baby won't sleep for more than 1 hour at a time and no more than 6 hours out of 24 if I'm lucky!

[floppops]

I am new to mumsnet. I don't usually use the internet much but since having my baby 6 weeks ago I am finding the discussions on mumsnet interesting and reassuring.
My problem is a common one,our baby doesn't sleep much! But instead of being woken every 2/3 hours we cannot get our 6 week old to sleep at all either day or night. She eventually went down for an hour 2 nights ago and last night not at all! I was up breastfeeding her and trying to put her down all night. She does get sleepy after a feed but always wakes up 5 minutes later.
We have tried everything, cosleeping, taking her for walks in the pram, rocking her, singing to her, swaddling, and slings, pouches etc! The pouch does work,she will sleep for an hour or two in that,but I can't get any rest then.We even bought a fisher price cradle swing that rocks and plays ambient music but she also will only suffer that for an hour.
I keep reading babies sleep 16 hours out of 24, and I am really worried about her lack of sleep. She seems quite happy and alert when awake for a little while and then when she cries I end up feeding her,even if it's just minutes after her last feed.
She did have a week when she slept for 3/4 hours once at night and in the day-didn't know how lucky I was!
We also thought she might have gas so did try gripe water, which didn't make a big difference and made her constipated so have eased off that now.
We are having our 6 week checks next week so will go through this with the doctor.
I would appreciate any advice or reassurance that anyone has survived this! I don't know how long I can cope with no sleep at all.

Hi and welcome to mumsnet!

Is your DD overstimulated? My DS was terrible in the first few weeks until twigged that he was being over stimulated, therefore no sleep. To tackle it, we had a rule of no awake time more than 45 - 60 mins. Also keep excitable grandparents/family visits to a minimum and in the mornings when baby is more alert.

I would suggest slinging your baby until she gets enough sleep. Try slinging her as much as possible during the day. She needs it. You can put your feet up with baby on your chest. It doesn't matter when she sleeps, just get her resting and she'll be more relaxed to sleep properly.

She might have reflux making her hard to settle. Ty swaddling and putting her down in a tilted Moses basket (a couple of books under the basket not the mattress). Also hold upright for at least 30 mins post feed.

Also speak to your HV and GP as they might have ideas?

Could be;

overstimulation

silent reflux

needs cranial osteopathy as her head is too uncomfortable to sleep apart from when she is completely exhausted.

You have my sympathies, been there it's exhausting!

Sorry you said you tried a sling - I meant the pouch. Use that until she gets some good chunks of sleep then try the sling as i've never known a baby to resist! Going out for a long walk and even popping a dummy in can help (we did this with our DS one nigh at 3am. After screaming for 30 mins he dropped off).

Thanks for your posts. I will try putting her in the sling if she doesn't stay down in her swing-so far 30 mins tops in there. I will try that 60 mins awake rule too. Really hard to keep the grandparents,uncles etc away but I will try to keep them from playing with her at least in the afternoons and evenings. Also will try holding her upright after her feed for 30 mins,have only been doing 10 mins.
We have taken her to the cranial osteopath twice but maybe we should go back..

Thanks Igglybuff, I worry about having her squished up in the pouch for too long at a time. How long did you have yours in there for? Also have tried a dummy but she won't take it-is it worth trying another sort of dummy?

get a cherry teat dummy

the thing is, if they are feeding through the night, it's hard to know if they are asleep or awake. Is she actually gulping the milk, or just latched

if it's silent reflux the length of time sitting up doesn't seem to make a difference IME.

Erm it will also probably get progressively worse my dd just screamed/cried unless held in a certain way. She used to sleep about 7/24 hours too, fortunately we did used to get a solid chunk of that overnight presumably just through sheer exhaustion.

It was an awful time.

