Please, please help me get my 11 week old to sleep during the day...

[duende]

I am really struggling with this at the moment. Can't get my DS to nap during the day. Rocking, swinging, patting and shhhing, singing, whispering, stroking, cuddling - don't work. even if after a 40 minute battle he finally falls asleep on my lap, he wakes up 30 minutes later, or as soon as I put him down in his basket. He only gets 2-3 half hour naps a day and screams with tiredness from mid day onwards.
I tried putting him down awake before he's too tired, but he'll just lie there for ages awake, or screams. I don't think pick up put down would work, as he never seems to wear himself down when crying, just winds himself up. Every time I try and get him to sleep he screams and screams forever. I think if I could teach him how to fall asleep, it would improve his and mine quality of life immensely.
Has anyone got any words of wisdom?

Duende - I have to admit those 2 weeks were pretty harsh (as it seemed to rain as soon as I stepped out!) but I had a big old rainjacket and once she was in the first bit of sleep that is quite a heavy one I'd stop off somewhere and get a coffee or something...and then carry on with the walk when she woke up again to settle her.

I remember feeling very miserable and sorry for myself but in the longer term I can see it did break the cycle of her very disturbed sleeps (though don't feel depressed if later on it doesn't work one day - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't - but you eventually get to the point where more often than not it does!)

Starlight - I tended to find the more disturbed my DD's daytime sleep was the worse her nighttime sleep. It seemed like she was so overtired that she'd go to sleep for a few hours in the evening then we'd been in for a long night of wakings. If she slept relatively well during the day she seemed to be much better at night. I know it seems weird and I don't understand why but that's what it was like for us.

I know I will get flamed for this but here goes...

Will DS sleep on your chest at all? If so, how about putting him down on his front in the pram once he has finally dropped off? Only where you can keep a close eye on him though. DS is 8 weeks and never slept during the day til I tried this, now once he is asleep he can go for a couple of hours.

Oh God, I fully expect SS to turn up within the hour

My DD was like this- 2 things worked in the end:

1. We put her to sleep on her tummy. The risk of SIDS is decreased if you are able to check on them during the day, apparently (she still slept on her back at night).

1. Cover the pram. She was like a bloody parrot. Blanket over the pram, cue 30 secs of crying and then fast asleep. For 2 hours

I hope something works for you!

hi duende you have my sympathies you sound like i did a year ago. i know its a clique but everything will fall into place eventually. my ds suffered from colic and the only place he would sleep in the day time was on me. my ds absolutely hated his moses basket for some reason so we used his cot from 6 weeks that seemed to work a bit better. good luck and just remember it wont be forever

Another vote for the pram. My DS would become very grumpy but just would not sleep in the day. I started off by walking him in the pram every morning (as much for my sanity as his sleep!). By doing this I gradually found out when he was ready to sleep (this was around the same time everyday). When I felt he was getting tired I would peg a muslin to the hood. At first he would wake as soon as we arrived home but then started to sleep for a little bit more when the pram stopped. We progressed from that to pushing the pram to and fro in the kitchen and then after a few weeks I found that I could put him in the pram in the same spot in the kitchen and he would just fall asleep (Discovered this by accident, went to answer the door before I had chance to rock him, came back and found him sound asleep-oh the joy!). He is now ten months and has a nap in his pram in the morning and one in his cot in the afternoon.(although I think he is gradually dropping the morning one). It took me a while to get him to have a nap in the cot but as others have said, I used cues like playing the same music and putting him in his gro bag. He is definitely happier when he has slept in the day.

I think your plan is a good one. Good luck with it all.

what about trying something active with them before? It doesn't have to be much. All the babies used to spark out after baby yoga and they hadn't really seemed to do much! Just sing some songs and move arms or legs as you do so to fit in with song or bounce up and down, maybe a bit of massage. Say 10 mins building up to half an hour? And I also think you should try the same way of putting them to sleep, not changing it all the time. So if you want to do cot then do. Do the active bit, then into a grobag or whatever and into cot. First few times will prob cry, you can go back to reassure/cuddle/get up as much as you like but eventually they will start to get the message! good luck

Agree with comments about pram and sling. [Also agree with starlight about letting babies nap when they want to, not because it's x o'clock - but that doesn't sound like it's the problem if your baby is getting so wound up he can't sleep at all].
At 11 weeks, it's still early days and I'd recommend letting the house go to hell - just do the bare minimum to prevent major illness

Have you thought about swimming? DD always fell asleep after we'd gone swimming, we even tried water babies, and you can take babies anytime after 6 weeks provided there's no health problems.

