Some advice on newborn sleeping please

[NW2021]

Hi All!

FTM, baby is only 5 days old. Just wondering if anyone can give any advice for newborn sleeping in next to me crib. She’s feeding fine & sleeping but will only sleep for long periods if she’s on our chest or in our arms. At the moment we’re taking ‘shifts’ so that one of us is always awake with her sleeping on us.
I know it’s still very early days & baby is so use to being in the womb, warm etc and the crib can feel big and spacey.

I’m just wondering being a FTM if anyone had a similar issue and did your baby eventually sleep for longer periods in the next to me crib? Anything we can do to help her get us to it?
I have been trying to put her there for naps in the day but she’s lasting about 15-20mins then cries.

Thanks x

You will want to swaddle her. This recreates the enclosed, secure feeling of being in the womb. Makes putting baby down easier.

Yes to swaddle. You can get these zip up swaddle bags which are brilliant. They love it.

Third the swaddle! x

Tried the zip up ones and normal and not working. Will try the zip up one again tonight, maybe need to keep at it

Oh dear. I'm not sure then. I think I would ask the midwife or health visitor.

Just wanted to reassure that this is so normal - we did shifts when our little one was born too for a while. Swaddling certainly helped us but a lot will just be resolved with time. She will get there - just keep trying.
Congratulations on your little one!

@sittingwaitingwishing thank you! We’ve had a more successful day! Put her in with white noise on you tube and without a blanket (room is warm enough) and seems much better! We got 2 naps in there both an hour and half long! Think we’re making head way.
I think the swaddle and blanket was waking her up, she likes to kick her legs and arms about and I think doing that she was waking herself up.

Either way I’m happy we got some naps in there today! There’s hope for the nights! 😂

Firstly congratulations mumma sounds like your doing an amazing job.
We didn't swaddle we put our baby in a baby nest ( jukki one), it really helped and he was only in it 3 weeks or so then didn't need it but really helped him get use to sleeping well in his nest to me crib and he always just slept in a sleeping bag.

Hes 7 months old now and we have done the same in wean him in his cot.

Xx

We had to do the whole shifts / swapping who holds the baby thing for about a fortnight so 5 days is incredibly early days still. You may need to accept that shifts / swapping is the key to survival for another week or so before it's possible to think about moving things along. Hang in there, I know it's shit

White noise
We put the moses basket in the next to me- there did not seem to be any difference in safety to doing this v on the moses basket stand. At about 5/6 weeks baby seemed to be happy just in the next to me. I think they are too big and they need to feel more secure

@bookish83

White noise We put the moses basket in the next to me- there did not seem to be any difference in safety to doing this v on the moses basket stand. At about 5/6 weeks baby seemed to be happy just in the next to me. I think they are too big and they need to feel more secure

We did this too! Our LO looked completely lost in the next to me so we put her in the Moses basket and put that in the next to me - we all managed to get lots of sleep once we did that. The next to me was fastened to the bed as it should be and she seemed so much more comfortable and warmer in the basket. After about a month she went into the next to me without the basket no problem

Sleeping in shifts might just have to do for nights, they change so quickly each phase won't last long. Mine only settles in the DockATot pod for naps and sleeps in the next to me if the room is warm and she's less covered.

Glad you had some nap success today, hopefully she'll get the hang of it soon.

Same here for the first few weeks. It was very hard. We got there eventually with a combo of white noise and warming the crib with a hot water bottle before putting her in. Also has to be pitch black. She gradually built up the length of time she would sleep in it overnight starting with just an hour or two and now it's about 11 hours (with a night feed but she goes back down quickly).

Thank you alll for your advice! Really has helped. She now seems happy with her crib, just won’t sleep in it for more than around 40-60mins at night but could do 90-120 mins in the day. Sleep deprivation is hitting me the past couple of days

Definitely just need to keep trying. At this stage I would definitely avoid thinking “it doesn’t work” or “baby hates it”. I found myself doing that a lot and in reality most things changed within a week or two early days.

We also did shifts, and accepted some short sleeping periods for baby so we could both sleep longer. DD was sleeping 8-10 hours consistently by 10 weeks and completely sleeping through at 12 weeks so any early not sleeping well in the crib is by no means a sign of a poor sleeper!

Hey OP, congrats on your new baby. You sound like you're doing an amazing job. Like others, I just wanted to reassure you that this is really normal and nothing to be worried about. Good luck!

Totally normal. Read up on the Fourth trimester. Your baby should still be inside you. They don’t want to lie flat away from you. DD slept on me for 3 months. (Not necessarily recommended but I did what I had to to get sleep.)

Same thing happened here . It’s very normal . Google the 4 Th trimester. It won’t be like this forever

Thank you!! Reassured me so much! Had a bad couple of nights with feeding every 30/45mins but least we made progress with sleeping in the crib.

@Happyhappyday were the long stretches of sleep continuous? I know some people have in the past said to me 'sleeping though' means that baby is just waking for top up feeds (so not actually sleeping through). Or are formula fed babies more likely to have these long sleep stretches?

How I envy you!

DD slept straight through with no feeds. It’s hard to remember exactly when apart from Christmas Day she slept 6:30-5:30am with no wake ups because I remember thinking it was the best present! She was about 10 weeks only and had been doing 8 hour stretches for a few weeks prior.

She was an unusually good sleeper but DH and I were also really focused on her sleeping well. We did not sleep train but I called it sleep nudging which basically consisted of fending off my MIL who just wanted to hold her for all her naps and insisting from about 6 weeks that naps at home happened in the cot. I spent a week focusing on getting her to do this, basically shushing & patting her in cot but putting her in awake and trying very hard not to pick her up. If she got distressed I would give up for that nap but then try again with each one. We also started a bedtime routine around 3-4 weeks and decided that 6pm onwards was night time so kept her in a calm dark room etc. definitely had downsides taking this approach, but I was really suffering from insomnia so didn’t mind going to bed early etc.

@Happyhappyday you're amazing! Great to hear some positive experiences too (gives us others some hope! 😂)

I should also say that DH took 4 months shared parental leave and don’t honestly know if I could’ve done the napping in the cot thing without him there to hand off when it wasn’t going well!

Did that not mean you couldn’t go anywhere, though @Happyhappyday?

I’ve so many lovely memories of whole mornings spent in coffee shops with my NCT groups after baby classes with babies sleeping in arms/on laps/in prams. The mums who insisted on cot naps could never join in because they had to dash home for nap time.

My sister did it with her son and we haven’t been able to go for a family Sunday lunch/to events/anywhere more than 5 miles from home etc for the last year because he absolutely has to be home for his naps.

It meant for a week I was pretty firm about cot naps but once we’d cracked it, no we went out loads and didn’t try to be home for every nap. Ultimately the goal for me was to improve night time sleep, I just knew I didn’t have the patience at night to try. After about 6-7 months DD I found I couldn’t just go to a restaurant and expect her to go to sleep for an hour if I jiggled the pram though :(.