 4/5 week mark that she stopped feeding to sleep.

I’d go with lots of pram for now. If you can get that first nap to be longer then the next one will go better etc. Have you anyone around who could take a shift or two of pram walking?

@ElphabaTheGreen thanks so much. She feeds every 2hrs. So you're saying during the day it should be every 45 mins or just as a pacifier? Or only put her on boob if she's been awake for 40+ mins. Ok! I'll try it!!! I just wait till she's hungry so I'm clearly going wrong there.

@ElphabaTheGreen this kind of routine doesn't make her NEED boob to sleep as she gets older right? I'd hate that. I hope to have a baby who can self soothe etc

@ElphabaTheGreen sorry I'm clearly exhausted and not thinking. Didn't factor in feeding time and sleep into that equation. Maths isn't my strong point so I'm not great with scheduling and timekeeping (feeds, expressing etc etc) during this experience has been hell.

HJ82 You have a baby who needs to sleep. If the only way she sleeps is with boob then that is a need just as much as feeding. Breastfeeding is never ‘just’ a pacifier - it meets just about all of a baby’s needs, short of nappy changing, and no one need is more important than another.

I wanted babies who could self-soothe as well. I didn’t get them, not because I created ‘bad habits’ but because they just weren’t developmentally ready to do it until they were older babies/toddlers and they would not sleep any other way. You have a baby that needs to sleep now and it sounds like you have nature’s own solution to achieve that - if you try and fight her into doing something she’s not developmentally ready for, ie sleeping off/away from you and not feeding to sleep, you’ll just win yourself a clingy, fractious, screamer. Only time will tell if she’ll grow into other methods of settling while she’s still a baby, but if feeding to sleep for every nap is what she needs now, then that’s what she needs.

@ElphabaTheGreen I'll give it a shot. She doesn't feed to sleep but I'll try. Like I said when she's overtired she uses boob but when she stays awake the boob makes no difference!

@ElphabaTheGreen also if 45 mins is the amount of time she should be awake then thats just a feed. She feeds as soon as she wakes. This would leave no time for activity and the community nurse from neonatal said I should be doing tummy time and activity gym when she's awake too. It's impossible to fit anything in if she's only awake during feed time. I did suggest that activity would over stimulate her but they said not at all 🤷🏼‍♀️ everyone has a different opinion. She woke at 815 and has been feeding since with a nappy and suit change. That's 45 mins. After this feed she likes to be wide awake and interact with us a bit. Then she won't go back to sleep! Not much point putting her on boob as she's not hungry so won't take it. The will only soothe on boob AFTER. She's been awake for hours. 😖

At that length of feed it sounds like she’s feeding to awake, which means it’s effectively part of that sleep cycle, so I’d count 45-60 minutes from the time she comes off the boob. This should give you plenty of time for interaction - remember that ‘tummy time’ is any time not spent on her back, so being carried upright or being sat on your lap looking outwards counts.

Feeding to sleep is not your only option, obviously, but you say when she’s wired it’s the only thing that settles her which tells me her preference is to feed to sleep when she’s ready.

The key is readiness almost as much as method. Miss your window and she’ll be harder and harder to get to sleep whatever you do and will stay awake for hours - furious and awake. The sleep kryptonite for my two was boob, pram, sling (plus dummy for DS2) or car. When DS2 was very tiny, it was boob + dark room + white noise. They do need a lot of help at this age to get to, and stay, sleep - it is definitely a learned skill for many babies. Some are natural sleepers, some definitely aren’t. I’ve found that babies who had a difficult start, which it sounds like you both did, especially need help, almost to make up for those lost early days of bonding.

the community nurse from neonatal said I should be doing tummy time and activity gym when she's awake too. It's impossible to fit anything in if she's only awake during feed time. I did suggest that activity would over stimulate her but they said not at all 🤷🏼‍♀️ everyone has a different opinion.
You know your baby better than anyone else; they're not one size fits all.

Tummy time can be on your chest or holding her on your shoulder to wind her. Forget about the baby gym for now – in a few weeks she'll have "woken up" and become more alert, you can do the gym then.

@ElphabaTheGreen thank so much for your help! Really appreciate it. The support I've had from the medical staff is a bit meh in terms of schedule. They're just saying feed on demand and the rest will follow 🙄 so far I've stayed in our room, curtains closed and fed and soothed her to sleep. She's not missed a single sleep yet! So this is working!! 😬! It just means we can't have any visitors or social time outside the house as I need to spend a few days getting her used to going to sleep. Not taking her into living room where tv is etc. This seems to be working. I've ended up putting her back on boob after she's fed and burped and she's fallen asleep with nipple in mouth and not sucking. I've then transferred her to cot and had success! I hope the rest of the day goes well.

I found Gina Ford really helpful, followed the day time routines. Night times I still fed through the night and kept baby in with me though.

At 5 weeks babies don't need activity time!!!