6 week old - terrible sleeper - link to feeding??

[Suchanamateur]

My ds is a terrible sleeper. Incredibly difficult to get him to nap in the day - maybe the odd 30 mins with lots of patting from me in his cot, or a bit longer in his buggy but he always wakes up if I stop. As a result by the end of the day he is totally overtired and fractious. Usually manage to get him down about 8,30pm (after an hour or so of trying) until maybe 11 if we're lucky, and then again for another 2 1/2 hours, if we're lucky. Then from around 2/3 he wakes every half hour/ 45 mins until the morning and cue napping problems again.

He has also always been a terrible feeder - I'm bfing (apart from his 10/11pm bottle which is either FF or EBM - makes no difference to the length of time he sleeps just a question of whether I had any time in the day when he didn't need me to express...)· Every feed is a fight as he pings on and off, shouts and me and then roots desperately. As a result, its very difficult to tell if he's had enough - our feeds go on for an hour at least because of all this shenanigans - and he's often doing his tongue sticking out thing at the end, even if I can't get him to feed any more. I've seen lactation consultants who have variously told me I have a too fast lset down, too slow or everything is fine. His weight gain is huge (up from 50% percentile at birth to 91% now) and he has plenty of wet and dirty nappies.

Needless to say the cycle of feeding/ fighting and then trying hard to get him to sleep is absolutely exhausting. I think I could cope with one or the other but both is SO hard.

What I'm not clear about is if the two are related? Hes more difficult to feed when hes overtired, but is the feeding linked to his sleep problems, or is he just a poor sleeper?

We gave him a bottle of EBM at the weekend after a bf, which he drank down hungrily (he doesn't always if you offer him a top up), and then slept through a whole two hours. Utterly unheard of.

If giving him a bottle will help him sleep (again regardless of the contents - rather the method of delivery) then I am seriously thinnking about switching from the bfing as I can't stand the fights for much longer. But I don't wnat to give up if the two are unrelated and I end up not bfing, and still with a non sleeping baby on my hands.

Any advice? Is he still too young to expect any sort of routine (apart from a bad one..?). Sorry about the length of this post - just realised how much I need to get it out in the open and vent. People just keep on saying that since he's gaining weight, he's fine and he's just an 'alert' baby that doens't need to sleep much (especially my MIL). I KNOW thats rubbish..!

No advice im afraid, but my sympathy as my DD is also 6 weeks and is very similar.

during the night she feeds fairly calmly and goes back to sleep usually at midnight, 4am and 6.30 - 7am but then throught the day i have awful trouble settling her for a nap, she only wants to sleep on me, will not sleep in the pram and wakes after 20 - 30 mins if i put her down asleep. so in the evenings she is so overtired she just screams at me for a hour from 7pm until she passes out, sometimes having taken a feed sometimes not. i find as she gets more tired in the afternoon she becomes more and more difficult to feed and will not latch on, the just pulls off, cries, headbutts me. and if i give a bottle at bedtime she will often calm down and drink from the bottle

i have been wondering if switching to formula would make her more settled and maybe give a little more predictability to our day ( i have a 3yo so that would be helpful) but like you if i stop BF and it dosent help i would be gutted.

hope someone can come along to advise

DD now 10m did crappy evening feeds and screaming until 13w. she would go on and off breast constantly, pull off, scream, claw at my nipple....anyway now with the benefit of HINDSIGHT ah! poor bubba was simply exhausted but couldnt fall asleep so did next best thing, feed then realise she didnt want it. anyway i would suggest trying a new evening method to get off to sleep instead of the on /off feed. if i could go back in time i would put her in sling and walk around the house instead
i also had to hold her for most naps until 5m. good luck ladies, i would say try to keep at it cos i found at 13w she really changed and became so much easier in many ways

