Baby won’t go down to sleep

[Watsonberry]

So my newborn turned 2 weeks old yesterday and so far we have had the worst 36 hours! She now won’t sleep unless it’s on me or my husband and won’t stay asleep in her Moses basket or crib for longer than 15mins even overnight! Is this normal and does anyone have any advice on how to combat this?

Suuuuper normal, you just have to ride it out. Sleep in shifts, and read up on the 4th trimester - knowing the science behind it made it much more bearable for us!

Things you can try are...

Swaddling
White noise
Warm the cot with a hot water bottle before
Put a tshirt youve worn over the mattress

But really the only thing that fixes it is time.

Congratulations on your new baby. She is very young still so everything will change constantly. At the minute it is incredibly warm which is uncomfortable for baby as much as you? Do you breastfeed? If so I would suggest laying quietly with her in just a nappy and get some skin to skin contact. If you bottle feed I would still recommend the same. She will change constantly over the next few weeks. Try not to get too stressed about it right now as that will also affect her. Assuming she is feeding well, keeping wet nappies and otherwise appears healthy try to rest with her. If you can get a break and have a cool bath or chill out for a bit it will be all the better for baby and you

Also as previous poster said, newborns really do respond well at night to swaddling. They are used to sleeping in a tight confined space in your belly and they have a 'Moro' reflex (I think that's what it's called) where they jerk their limbs and wake up. That's where swaddling can really help.

I'm in exactly the same position OP.. DD was born on 22/07/20 and in the last few days has gone from feeding well and sleeping deeply, to lapping at my milk and then going for me like a Pirana fish and dozing for short spells... She's better if I put her in the stretchy wrap so I'm doing a lot of that, on the theory that at least I have my hands free to help the other 2... The only thing keeping me going is the fact I've been through it before and we all survived

You may want to consider safe co-sleeping also. As pps say she's still very young and needs to be near you to feel safe.

We co-slept the first 3 months and it worked very well for us.

I second that PP. Co sleeping saved my sanity the first 3 months. You will be told it's dangerous but as long as you follow all the safety measures it's amazing and lovely to cuddle your baby all night too. Don't be worried that you're committing yourself to it forever (as I thought), as soon as my son hit 3 months he goes down to sleep in his Moses basket, swaddled, from 10-4/5 every night.

It's totally normal. We also co-slept (for 5 months with each DS in the end) before getting them into their own rooms.

One thing that helped me was walks and getting baby to nap in the pram during the day so at least he wasn't on me then!

The S's of newborn phase:

Swaddle
Sucking (dummy)
Shushing (whitenoise)
Swaying

Will doubtless get flamed for this, but velcro swaddles absolutely saved us when our two were very little

@bravefox what's wrong with Velcro swaddles?

[quote btbtbt]@bravefox what's wrong with Velcro swaddles? [/quote]
Well, quite. We thought they were great as both our LOs always got out of swaddling.

I just thought MN would pounce on them and say it was an to putting my child in prison!

@bravefox ah I thought you knew something about them that I didn't! I love them too and so do the babies bless them.