And DD had colic from 2 weeks to 12 weeks. She would sleep in the daytime but evenings were another matter. We sussed out she was sleeping best on me or DP's chest in the day, so assesed the risk (no smokers, cool house, grobags used) and put her to sleep during the night on her tummy. It worked from the first night and at 13m she still sleeps on her front. I'm sure I'll get flamed but it worked for us so don't care.
I'm not encouraging it or saying it's a solution for you but it worked for us after we'd weighed up the risks. The first few weeks I watched her like a hawk (got much less sleep than she did!)and she slept in our bedroom till 8 months.

Your baby will get the hang of sleeping, it might just take a little time. I personally think he's too young for PUPD. Hope things get better.

This is taking me back. My now 20mo was a nightmare at this age. Like you lo she just fought, and fought, and fought sleep during the day. She was very, very unsettled, and was my first. Like you I would stare with envy and the lo's who seemed to just close their eyes and slip into dreamland without so much as a wimper. I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, but have you tried a dummy. I was very anti them but it worked for us. Was a good way to get DD to fall asleep and stay asleep for a good hour or so at this age. I dropped the dummy at about 6 months at night and she managed fine.

Don't despair! My dd was exactly the same, fought sleep, was obviously tired (yawning, rubbing eyes, crying, grumpy, she had what my mum calls 'boiled eyes', when dd's eyebrows were red, then I knew she was seriously overtired) but she just wouldn't sleep. I didn't have any kind of routine for her, but I did want her to sleep when she was tired. I used to feed her to sleep, but then that stopped working!!

You've had lots of good suggestions, don't lose heart if they don't work for you (the only things that worked for me were front carrier and pram, even then not all the time). My dd just gradually started to sleep better, and she finally got out of the overtired cycle, and no longer has 'boiled eyes' ever. I would agree with hellesbelles - sleep begets more sleep.

The turning point for us was around 14/15 weeks when she started to suck her fingers and roll herself onto her front and this really really helped her to fall asleep. I was absolutely terrified when she was on her front, and did not leave her side, constantly checking she was breathing. But she is 8mths now and still here.

Actually 30 mins nap sounds good to me, that's about what dd was sleeping at that age (if not a lot less) and now it's more like 2 x 1hr naps a day.

It does get better.

I used to push DD around town for a couple of hours every morning, I used to put her in her snow suit and put her in the pram.

One day I thought I'd just nip to the loo before going out - she was already wrapped up in her snow suit and lying in the pram. I just thought 'oh well I'll only be a few mins, it won't hurt her to cry for a bit'.

When I got back from the loo she was fast asleep on her own! From that day on, for months, I would put her snow suit on her and put her in the pram in the hall and she'd drop off for a couple of hours at a time! She knew what was coming and the same routine triggered her sleep.

It really is sooooo hard, you have my sympathies.

Your ds sounds very like mine at that age. And I don't think anybody who hasn't been there can appreciate quite how draining it is to only ever get 30mins of respite, and that after major effort on your part.

My ds only took 3 30min naps for quite a while (and that was on a good day). I wanted to reassure you that your ds is not some kind of freak, just at a bit of an extreme end of the napping spectrum.

My ds did start to nap better at around 14 weeks. Then it all went pear-shaped a couple of months later, but never as bad as it had been. Now he takes a couple of naps a day, could be 30mins, but also could be 90mins sometimes. It is hard that he's not more predictable, but he is the smiliest baby I have met.

It will get better, and hope some of the ideas here work for you. I have tried them all and different ones worked at different times, so do try them again if something stops working.

Good luck!

Starlight - I normally agree with you, but not on this occasion. I was very laid back about routine/schedule, so you are just wrong about that ime. Some babies just aren't going to sleep for some reason and we often don't know what it is.

thank you everyone - you have made me feel much better. It's good to hear that some babies are like that, that maybe I am not a complete failure, and that it will get better one day. I took him for a long walk today, we walked for 2 hours, he dropped off after 45 minutes but still only slept for half an hour, even though I didn't dare to stop I suppose it's a start!
I will continue to try all the ideas you've suggested and hopefully, one day, it will all fall into place.

