Getting 9 week old baby to sleep

[Mamabear04]

I'm finding it really hard to get my 9 week old to sleep. She seems to get overly tired and the only way to get her to sleep is to bounce on an exercise ball for what feels like hours before she can sleep and even then she will only sleep on me or DH.

My DH has been taking the brunt of this because I am still sore from the c-section and with him going back to work after the Christmas holidays I'm not sure I can manage it. I've tried everything else to get her to sleep but she is so stubborn even when I catch her tired cues early. She also won't nap during the day in her cot/moses basket and it's so hard to get her to sleep at nightyime. Any suggestions? I'm so tired - everyone says sleep when baby sleeps but that seems impossible!

Read up on fourth trimester. This is totally normal. Let her sleep on you. This too shall pass.

Oh my OP I’m so glad I clicked on this.

My DD is 12 weeks tomorrow and the only way I can get her to sleep during the day is to bounce her on an exercise ball. Most of the time I have to continue to bounce to keep her asleep (40 mins max), occasionally in the morning I can get off and she’ll sleep for 30 mins in my arms. No way she’ll go down in the cot/sleepyhead/pram. I have a 2.5 year old aswell and it’s really fucking hard I won’t lie. Spend the majority of my days bouncing on the stupid thing. Is this your first?

My 9wk old DD has to be fed to sleep at the moment, has about 15 minutes on the boob and then goes right off. I know it will be a pain to fix later but for the moment I'm just letting her do what makes her happy.

Oh it's so hard having a "Velcro" baby that won't let you put them down!
Have you tried swaddling? White noise? A dummy? A toy or similar that smells of you?
As PP said it does pass but it feels like it's going on forever at the time!

Is there a chance your baby has silent reflux? How does your baby feed? My DD would only be held upright and was a bad sleeper but she has reflux which is now controlled by medication. My DD likes it pitch black in her room, dummy, white noise.

Sorry but I think this is pretty normal and you just have to do whatever works for the time being.
Let her sleep on you during the day so she isn't overtired by evening. Work on getting her to sleep in moses basket at night when it's more dangerous for her to sleep on you.

Yes she is my first!

I've tried everything - white noise/ewan the dream sheep - neither of these work, dummys if all various shapes and sizes - she sucks on it and then gets more and more wound up when she spits it out, rocking her in her moses basket, putting her in a dark room, swaddling - she jerks herself awake so I thought this would help but she hates being restricted and this gets her more aggravated if she can't move her arms.

She has been solely BF up until last night when I gave her a small bottle of formula in the evening at the advice of the HV because she cries constantly in the evenings which we're finding it really stressful and exhausting.

She has been diagnosed with acid reflux and was initially prescribed Ranitidine but because that's been deemed unsafe now they've put her on omeprazole and gaviscon. I'm not sure that either of these work - the omeprazole is so hard to administer because it's a tablet and the gaviscon just gives her constipation. The HV said yesterday that she thinks she does that she doesn't even have acid reflux because she's such a happy baby in the morning and only cries in the evening and she is also growing really well. Now we dont know what to think because they diagnosed her so young- at 13 days

Sorry posted before finishing!

She has been diagnosed with acid reflux and was initially prescribed Ranitidine but because that's been deemed unsafe now they've put her on omeprazole and gaviscon. I'm not sure that either of these work - the omeprazole is so hard to administer because it's a tablet and the gaviscon just gives her constipation. The HV said yesterday that she thinks she does that she doesn't even have acid reflux because she's such a happy baby in the morning and only cries in the evening and she is also growing really well. Now we dont know what to think because they diagnosed her so young- at 13 days and we are thinking maybe we've pushed it to get her medicine and actually maybe she was just so young that she doesn't actually have it! Part of me thinks that keeping her upright for 20 minutes after she feeds at night to help the reflux just wakes her up when I put her down again.

I won't let her sleep on me at night because I'm so worried about SIDS so we persevere with putting her down in her cot but the last 2 nights we have co slept with her sleeping on her side and she has been much better. (We tried putting her to sleep on her side in her moses basket held in place by rolled up blankets at either side - not near her head -but she cried at this). I really don't want to make a rod for my own back with co sleeping too. I just dont know what to do and I'm exhausted!

My DD did the exercise ball thing for naps for nearly a YEAR. Drove me bonkers. Suddenly one day it stopped and now she sleeps for up to 3 hours in her cot. It will pass, I promise!

She had silent reflux caused by a dairy allergy. Might be worth cutting out dairy for a few weeks to see if it helps?

I co-sleep, you can do this safely. Mine is 16 weeks and its the only way we sleep, attached to boob!

We too were on meds for reflux OP. From day 6 she’s screamed all day long. It was horrible. I assumed something must be wrong. We were on a high dose for ages but it wasn’t making any difference. In hindsight I was just probably searching for something to be wrong so I could cling to the chance meds might fix it. When we stopped there was no difference.

We’ve co slept since day one, she would ever go in the cot. It’s the only way I’ve survived untill now. Honestly, just do it and just make sure you do it safely. Once you’ve done it a few times you find the anxiety around it goes and you’re far more able to handle the difficult days when you’re better rested. At 12 weeks now the crying has lessened, although she’s still a nightmare. Harsh reality is some babies cry a lot, especially in the evenings. It won’t last forever and it will pass. I know that doesn’t make it any easier. My DP had to take extended leave cause there was no way I could manage the both of them and he’s due back very soon, I’m near depressed at the thought

Oh and with difficult babies, there’s no ‘rods’, just doing what you need to to SURVIVE IT.

Bedsharing isn't a rod for your own back, it's biologically normal and socially accepted as a norm pretty much every where in the world except the uk.

I let DS sleep on me every nap or in pram/ push chair/ carrier while I walked the dogs til he was pretty much one. We bedshared at night from 6 mo until well, sometimes still, at 2 and a half as I'm too lazy to resettle and move rather than just climb in and snuggle up. It's not as bad as it used to be, and no day time naps now has made it much easier.

Do what you have to in order to get baby to sleep and yourself some rest!