Wake windows - trying to understand!

[clingon1012]

My DS is 6 weeks old and has never napped much since birth which is crazy as a newborn. He only averages 11-13 hours of sleep a whole day (24 hours!), no where near the text book 16-18 hours a newborn should supposedly have.

I'm trying to understand wake windows. So supposedly he shouldn't be awake for more than 60-90 mins, and I should look for sleepy cues.
A) What do I do if there aren't any sleepy cues?
B) What if I tried to put him down and he just won't stay asleep?
C) If he does fall asleep for a short catnap e.g. 10-20 mins, has this broken the wake window and can start a new wake window?
D) What helps to soothe baby to sleep best? Tried dark room, white noise, shushing, swaddling (which he hates).

He doesn't fuss much even when overtired but you can see how tired he is and therefore harder to soothe to sleep! Totally stressing myself out with whole little he is sleeping - paediatrician also says its too little. And baby IS overtired but I don't know how to prevent it because he barely stays asleep.

(He's better at night time, wakes up 2-3 times and go 3-4 hours between feeds).

Thanks!

Your baby is overtired. As you’ve discovered overtired babies are harder to get to sleep and less likely to stay asleep, it’s a complete bastard of a vicious circle.

With an overtired baby all the usual sleepy cues, wake windows etc go out of the window tbh. Any advice on wake windows is based on a non overtired baby. Overtired babies often don’t do sleepy cues as they are wired on adrenaline.

The only solution IME is 1) try to get them to sleep as much as possible, whenever and however you can. Buggy, car, sling, whatever works. Try after every feed. I used to go out for loooong buggy walks as a moving buggy was the only way overtired DD stayed asleep for more than 10 minutes.

2. try to figure out how you got to this point. Often there may have been an underlying reason for poor sleep/short naps, such as reflux or under feeding (due to tongue tie or poor latch), which then led to the overtiredness. Do you think there might be such an underlying issue and if so is it now fixed?

Hi thanks for your reply! I don't think it's hunger/underfeeding because we do supplement with formula or pumped breast milk if he seems hungry after latching on, and he sometimes will drink it all up, or push the bottle away, clearly uninterested. He has been seen by two lactation consultants who says he hasn't got a tongue tie. Reflux is definitely a possibility but we do burp him as much as we can!

I don't really know what to do, he falls asleep at the breast or at the bottle but he just doesn't stay asleep and he'll wake after 10 minutes. Contact naps work occasionally and he'll cry if we put him down in his cot.

I think we do have to take him out for walks but at the same time my husband and I are also exhausted and want to rest... selfish as it sounds. But worth a try!

I know it’s not ideal! I would suggest take him out when the weather is ok and try contact naps when it’s not? And make the most of times when there are 2 of you at home, take turns resting/buggy walking. Hopefully if you spend a couple of weeks sorting this you should be rewarded with longer naps at home and a calmer baby all round.

Unfortunately if not tackled then the night sleep can start getting worse too as they get older. (Or at least it did for us)

I had a similar issue when my baby was younger and come rain or shine i had to go on a 2hr walk with the pram or else I couldn’t guarantee a decent sleep at any other point. You can get little portable white noise machines for extra sleep environment (I used to attach Ewan the sheep to the pram).

After a few months of that, she randomly decided she would do her naps in the cot and only sleep for short periods in the pram! I get up to 2hr chunks

I’d give up trying to put him down for naps until he’s a bit older. IME the sling is your best friend. I used to bounce on a gym ball watching telly with the baby in the sling.