6 week old won't go back to sleep

[FrancescaSwan]

After breastfeeding my daughter through the night she won't go back to sleep. She generally wakes every 3 hours ish through the night to feed. She feeds well and isn't particularly windy. She has a clean nappy or if it is wet/dirty I will change it (I generally do this around 2am).

The only thing that will get her to sleep is if I hold her and walk around the house. However it takes about an hour of walking, putting her down, then she cries, then picking her up and walking again until she goes back to sleep. I'm exhausted walking around the house for hours at night.

I'd be happy to cuddle her to sleep in bed but she just cries and squirms until I start walking again. I'd go in the living room and put a box set on but no I have to be walking to settle her and I'm exhausted.

I don't know if I am asking for help or just ranting at this point but if anyone has any advice?

Thanks

Is it just the motion that she likes? Could you get a rocking chair?

Oh bless you, I remember this well, I took many 3am drives with ds between the 4 and 10 week point, he liked the him of the engine, but no music.
As @GiveHerHellFromUs suggested, could it just be the motion? Try sitting with her and rocking back and forth, side to side and see if that helps at all.

Thanks for your reply. I could get a rocking chair I haven't tried that. The problem is she seems to know the difference between being rocked sat down and rocked stood up and she won't settle for the sitting down rock unfortunately.

Also here isn't enough room in our bedroom for a rocking chair so would need to put it in another room and that kind of defeats the point as I'd still need to get out of bed and go in to another room. I'd ideally like to stay in bed and just rock/cuddle her to sleep. I have a "next to me" type bed but there's no point in it because I'm constantly having to get out of bed.

It will pass. It is just one of those phases, at the time it seems never ending though! We are at 13 weeks and her sleep is so different now (and will change again at 4 months). You just have to go with it for now, you won’t be this exhausted forever but I know it feels like it!

@FrancescaSwan my LO was the same at the same age but for some reason the rocking chair worked. Maybe it's just a slightly different motion.

Honestly getting out of bed for 15 minutes will be much easier than walking around for an hour.

@megan2018 thanks. To be honest I think you're right. It feels like forever but in reality she's only been needing the walking for about three weeks. As I was writing the post it kind of came to me I just have to suck it up and keep going. I'm just so tired at night and sick of walking around the flat all night.

@GiveHerHellFromUs thanks I might do a little online shopping today see if I can pick up a cheap one and give that a go

@FrancescaSwan
I wasted a lot of energy trying to change my baby’s behaviour at night to start with. My lovely HV said that for the first 13 weeks at least you should follow the baby’s lead and do what they need. Trying to make them fit with us is a waste of time. It doesn’t help the tiredness but mentally it helped me cope. Good luck! We have had 6 lovely easy weeks and now its all gone to pot again but it’s easier this time to know it’s just a phase.

Everything is a phase and this is completely normal.

Have you tried breast feeding lying down, feeding her to sleep? Another bad habit to get into but at least you could get some rest.

Take your top/t-shirt nighty off and tuck it safely whew she can smell it. Put your hand on her (having swaddled and stuck in a dummy if that Keeps her happy) and then fall asleep (hopefully)