7 week old - hellish put downs for night sleep

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Help!

My 7 week old takes HOURS to be put down in the evening. It's driving us mad. We have a bedtime routine and have done for weeks. We have tried all sorts of swaddles/sleep sacks. We use white noise. I feed to sleep. As soon as her head hits the cot, she's awake. We rock, we walk, we shh, we pat, start the process over again. We have tried moving bedtime forward, back. Tried getting tongue tie cut, winding, cranial osteopath.

I am sitting here with her on my boob having tried and failed to.put her down since 7pm (yes, she's overtired by now, but is getting some cat naps in as we settle her).

I am at a loss. Co-sleeping works one in every five or so times so that's not a silver bullet for us. She does every nap as a contact nap or in the sling. We try for one nap a day in the cot but it always fails.

I know she's only little but taking hours and hours to go to sleep at night is surely not normal? She does have silent reflux which I assume is playing a part. We did try meds but it didn't make enough of a difference for us to feel comfortable giving it to her.

It's just so grim.

How long is she awake for before you start her bedtime?

When mine was that age, she would wake from her nap and then I’d pretty much start bedtime as her final wake window would be about 60-75 mins. The key is to try and get her sleepy enough you can put her down while she’s quiet and happy and then she’ll drift off. Easier said than done I know

are you swaddling her and using white noise?

Do you know what's causing her silent reflux?

When I stopped drinking cows milk with DD1 it made a huuuuuge difference. We'd swaddle her and then she would go down and wake maybe twice a night until the dreaded 4 month regression.

Although your baby is still only 7 weeks. DD2 is 12 weeks and she has never done a portion of the night on her own. We've been cosleeping since birth. I hate it but it's the only way I get sleep. She's latched on majority of the night too. I can't even rock her to sleep and then lay her next to me unless she's on the boob.

Don't be so hard on yourself, just pick the easiest option.

Is it literally the put down that wakes her do you think? My ds always seemed to wake up if the sheet was cold under his head, I would warm with a hot water bottle and remove a minute before putting him down.
Also the position I put him in made a different, so if he was lying on me in a cradle hold I'd transfer him on his side and then once settled after a min or two pop him on his back.

Is she not just a baby that’s doesn’t want to be put down? Sorry, I’m not saying that flippantly because I had one like that too. It was hellish and we had phases in the first 3 to 4 months of taking it in shifts to hold them all night. Sounds that way, the fact all naps are in the sling or held and she wakes up/gets upset on being put down only at night.

At 7 weeks, we were still very much in witching hour/cluster feeding in the evening. We’d keep DC with us until they were finally zonked and we couldn’t stay awake anymore in front of TV. DC would tolerate being put down in the bed next to me more than the cot, but it was hit and miss until 3-4 months if I’m honest. I think it’s just a phase you have to survive - white noise and routines became really important for us from 4 to 6 months, but it did precisely nothing in the newborn days.

Most likely you'll just have to wait for this bit to pass. I was at my wit's end with youngest cluster feeding for a while when tiny, but ultimately it was just a few weeks; it will improve, and I hope it does as soon as possible.

To be honest, thinking back, even the most settled babies in my antenatal group weren’t having a 7pm bedtime at 7 weeks old. Most went to bed for the night quite a bit later, feeding and dozing on and off for most of the evening.

My strong advice would be to stop thinking that you can fix this or that there is something wrong and just to go along with your baby and their needs. It sounds fairly normal. I was very lucky with DC1 who would go down for three or for hours at a time during the evening and overnight but neither of my other DC were anywhere near that at seven weeks .DC2 was still on a sixty to ninety minute feeding schedule at that age and DC3 was a massive cluster feeder during the evenings and , indeed, unputdownable in general. Trying to fight nature is depressing and stressful.

Thanks all for your replies. Yes I suspect I am expecting too much and just need to ride this out but it's so tough, it feels like she's getting worse not better. In the end it was past 11pm when she finally went down tonight,so over four hours of failed attempts (we ended up caving and using the crib with rocks her. We have been trying to swap to a normal crib but we were at our wit's end).

We're lucky in that once she's down, she's generally good for 3-4hr stretches, probably because she's knackered. So we can be grateful for that. But it's so draining.

I don't know exactly what's causing the silent reflux. Her sister had it too. We thought it could be linked to bad latch caused by tongue tie, but we had that snipped and nothing seems to have changed. I'm continuing to see lactation consultants to try to fix it.

Interesting about dairy - I did an exclusion diet with her sister (dairy and soy) bit it didn't make a difference. Maybe I'll try again.

I guess I just need a light at the end of the tunnel. As I have an older child, it's tough to always have this one on me at all times. Perhaps I need to accept this is how it is for now.

Hi, not sure if you have already tried this but give bubba a bath, breastmilk / bottle then bed.
Hope the above helps x

Probably not what you want to hear OP but you are being very unrealistic in your expectation of a 7pm bedtime that goes smoothly at 7 weeks. They are just too little. Keep the baby with you until you go to bed , hopefully they’ll feed / sleep
on or near you whilst you watch some TV ! That magical moment of the 7pm bedtime will
come but just not yet. It’s an exhausting never ending slog at this stage , but slowly it will get better.