Yes, she can be asleep and feeding. ds does this. Are you only counting the hours when she is asleep and not feeding?

welcome to MN btw

I would agree could be overstimulation, we had this problem with DS. An hour is a long time at that age and being too tired stopped DS being relaxed enough to drop off, he just got really wound up. I guess all babies are different but at that age we used to put DS swaddled in his Moses basket straight after we saw the first yawn and then would comfort him with shushing until he dropped off. If we waited until his 3rd or 4th yawn we found he'd gone from tired to overtired and unable to fall asleep easily.
You have my sympathies it is very difficult to cope with sleep deprivation. But things will get better I promise!! DH and I used to do shifts in the evening & at night so that we both got a solid block of sleep.

We have a baby bjorn sling which keeps DS upright. So he could sleep in it for a few hours. Or I could sit down and rest with him still in it. What kind of sling do you have?

We got really strict with visitors and it paid off!

DS also had silent reflux and he would only sette in an upright position and sleep for any length of time if swaddled or on my chest.

DS also didn't like the dummy at first but we kept trying and it paid off. Try different shapes as some can be too flat so babies find them hard to suck.

I know this sounds silly but forget the swing if it's got flashy music etc. Forget any toys, mobiles etc as I think these are all too stimulating at a young age! Just let your DD watch the world from your arms/sling!

Thanks for the advice. I think she probably is dozing and feeding at the same time at night-at least she is getting some sleep!
I did try a baby bjorn upright sling but she hates it,really screams until she's out. I have a pouch now which if I rock her for a bit shhhing she goes straight to sleep in.
I will try some other dummys as well.

I'd stick with the pouch and try moving her into a comfortable sleep position on you so you can sit down?
She'll get used to the outside world soon and will get better at sleeping. Just make sure you rest up.

Not much to add to what others have said, but my sympathies. We only had a few days where it got to 6 hours out of 24, but many under 8 hours and it was an absolute nightmare.

We found recording the tumble drier and playing that back helped DS a little.

The thing that seemed to help him relax most was when I learned baby massage and did some of that with him every day.

He got a lot better at around 13 weeks.

We got a night nanny to help us survive until then - just 1 or 2 nights a week. She was great, and eventually helped us relax enough to realise DS could sleep better at night without our doing all our obsessive rituals. Expensive, but well worth it for us. We used these and I can recommend the London agency.

DS slept and fed at the same time also. Still does sometimes even at 12mo, only now I can spot the difference . My tip would be to make sure you put your feet up before starting a feed, get a drink, a snack and the remote to hand and just go with it.

Really hope it gets better for you soon.

i had this very situation with my dd1. we tried driving her in the car to get her to sleep and break the cycle. eventually we put her on her tummy and she slept for 4 straight hours and then so much better from then on in. i am not recommending that for you as it is against all teh regulations etc but we were desperate and it worked for us. dd1 is now 4 and a half and still sleeps on her tummy- just more comfortable for her, clearly.

just sympathies as I could have written your post. It WILL get better. Agree with those saying short times awake only. I used a "baba sling" and it was fantastic - DS slept best in there - lying horizontally (even tho he has reflux) - for the first weeks.
I also found a dunny helped a lot, got rid of it at about 6 months. Now 12 weeks with DC2 and if use a dummy again, will get rid sooner than that.
I hope you get some rest soon, it will will will get better. My DS now 9 months, sleeps brill (mostly!)

Aaaaaaah sympathies, DS was just like this and it nearly killed me.

I used a wrap sling (like this) to carry DS as much as possible because he would sleep in it. I agree wholeheartedly with Igglybuff's advice about overstimulation - it is vital that they are allowed peace as much as possible because they just seem to get more and more tired and hyper and sleepless and it's really tough to get out of the cycle once it's set up. We had no TV on, minimal visitors, did anything that needed to be done in the morning, and lots of nice motion in the sling (sometimes accompanied by the hum of the cooker hood extractor fan!) for weeks before DS showed signs of improving.

Can you feed lying down? I had DS in bed with us and fed him to sleep, then he could latch back on again easily and I managed to get a bit more sleep by feeding him to sleep again before he really woke up IYSWIM.

It does pass, but it is so, so tough. Hang on in there!

