7 week old - hellish put downs for night sleep

[superorganisms]

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.

Wow that's amazing really! I do feel like I missed out on a lot not being able to BF 😞

We just used to watch telly and cuddle ds until we went to bed at that age, 7 weeks is tiny. It'll get better x

All those whose babies just went to bed with then at 10/11... Did they simply go down at that time? Sounds like it. That's not what my baby does. We've tried co-sleeping, it works one time in every ten I'd say? And even then, I'm in such an uncomfortable position I don't tend to sleep well at all really.

Tonight we've had the added joy of waking up every 45-90mins. I've had an hour of sleep. This really, really has to get better!

Could you just have her asleep in the sling for the first 3 hours and then put her down at 10ish? Agree with everyone else that around 8 weeks is the fussiest age. It's an endurance test! I've attached a graphic showing how to sleep more safely with them on you if you're struggling. Obviously not ideal but I did this a lot with my newborn.

When my DS was that age, we put him down when we went to bed, which was about 10.30 pm. He used to sleep till about 8 am, waking to feed every two or three hours. It was actually quite nice, as it allowed my DH to spend some time with him in the evenings after work. He then used to take a mid-morning nap and a three hour nap in the afternoon, which allowed me to get some work done (I worked from home). He never needed as much sleep as some other babies.

Thanks, we actually did this earlier today (yesterday?) for an hour so I could get some sleep. Maybe we could do first 3 hrs in a sling.

Well this sounds dreamy. I don't think it's where my baby's at, though. She just woke up again. I think I've had a broken 90mins all night.

@superorganisms just my opinion but I think the reflux is your problem. My first had silent reflux and everything you have described is/was my child at that age - I don't think it's anything you are or aren't doing or connected to what time you are trying to get her to sleep. Mine grew out of silent reflux as they all do but it was honestly hell whilst it lasted. It will pass and you have my sympathies because it almost broke me whilst it lasted.

There was no real 'going down' at that age. Mine have both still been in the cycle of feed, poop, sleep at that age as wake windows are so small, so there was no real 'putting them to bed', that's just when I chose to come to bed and the cycle just continued upstairs instead. We didn't get to the 'putting down for the night' stage for at least another 8 weeks.

This looks horribly dangerous

This is how La Leche League recommends it is done, because they realised that people will end up doing it accidentally, so they have tried to show how to make it more safe. Obviously it's not as safe as lying on their back on a firm mattress but I think they needed to issue some guidance for people who end up doing it anyway when their baby won't go down.

I get that and I've coslept with both from birth so I'm definitely not averse to it but that pic makes me feel v uncomfortable. I would rather do shifts or something than risk it.

My DH was away except for 36 hours a week. I had to sleep like that to get through the week for the first 4 months. After that she started the night in a hammock and then I slept in the C position with her next to me.

Appreciate it isn’t ideal but I really didn’t have any choice.

This. You sound mental. You have a 7 week old baby, not a 7 year old. I bet you’ll try cry it out next!

You have my sympathies; this was us a few months ago, minus the reflux (or it just went undiagnosed, I don't know). We took her to doctors, HV's, even paid for a private paediatrician. Nothing medically wrong with DD.

She took ages to fall asleep during the first couple of months, then she became a sleep refuser, which essentially is the same thing plus hysterical crying and fighting sleep.

She's now 7.5 months. I'd love to tell you that things have changed, but I'd be lying. After 6 months she got relatively better, by 7 months we were spending about 10-15 minutes per sleep session, 30 mins on a bad day, which for us was very reasonable (coming from an 11 hour stint at about your baby's age), but things started getting worse a couple of weeks ago and last night she went to sleep after midnight (5 hours past her usual bedtime)

I wanted to add that DD required vigorous rocking and bouncing to fall asleep and it went on for hours, dhe was also impossible to transfer to the cot. She hated the sling so that was annoying too. And wouldn't sleep in her pram either - fun times!

She does nap in her stroller now (but outside, which in this weather is shite) and until yesterday admitted being transferred to the cot once asleep (meaning she'd wake up momentarily and then close her eyes again and not cry).

She's currently ill and not at home, which has probably thrown everything out the wind, but she was already becoming gradually fussier even before this happened 🙄

We tried everything and nothing made much of a difference long-term - it's annoying because you'll come across those whose babies just fall asleep when tired and they won't understand what you're going on about. I remember feeling very frustrated, but at some point I accepted our reality. It's still hard, but I got a baby who struggles with sleep and has clear FOMO. It sounds like you got one of those, too 😢

Don't put them down asleep! Put them in their moses basket/cot when they are still awake, they can be drowsy. If they fall asleep on you of course they'll wake up when they are in their bed because it's something different.

Mine were still feeding every 2hours at least at that age - there was no night/day.

This is the kind of answers I was talking about (no offence)!

My baby cried hysterically whenever she was put in her moses basket awake. She had fallen asleep on her own a total of 0 times. Honestly, sleep training wouldn't be a thing if most babies fell asleep on their own just by putting them 'awake by drowsy' in their moses baskets 🙄

Yeah and "awake but drowsy" at 7 weeks!!! and a baby with frickin' silent reflux!! OP please look into medication again- you may not be on the right dose or the right stuff and GPs are shit, still really shit at this. I don't want to alarm you but the sleeping for under an hour could go on for up to a year and you need the reflux under control.

I sound mental? I had 90 mins (broken) sleep total last night, so yeah, I probably am mental. Thanks so much for your super helpful comment. There's always one.

I am not fixated on a 7pm bedtime, as I've made very clear in subsequent messages. WHATEVER time we go up to bed, she takes hours to settle. Whether that's in her crib, or co-sleeping. The only place she's happy is on me. Which is not safe or sustainable.

Oh, that was for @OwwwMuuuum.

Thanks, we're thinking about it. I hear that it can take two weeks for the acid rebound to subside (if indeed it happens at all), so once that time frame has passed we're going to re-evaluate. I'm working really hard on her latch and teaching her how to use her tongue properly after the TT division, really hoping that if we can get feeding going more smoothly, that the reflux might be less on an issue

My DS is 7 weeks today and I have a DD who is 2.5. Honestly I'm not contemplating a bed time at the moment. Me and DH just sit and hold him and watch telly on an evening and take it in turns to shower etc. We do sometimes try to put him in his basket in the living room...he might do 20 minutes before waking up. I go to bed about 11, I breastfeed him lying down and we both fall asleep and cosleep through the night. DD sometimes wakes up and gets in on the other side of me. DH sleeps in the other room. I don't feel like we've got any nap routine either. He's just awake for a bit, falls asleep feeding/pram/sling then wakes up when we end up having to put him down or do something. I had a similar approach with DD but only after a lot more stress about sleep. I don't remember her having naps in her cot till about 6 months. It probably has meant she has taken a long time for her to learn independent sleep but meant we weren't too focused/worrying about sleep.

Basically just saying a lot of people aren't putting 7 week olds down to bed.