Baby just not tired....?

[Kimberleigh]

Long post sorry.

My goodness this is tiring.

For some reason LO (6.5 weeks) wont settle after 9pm anymore! Im still up now!! She will nurse then appear to fall asleep, then bam! As soon as I move her she is WIDE awake!! I try and leave her a good 15 mins or so but it doesn't help. Then have to repeat the whole feeding process.

We are combination feeding but I've started to BF at night, she seems to just want to suckle all the time. I love BF but its taking its toll on me at night. Im not sure if its comfort or hunger. Ive got a good supply and she does nurse for a good 30 mins before falling sleep so i think she gets a full tummy.

Im trying to feed laying down as its nice and relaxing but as soon as she falls asleep, i slide her over a little, then she is fully awake again!

She is more alert during the day now too. she has a sleep of about 2.5-4 hours in the late afternoon / early evening but thats the longest stint she has all day. Then its the night time battle.

She used to be very good sleeper, but its all gone Pete tong. Lol.

I know its only a phase but my goodness im shattered...!

Hubby gives me a rest when he gets in, and i will Get some sleep then but i just dont
Get why the horrendous change in sleep behaviour :(

She will be awake from 8/9pm until 2/3am. Its so tiring!!

@Kimberleigh she's still really young and probably still trying to work out day and night...

My DD is now 14 months. I remember in those early weeks she had three 30 minute naps a day! She slept 7pm to midnight, then through to 4am and then awake for the day at 7am... she also sometimes had a feed at 10pm.

I know it's really hard but have you tried bleeping her day naps short? See if she's tired at bedtime?

What's your bedtime routine like?

Just when you think you've cracked it...they change it all around again!!

DD now takes one 2 hour nap In the day and sleeps 8pm to 8am.

@Bronnie2018 yeah thats most likely it hey.
Still very brand new. Which i appreciate. Just hard when she has skipped the first sleep.

We dont have a bedtime routine as such. She comes to bed when we do. Then its nappy, feed and put her to bed.

We are still up , but lights are dimmed and we watch tv on the ipad.

Perhaps i need to encourage more short naps rather than one long one.

She eventually went down at 2:30 ish and slept for 4 hours. Now Currently asleep after a feed.

She can self settle though. She was babbling away in the crib last night then fell sleep on her own. Doesnt always work though

Is she wanting to feed all that time? Mine cluster fed at that age, he was on the boob from 5 PM until 10pm. It stopped by about 10 weeks, and he spaced out the feeds a bit.
Why are you moving her? Can you not set yourself up for cosleeping and then try to go to sleep when she does?
This stage is SO tough. It'll get better soon!

Oh at 6.5 weeks I wouldn't be waking a baby from naps. I wouldn't do that until after 2 years, tbh. You don't want her getting overtired, that'll just make everything worse. She's still tiny.

My little boy was like this too and he was the perfect candidate for a dummy! My first didn't have one but once both boobs are empty and he still wanted to be latched on I knew it was just for comfort.
Boob out, dummy in worked plus a swaddle me wrap, he'd sleep for 4-6 hour stretches.

Agree with PP that I wouldn't wake baby up from naps. Just let her sleep as she needs to.

It is tough at this stage, there's growth spurts and developmental leaps all the time. Have you looked at the Wonder Weeks app? Supposedly helps you to know when there's a new change in their brain development which is why they get fussier. May be pseudo-scientific but it helped me when my LO would not let me put her down!

Also there's nothing wrong with baby feeding for comfort, it's biologically normal for babies to do this. A dummy is an artificial nipple after all. It is EXHAUSTING but really really normal!

To a pp, boobs don't "empty".

OP, newborns are chaos demons. Just go with it. It could be hunger, comfort, or building your supply: there are growth spurts coming! It'll change next week, and the next, and the next. And then they stop sleeping altogether.

Im trying to feed laying down as its nice and relaxing but as soon as she falls asleep, i slide her over a little, then she is fully awake again!
Don't slide the baby; learn to ninja roll away. Or slide yourself away a little and sleep with your nipple within easy access for her to wake and nuzzle in.

If she's doing a big long sleep in the afternoon/evening, can you go to bed with her then? You could even do a bedtime routine with it to reinforce "routine = big long sleep", with the view to pushing the routine later on when she sorts herself out. Babies can't tell the time, she won't know it's 4pm, she'll just know "the big milk human puts me in the plastic bowl of wet, then dries me again and puts me in the long bag, then intones the object of pictures and words, and that's when I do big sleep".

Don't cut her daytime naps short it's been proven not to aid night sleeping and just makes them overtired.
My 5 1/2 week old has the classic fussy evenings where she finds it really hard to settle between 6pm and midnight ish - it is common for them to feel super tired but struggle to get to sleep. I put my dd in a sling at about 6/7pm, breast feed her in it, stand up and sway her to sleep - it really soothes her to be snuggled against me and rocked. She stays in a deep sleep in the sling only. Then I take her to bed with me at about 10/11pm, she snuggles right up against me and I let her feed/suckle on the breast as and when she wants. She needs the comfort, breasts came BEFORE dummies so there's no such thing as "being used as a dummy" - they need comfort in knowing you are there. And I wouldn't risk nipple confusion with dummies at such an early age.
I sleep in the day with her when I can.

Thanks All.

So many opinions on starting a bedtime routine at this stage.

Some say do, some say dont. So confusing!

I like a plan, and i get anxious if it doesn't go to plan.

Her afternoon naps aren't at a consistent time either. Some times its 2pm, sometimes its 6pm! Depends on the kind of say we have had.

Just going to go with it i guess, but i do feel like we have done something wrong for her to have missed the 10/11pm sleep.

Mine has always been quite fussy in the evenings, and I feel I tried everything to get her to go down at 7. So many nights spent in the pitch black with her! But I realised it just wasn’t working as she simply isn’t tired then - I get more tears from trying to put her down than from letting her stay up. Now I follow her cues and I get some sort of evening back

Does she just have one nap per day? That is unusual for such a little one. Is it possible to get her to nap in the morning by taking her for a walk, bouncing in the chair etc. Rather than getting to an exhausted stage at 4pm and crashing?

oh @burritofan your routine description is awesome

OP: you're getting 4 hour stretches with a newborn in the 4th trimester. That's pretty good. It may yet get worse as well as better. She doesn't yet know day from night.

6 weeks is usually a growth spurt so they do want to suckle a lot, it's putting the order in for what they need.

@BeanBag7 yeah she has more naps, but has a big one late afternoon/early evening.

Im learning that All these phases are short lived. Things are changing again already

Does she have a dummy? X

@loveskaka hi. No not yet. We are using it as an absolute last resort. If we cant settle her without then we will try

You say you think she just like to suckle, a dummy might be all she's needs, my ds only has a dummy at bedtime. X