Also, if people think you're being precious because you're obsessed with his rest and not overstimulating him, stand up for yourself. Most people haven't got the foggiest what life's like with a baby like this, so just smile and nod and silently wish them to piss off

Welcome to MN by the way!

Also, if people think you're being precious because you're obsessed with her rest and not overstimulating her, stand up for yourself. Most people haven't got the foggiest what life's like with a baby like this, so just smile and nod and silently wish them to piss off

Welcome to MN by the way!

FAIL with the attempt to correct your baby's gender there - sorry!

my first baby and my third were similarly unsettled babies, their sleeping improved around 12 weeks. Poor you, it's unbelievably exhausting when you are living through it every day, but it will pass.

Is it possible for someone else to take the baby out in the pouch so you can both get some sleep during the day? This helped me survive, even if it was just a couple of times a week, at least I felt i'd had some sleep. If you have the energy to read it, we used the no cry sleep solution book, full of great sleep advice especially if you are bf. One tip which helped me is not to leap up to pick your baby up at the first snuffle, but listen for a few seconds to see if he might doze back off by himself.

I have got to say though that my second child was a fabulous sleeper from the start (3-4 hours, twice at night), I bf her the same, but she didn't seem to have the same wind issues!

floppops, you sound as if you're having a dreadful time - I do feel for you.

I would agree with everyone who's posted about overtiredness / overstimulation. Our DS is now 10 weeks, but we realised a while ago that he had been chronically overtired since 2 weeks old, but we were unable to get him to sleep enough to make up the backlog.

We've started using a sling (this one) during the day and he has begun to sleep more and more. Having caught up on some of the backlog of sleep he now will yawn and do grumbly cries when he's tired, whereas before he would flip straight from wide awake & cheerful into overtired yelling, so I can tell we are making progress.

We find that if he gets overtired and takes a long time to get to sleep, he will only sleep for about 30-40 mins before waking up again. Your DD may have a similar problem, I suspect. DS always seems cheeful and alert when he is chronically overtired (until the crying starts). He can only cope well with being awake for about 45 minutes before he starts needing to be helped to sleep again, but left to his own devices it can be 2 hours before the cheerfulness stops and the crying starts.

I found that if I grabbed him when he was just waking up, I could often rock/shush/pat him back to sleep. Might be worth a go to try to get her to sleep for longer periods.

Get grandparents, visitors etc to come and wear her in the sling for a bit so she can get some sleep and you can get some rest. Take turns with your DP - one wear her in the sling, one sleep. It took DH a while to be able to send DS off in the sling, but going out for a walk rather than jiggling about indoors seemed to do it. (I find that wearing the sling so much hurts my back, but I try to spend as much time as possible sitting down and am hoping that he will soon be able to sleep without it.

Some not-too-irritating white noise to try: here

I do hope it improves for you soon.

You poor thing, it is a really wearing time, but they do grow out of it. My DS drastically improved at about 8 weeks. I echo all the advice already given - less stimulation, no more than 1.5 hours awake, use sling etc. Also white noise was AMAZING, DS would go from full on screaming to fast asleep in 20 seconds when we turned the hairdryer on!! You can get CDs to play which is a lot safer and more economical than hairdryers or vacuums

I agree with OhFuck (love the name, said a lot in this house). Sod what others think - you have to deal with an overtired and overstimulated baby.

My DS is 5.5 months and still gets overstimulated easily. So we've banned the grandparents this week (they still don't get it) and I'm just focusing on him getting rest!!!

Thanks for all the advice, nice to know others have survived similar problems. I'm still having problems keeping the family away but I am going to get really strict now!
My mum is coming to take her for a walk in the park tomorrow which will give me a break.
She has recently been hard to settle in her sling but I will try again later, at the mo she has fallen asleep in the car seat-anything that works!
I guess it might take a while for her to catch up on her rest.. still taking me hours of feeding,rocking,shsssing to get her to sleep, that's all I do really-ho hum.