I hear you my DD is 4 mths and always took 3 hours to go down and woke as soon as her head hit the sheet no matter what I did.

Bad news is we’ve just hit the 4 mth regression and it’s worse and now happening during the night too…. I feel like a zombie

This!

At 7 weeks my baby was still falling asleep downstairs with us at around 10 or 11.

Take the pressure off, 7 is too early at 7 weeks imo. By all means get a loose bedtime routine going but don’t spend hours trying to get them down. Bring them with you to the couch and chill for the evening and bring them up when they fall asleep. Mine didn’t start going down at 7 until they were 6 months but it didn’t stress me because I wasn’t trying to force them into a routine either.

We've tried her coming up with us, putting her down at 9/10/11, just means she won't go down til 12/1am. That's what's so frustrating. And it means we're even more wrung out by that point.

Yes we do a loose bath, milk, swaddle routine,. Which always feels a distant memory by the time she actually sleeps! Not sure it's making any difference. We started because we had been through the 4m regression before and wanted to establish good sleep habits earlier to hopefully make that smoother, but she doesn't seem to be on the same page with thR one!

As in, we've gone through the 4m sleep regression with our eldest, so we know how much harder it can get...

My two babies didn't start gping to bed earlier than us in the evening until they were a lot older than 7 weeks. They stayed downstairs with us - on a good day in their bouncy chair watching TV 🤣, on a bad day feeding and crying.

7 weeks is unrealistically early to expect your baby to do anything tbh. You kind of have to follow their lead and make tiny adjustments/adaptations into a routine over time. It's tiring but then so is battling for hours with a crying baby who doesn't want to be alone.

But if we go to bed at 9/10, she doesn't actually go down til 12/1am, which is surely a bit bonkers? Maybe not

It's really hard OP.

I have an 18 month age gap between my 2 and I prayed to have a good sleeper 2nd time round, but no 😭

My first exclusively contact napped in the day, but she used sleep in her crib at night with no issues. My second is the complete opposite. Naps independently (sometimes) but no chance of her sleeping in the crib at night.

I know it doesn't work for everyone, but would you consider cosleeping?

I usually go up around 10pm and just latch her. She falls asleep on the boob and then let's go when she's in deep sleep. Meanwhile DH cosleeps with DD1 just so my bed isn't cramped.

Recently, she's been doing 8/9 hour stretches. Yes, I hate the fact that I'm stuck in one position, but it's better than me rocking her endlessly and then getting frustrated and angry when she wakes up from the transfer.

Both of mine had witching hours every evening. They'd cry and cluster feed from around 7pm to 10pm.

This was every night until about 3 months old. No point fighting it. It's normal and what newborns do.

I'd make sure I'd eaten before it started and then get comfy on the sofa with a good box set (subtitles on) and feed through it.

It passed.

Night/sleeping time for us was midnight till noon. (Till she was about 2.5 (years)).

7 weeks is fourth trimester territory. You’re forcing too much too soon.

Handhold OP, it’s really hard I know, DS2 was like this, it will get easier. Accept offers of help, so you can sleep. My late MIL was absolutely awesome and helped us so much with DS2. They had a lovely close relationship. Miss her every day.

Both mine were still feeding continuously from about 7-10pm at that age. There is no way they would have gone to bed. If they did nod off and feed less, then they needed more feeds during the night.

I don't think we had a regular bedtime routine until about 6minths, and that was very hit and miss working some nights but not others.

I also couldn't see the point of putting them to bed at 7pm as I had to up too as they couldn't be left alone under safe sleep guidelines.

Will she take a bottle?

You need to work in shifts if so.

On DC3 now and we've finally found something that works.

I go to bed at 8pm. DH stays awake with baby until he goes down around 9pm (it used to be later, he's now 13 weeks).

Baby then sleeps until about 11-12am, DH bottle feeds and puts him down again. He then brings him into me.

Baby wakes again anywhere from 2-4am and I breastfeed until morning.

Means I always get a stretch of 5-6 hours and then DH sleeps after he brings him into me so he gets a good stretch before waking for work.

I've exclusively breastfed eldest, bottle fed middle one and combi-fed this one and it really is the best of both worlds. Introduced a bottle from day 1. All this "leave introducing a bottle until 6 weeks" stuff leaves people stuck when baby won't take a bottle at all.

It's tough OP. Bedtimes will slowly get earlier but to be honest, expect night wakings for at least the first 6 months and probably beyond.

To add - I'm not breastfeeding from 2-4am continuously until morning . He usually goes down again for 1-2 more stretches of sleep.

Aside from the one night he was in hospital, I've not had a single night since he was born that I've had less than 7-8 hours a night, even on the bad nights.

Silent reflux can mean they can't lie on their backs flat without discomfort! Try googling for a high crib wedge if you haven't already looked at this - it was the only way one of mine slept, except on me on their front.

We are having the same with our nearly 6 week old. We are going with it - it'll pass