Sleep Help Please!

[zippityzip]

Don't know how much of a response I'll get here and it may seem quite trivial but here goes. I also feel like I know better as she's my third but she's a bit of wildcard, not easy like the first two, so I've lost all my confidence.

DD is six weeks - we had a rocky start, surgery, reflux, infections etc which meant sleep was horrific at first and she was never put down. Anyway, addressed things one problem at a time and she's on medication for reflux and generally loads better albeit still present. She's now bottle fed.

She feeds loads in the day and well over 11lbs now - no issues with feeding.

Current routine is bath at 9.30pm and then massage, milk and put down with white noise. 9times out if 10 she will go down to sleep and then she's up again between 1am-3am for a feed. And then depending on if she's being fussy or not - 4am-6am for another feed.

However what we do have is screaming from 8pm onwards - regardless of what we do. Swinging rocking bouncing singing, just putting her down and leaving her. Dummy. More milk etc. She's tired - but won't give in. I'm guessing it's that "purple crying/colic/witching hour" situation but it's becoming really draining.

Anyway I'm shattered with the night needs which is to be expected. But I don't know if I need to adjust her routine?

Shall I do the bedtime routine at 7.30pm and get her down to bed then instead of subjecting myself to the two hours of shrieking - or continue as I am??

If I do change it - is it something I have to do gradually and bring it forward by 15 mins or so every night or just throw caution to the wind and stick to 7.30 and have done with it?

I do miss having an evening as I'm studying as well and get no time to do that at the moment. Or even just sit with my husband and talk because our evenings are tag teaming a screaming baby.

My original plan was to just stick to the 10pm bedtime as she's so small and then when she drops the night feed (the 1am to 3am feed) then gradually bring her bedtime earlier to a more reasonable time.

Anyway I have no clue what I'm doing and will take all advice!!!

Hi,

I don't know if I misread this - but is your daughter 6 weeks old?

If so, i don't think she's old enough for a routine as such yet. She's still working out the difference between night and day and just goes from feed/ sleep to the next one!

It is exhausting and I'm afraid it really is a case of tag teaming. The good news is that it does get better and (I believe) that from around the 22-16 week point your early can get a routine going.

If she is still bothered by reflux there may be a few bumps though. I have an 8 month old reflux baby and we're still working things out as a result of the reflux.

It does get easier! Hold on and hang in there. Try to be kind to yourself and your partner as it's easy to get lost in this phase of having a newborn.

The evening crying could be the witching hour - my DD1 (who didn't have reflux) used to do this and nothing we did would stop her crying. It does get better and I think 6/7 weeks old is the peak for crying ...

If poss, can your DH do the dream feed around 11 and you get some sleep? We used to do a little shift so my husband would take over letting me sleep a bit.

Sorry I don't have any actual answers. But you're getting there x

What is happening during the daytime in terms of sleep?

At this age it should be expected that baby spends most of their time asleep. Waking when hungry for long enough to be fed, nappy change, winded then basically back to sleep (with maybe 10-15 minutes floor time while doing the nappy change as her awake time). So you evening wants to be a continuation of your day, which leads directly into the night without very much distinction.

So your day becomes repeating cycles of:

• Baby wakes in the morning

• Feed/wind
• Nappy change/floor time - maybe 15 minutes or so.
• Top up feed (what's left in the bottle) and final wind cuddle until asleep.
• Sleep
• Wake

• Cycle repeated over and over again until any wake up that happens in the region of 6pm-7pm. At that wake up bath if needed and change into night clothes.

• EVENINGS: Continue your cycle of wake/feed/wind/nappy check/top up feed/wind/sleep exactly as the cycle above but this time don't encourage any floor time, just feed and back to sleep. All done in daytime sleeping place (ie downstairs with you).

• NIGHTTIME: At any wake up that happens around the time you are happy to go to bed yourself (say 9pm-11pm) , take baby up with you at this point and feed then into upstairs cot after winding.

You dont need to worry about the exact time at this age, just consider how long baby has been awake for and minimise it.

She cat naps in the day despite my best efforts - unless we are on the move in the pram or the car. She seems to be awake a lot to be honest - I can't get anything done. She's definitely high needs. During the day I can accept life is chaos but I would like some stability for the night.

Last time I attempted a 7.30pm bedtime she awoke at midnight and was up for bloody hours. Although that was a few weeks ago.

I'm solid on routine with the older two so to have such little control or predictability has hit me hard 😂

Is it worth doing 7.30pm and then dream feed at 11pm in the hope that she just goes straight back down? May attempt at the weekend so if the night is a write off I don't have to be up at the crack of dawn for school the next day.

Her cot is angled and we have to spend a long time holding and winding due to her reflux so it's not like the night feeds are quick anyway.

Safe sleep guidelines say you should always be in the same room as baby as they sleep.

If you are planning to put baby in the cot upstairs, are you planning on going to bed then yourself?

If not, this is a significant risk of SIDS death for your baby.

Well we live in a flat and have a monitor and would keep checking in. I guess that defeats the object of having an evening....

See what I mean - I've forgotten everything from when the other two were babies. Although I could go to bed at 7.30pm I definitely need it.

This aspect of Safe Sleep Guidelines has been in place for well over 20 years, so will have been the same when your other children were babies.

You can still have your evening, it's reasonable yo expect baby to sleep through large chunks of the evening. But that sleeping should be done in the same room as you (like in the daytime).

Why not use a bouncy chair for these naps? Park yourself on the sofa with the bouncer at your feet and just keep bouncing it with your foot (while watching TV and drinking gin tea).

Speaking as a mum of four, this is the ideal option when you also have toddlers and older siblings needing your attention too.

As for catnap - this is normal. Just keep awake time between these catnaps short too.

@FATEdestiny Even if I can get her in bed then I can stay there on my laptop and get some work done. I kind of wanted to build that sleep association with being in bed.

May try and get the 7.30 bedtime nailed as that's when the other kids go down and then dream feed a little later.

@zippityzip I don't know how you are for space, but we used a travel cot in our kitchen/diner for our baby until she was about 12 weeks and she slept there until we went to bed and for nap times. I wasn't convinced due to having a tantruming 2 year old but it worked amazingly well (with white noise).

@donutosaurus how did you move the baby into the bedroom without waking them?

We used a white noise app and did a dream feed at the same time we moved her- so picked up, snuggled her in until we got to the bedroom, fed her and then popped her in the crib in our room. This worked for us right up until she was big enough to go to sleep in her crib at nights/nap times.

The white noise really helped I think as when she stirred she just resettled.

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