11 day old DD wide awake 1am to 3am - Help

[fhutts]

My 11 day old daughter sleeps, feeds and subsequently settles fine during the day and early evening but between the hours of half midnight (ish) and 3.00 am she is wide awake. She takes her last feed at around 11 or 11.30 ish, but then wakes again about an hour later.

She shows the signs of hunger (well, those which a new mum of 11 days can know!) but will only take about 10 or 20 mls. When I then try to put her down she won't settle unless I put a dummy in as she appears to just want to suck. She will take a dummy but when it falls out she cries.

Tried to let her cry it out for a few minutes (how hard was that)last night when dummy fell out but made no difference she still wouldn't settle but was wide awake looking around quite happily! Nappy clean, burped as much as we can get out - please can anyone offer any advise?

I am so near to just cuddling her to sleep......HELP!

Oops, before I am pounced on for the pillow... it is under the mattress at one end. No pillows in the cot with DD, obviously.

Thanks for the tips I will persevere, I am thinking to try tonight to see if she sleeps better in her bouncy chair. It is slightly raised and has a head support for newborns so we'll see!

Can I just say thank you to everyone, I didn't think anyone would reply and it is so great to know there are other Mum's out there taking the time to offer their advice.

Will let you know how the bouncy chair goes

Not sure how safe it is for her to sleep in the bouncy chair. I don't want to scaremonger but there was a (undoubtedly isolated) case recently. Co-sleeping is safe if you observe the guidlines like not drinking alcohol or smoking etc.

DH reported no sucess last night again. She was wide awake after last feed at 0115hrs until she eventually dropped off at 0300. It is very frustrating because she sleeps like a log prior to this "last" feed, if we could just swap the penultimate feed aftermath with the last feed things would be great!

Neither bouncy chair or MB (with hood and toy arch removed) had any effect.

I think I just need to accept that she is a party animal at this time and just prepare myself during the day with as many naps as I can until this phase passes - which I hope it does one day.

for what it's worth - my dd screamed at us uncontrollaby for about 3 hours most nights from about 11pm. it was awful - the only thing which helped was dh wearing her in the fabric sling and walking up and down the stairs 25 times. he was tired but fit. it lasted 4 weeks, by which time i discovered the miracle blanket and even though i felt dreadful swaddling her so tight (felt like a straight jacket), it really worked. then from 6-16 weeks she slept from 7-4, fed, then until 7 or 8. joy. thereafter it all changed, and she is now 13 months and teething crazily, so that's a whole other story.

someone said, no one tells you that babies will be awake at crazy times during the night - nor do they tell you they can scream at you for hours on end. but it does change. good luck1

Thought I would update. It maybe a little early to get to excited , but after another awful night on Sunday whereby dh woke dd up by coughing during the night I decided to try her in her own room and maybe nudge her into some sort of order. Brave I know.

Monday we put her in her mb in the cot with a musical mobile. We put her up to bed at 7pm and then woke her at 10pm for a feed. We then swaddled her(which we had already tried) and put her back in mb and crept downstairs. To our total amazment she slept until 1.10am then after that feed went straight back down until 3.50am. We could not believe it.

Same thing Tuesday and last night but even better was that she slept until 3am each night then went down with out more than 5 mins of half hearted grizzling (not crying of course)

We have also started to put her up in her room, swaddled and curtains drawn for all her daytime naps which appears to work for her as she settles so much better and then takes her feeds a lot better.

Maybe we were fussing her to early in our room along with perhaps us disturbing her when she came into her light sleep pattern. Like I say, it is way too early to get excited but give me three nights like that to three nights of hell any day