My little boy and his sleep.

[finallypregnant]

He's 6 weeks old. He seems to struggle to sleep properly during the day and only manages little powernaps. He has bad startle reflex (we do swaddle at night but should we be doing this 24/7?).

He just seems to sleep for anything between 10 and 40 minutes and then goes through a grunting/moaning stage (which is very loud!)and then wakes up.

At the end of the day he's knackered and gets cross with himself although not all down to startle reflex.

Is this normal for a tiny tot. Anything we can do?

DS did this for months and months, it's just down to their immature sleep cycles. He would wake up after 30 minutes to the second, you could set your watch by it.

I would just keep putting him down regularly (DS at that age could be awake for 90 mins max), don't worry if he has 4/5/6 short naps a day. It will get better over time -- around 5mo he started going for longer and since he's been about a year old I have to wake him after 90 mins asleep!

We didn't swaddle but I don't see why you couldn't do it for naps if you thought it might help.

I did swaddle for every sleep as my dd moro reflux was very pronounced too.

It took me ages to realise that dd needed stacks more sleep than ds ever did. She still does at 11 months.

I found that at 6 weeks she more or less slept most of the day and night. I used to feed her, change her nappy and by the time i'd finished she was sleepy again. If i got her down too late she would wake very soon, but if i caught her before she got too tired she would sleep much longer.

When he wakes do you get him straight out or wait a while to see if he will settle back off?

What i was trying to say, is maybe he's waking soon because he's overtired??