Starlight, I am not trying to force him into a routine that suits me but not him. He is fed on demand and cuddled and played with a lot. I just want to ensure he gets enough sleep and rest. Also, in our case, the less sleep he gets during the day, the worse the nights are.

at starlight - reassured to find that I agree with you after all. I suspect I may have read your comments a tad sensitively as we're having a bad nap spell with transition from 3 to 2 naps a day.

At worst, our ds did some days when he barely slept for 6 hours in a 24 hour period. We had to stop reading sleep books because they made us cry (DH included - at his desk at work reading in his lunchbreak!).

Starlight I think I may have been a bit over sensitive and hasty too and actually I agree with you more than I realised! Like IsItMe we are struggling with the 3 nap to 2 nap transition just now [DrCosyTiger waves at IsItMe in mutual sympathy]. I never ever wanted to force a routine on DD - I just wanted to help her sleep when she was so obviously tired and distressed and struggling to drop off.

Duende I think the main thing is, you're not alone! It may seem like it will never improve, but it will, I promise. I do agree with Starlight that you do just have to accept the baby you have. You have ended up with one who struggles to sleep but it's not your fault, you're not doing anything wrong and there's lots of us here on mumsnet who have been through it and come out the other side. The payback may come later. My DD was never going to be one of those passive babies who sat quietly in her bouncy chair but at 7m I am increasingly coming to appreciate the fact that she has a sparky and exciteable personality which is lovely. Anyway I'll stop now. Good luck again and let us know how you go.

[waves at DrCosyTiger and fesses up to having written down a Routine for the first time ever yesterday. Before realising the clocks had changed. D'oh! And DS really has no appreciation for my colour-coding, no appreciation at all.]

starlight - 8 hours would be nice, but it's not going to happen. I know I'm not the only one though and that's tough. 3 meals prepared by someone else is not going to happen. But we started cooking dinners in the evening again so that's something. the same jeans everyday and fresh air - yep, this is what I'm doing

yes, DrCosyTiger, my dd is exactly the same, she is never going to be a passive little 'pudding', I like to think these terrible sleepers will all turn out to be exceedingly bright (this is pretty much my only comfort sometimes, so please allow me it!! )

I also take comfort in the knowledge I'm not the only one and that it's not something I've done, some babies are just like this.

Duende, cooking dinners at 11 wks, that's impressive!! We didn't start cooking again until dd was about 20 wks, even then microwave rice featured heavily!!

duende - if nights are also difficult, and you have access to some cash, would you consider a night nanny? We did this in desperation for about 10 nights over 4 weeks or so using some savings. DS suddenly settled down at around 13 weeks, and the night nanny helped us to get him sleeping in his cot in his own room. It is far from a cheap option, but desperate times...

We didn't have the night nanny again after that - didn't need her as 2 night wakings was a walk in the park after what we had been used to. But I'm not sure that without the NN we would have realised that DS didn't any longer need us to give him all the help he had previously needed to get to sleep.

As many people are saying, it doesn't last nfor ever. Can't remember when mine started sleeping in the daytime, but he's over 3 now and has a 2-3 hour nap every day still!! Never thought it would happen - he would only sleep while being pushed in the pram at first.

PS duende is the electric swing one of those giant plastic monstrosities that we all swore we would never have before LOs were born? We spent £120 on one in desperation, and our ds was just the same as yours.

The good news is they sell well second hand on ebay .

IsItMeOR, nights are not too bad, I do a dreamfeed around 11, he then wakes up between 2-3 and again 5-6. sometimes he forgets to wake up at 2 and goes till 5, but rarely.
out of curiosity, how much do NNs charge?

and yes, the electric swing is the plastic monstrosity we all swore we would never have I also thought I would exclusively BF for at least 6 months (sadly didn't happen), would never give my baby a dummy (I tried 4 different ones until I found one he liked, lol) and wouldn't use props for sleeping. If you could see me this afternoon - pushing the pram in the living room, DS with a dummy in his mouth, muslin square and a comforter by his face and a white noise CD on.

haha

I sympathise as both my babies have been like this during the day. It does get better as they get older.

Beware of the 'you are a terrible mother if your baby cries for more than a second each day' brigade

I know their names and ignore their righteous comments.