How to get 5 week old to sleep without being held... Help!

[Flowerface]

My five week old DD won't sleep unless in someone's arms. This means that she sleeps on me at night - she won't even sleep on the bed next to me. And during the day she has to be carried or held the whole time, and rocked to sleep.

Putting her in the moses basket wakes her up within five minutes, even if she has been really deeply asleep before. She then amuses herself for a bit and then starts crying. I have tried swaddling (including one of those miracle blankets), but it seems to make her really furiously angry, and doesn't solve the problem of the legs anyway.

We have had a lot of problems with colic and wind and her screaming in agony, which meant that I was just happy if she was calm, even if it meant she had to be carried. Now these are improving, I am really desperate to sort out the sleeping thing. She is a big baby, and having her on my chest at night is very uncomfortable! Plus, not being able to do anything during the day, even while she naps, is very annoying (though we do use a Baby Bjorn, which is a lifesaver).

We don't really have any kind of routine at present, which makes things trickier, I guess. But I would be really really grateful for any advice. I am very keen to get this sorted before her habits become too set (and I get crushed to death!)

(I have posted on this before, but abandoned the earlier efforts to sort it out due to the emergence of the colic/indigestion problems. I need a pep-talk to motivate me to start again!)

I hate to say it, but you might have to ride it out for a bit.

My advice, and this is just based on what we did, would be to use a sling as much as possible during the day (as in, I would often keep DD in for 8 hours during the day, in stints). Get another sling if the Baby Bjorn isn't supportive/comfortable enough. Then, at night, I would start trying to gently transition her into sleeping next to you in bed rather than on you. It's a big jump from sleeping physically on you to in your own moses basket. Have you thought about keeping her in the sling all evening on you, then transferring to the bed next to you when you go to sleep? DD used to be in a deep enough sleep after hours in the sling to not wake up.

Luckily DD would sleep at night, but was a velcro baby by day. However, a friend had a baby much like yours. They both got better between 2-3 months on their own, so you might find your daughter does. It's a big transition from inside to out!

I don't think you particularly need a set routine yet at just 5 weeks but your dd should always be tired and ready for a sleep no longer than 2 hours after she last woke up.

If you get to know to her sleepy signals you can tuck her up in her basket in a darkened room when she is showing signs of tiredness and stay with her til she settles. She may struggle with this to start with having got used to sleeping on you but she should go off to sleep quite calmly if she is ready for it but NOT overtired. So make sure she doesn't go more than 2 hours before you put her down for her next sleep.

Hope this can work for you.

Hi flowerface,

I had the same problem than you with my DD. The first two weeks after birth were exactly the same. She was all day with me, I couldn't put her down at all and at night she spend the whole night on my breast so we were co-sleeping. My mum came from Spain when she was two weeks all and it was a live saving.

We started by introducing her to the mosses (which she didn't like it since birth and I tried a lot). My mum put a towell raped as a tube in one of the side of the mosses and that seemed to work very well. She didn't liked to be swalled either. I think one of the problems was that she felt she had to much space in the mosses and she didn't like it. The first night I used the mosses at night she was fine, I couldn't believe what a towell could do. It took me a few good hours for her to fall sleep but at the end it happened. I stay with her till she was completly sleeping and spend all the time with my hand in her tommy or face and singing to her (I know it does not seem ideal but this was later removed from her routine). We started a routine at 7pm giving her a bath, a massage and then a feed. After feed I was telling her that she was going to bed and told her good night. As I said at first it took a long time for her to fall sleep but you need to be patient.

After two weeks doing this and once she was happy staying in the mosses we changed the routine to just putting her in the mosses and leaving the room. The first night she complained a bit but it didn't last (she was not really crying) but the second night the was fine. We kept the towell for a good while.

Now she is 5 months old and we are still doing the same routine from 7pm and she goes to sleep very happely. She is still in the same room than us because she still demands a feed at around 5am (she is EBF) and it is easy for me to feed her if she is in our room. Just be patient and things will be ok after a short time.

Good luck

Keep trying. I got mine to go down in his moses basket by working up gradually. To start with he would only fall asleep on me. Then I would warm up the basket and put a skanky t-shirt in and lie him down in it. Then I'd sing him his songs, then potter about a bit (ie - not leave him alone). Slowly I'd work my way out of the room.

To get him to stay down I stuck to the 'once down, down' rule, and would just stroke his hair, put his dummy back in (once old enough), etc.

It doesn't work every time, but you just keep trying. The thing with babies is they change all the time, so what didn't work two days ago might work fine today.

Having said that, he still doesn't sleep through, and no matter how much advice I ask for, I can't seem to fix that!

Thanks all. Do the flailing limbs improve with age too?!

Hello
sometimes I held DD sat up in bed til she slept deeply then I slid down bed into sideways cosleep position without letting her go, ie her head still on my arm and my arms around her as much as poss. sometimes this would work well. she doesnt flail her arms now cant remember when it stopped

my 10 week old was like this. We have just moved her into her big cot from the Moses basket because she was waking herself up with flailing arms (not legs because we moved her from swaddling below the arms into grobag and she just lifts them up and down).

things that worked for us - time (I know that's not too helpful right now but she got so much better at sleeping away from me at about 8 weeks), white noise to get her into a really deep sleep (we use ocean waves on ipod speakers) and holding both her hands close to her body with my arms resting on her chest until she falls asleep then gently placing the hands over her head so she doesn't startle herself when they move. If she wakes I put my hand back on her chest firmly for 5 mins and hold hand/s again if needs be. Is working like a dream so far. Good luck!