I had similar. was fine fro the first week in hospital , then from week 1-13 was awful. was so very sleep deprived , was in a state.
looking back, just assumed it was colic. does fit becasue colic week 1-12, classically.
I had no problems during day. But he screamed, god such a high pitched scream , on and off all night, the poor lad MUST Have been in pain.
sorry, how old is he now ?
i bf, expressed and used a formula here and there. nothing made any difference. mind you tongue tie hadn't helped.
i still wonder , even though you've been checked, if your latch is right. it doesn't sound ideal reading it back, does it.have you had your bf'ing checked, does it feel right ? when you are actually mid bfeed, does it feel o.k. ?

plus mine had no problem with weight gain. atleast yours doesn't.

that doesn't help though. poor yopu. you must be shattered.

do you like routine. do you WANT to try to stimulate him, exhaust him in the am, have more structured naps.
Try the whole bath bedtime routine, thing.
it might help a tiny bit.
will post later.

duuurrrrr. sorry missed the 6 wk old. in TITLE. sorry.

I could have written your post! At 6 weeks my DS was on/off/on/off the breast and would only be put down asleep for 20/30 min naps before waking and screaming, then up every 2 hours at night - it was sooooo exhausting and frustrating. He had fantastic weight gain (8lb13 to 14lb1 at six week check) so I wasn't too worried about the breastfeeding, but the overtiredness (his and mine) was killing me.

By co-incidence I went for two massive walks on one day which he slept through (so 2x2hr naps), followed by fantastic sleep at night (8pm till 4 am IIRC). I tried doing the same thing the next day, and he slept really well again! The scrappy feeding during the day was him trying to soothe himself to sleep not hunger, and once I gave him good naps in the day (in the buggy walking, or on me giving up on the cot) and the growth spurt passed he slept really well, the feeding was much less frustrating and he is much happpier.

I also have a really fast let down, and I think he learnt around the same time just to come off the breast and wait for it to pass, then latch back on. Get some massive sprays of BM across the room, but he seems to think its funny bless him.

Now I just need to convince him to nap in the cot, and we're sorted!

HTH

You poor thing. I agree that the feeding is possibly caused by overtiredness & trying to soothe himself to sleep, and the poor sleeping (especially in the day) is almost certainly caused by overtiredness.

My evenings with DS used to be like this although he was ok at feeding in the day.

I would definitely get hold of a sling & try to give him at least one nap a day in that. Don't try staying in & jiggling around (that was my mistake at first) but go straight out for a walk. It may take him a few tries before he gets used to it, but slings will often persuade the most difficult babies to nap. And buggy naps, while annoying and hard work for you, will give him a bit more daytime rest, so it is worth trying to do as much as you can of those. The more he sleeps in the day, the better he will get at sleeping both day & night.

Don't worry about trying to get him to sleep on his own in the cot - cuddle/rock/whatever to sleep and put him down when deeply asleep (after 15-20 mins is usually a good bet). Or try co-sleeping / lying down with him, even for naps.

A dummy may help him to get to sleep. Sucking is very important to some babies to soothe them into a state of drowsiness, and his feeding pattern sounds like he might be one of them (my DS is). You may well have to hold it in for him - DS (15 wks) still hasn't got the hang of holding one in for long but it really helps him. Try different shapes / sizes as babies like different types, and keep trying it even if he doesn't seem to like it at first. It took DS a good while to get the hang of being soothed by the dummy.

Don't worry about getting him into bad habits at this stage - you need to get over the overtiredness, and if you can sort that, his sleep (and hopefully feeding) should improve. The more he sleeps in the day, the better he will sleep at night. Things will almost certainly improve with the sleep as he gets older and more able to self-soothe.

Try to start getting him off to sleep 45 mins to an hour after him waking up, or else it will get harder as he will be getting overtired. DS will now feed to sleep if he is feeling tired, but won't if he's not yet tired - and he didn't use to if he were overtired.

Try looking for tired signs as well as watching the clock - they can include yawning, slowing down, getting quieter, losing interest in surroundings, fussing, grizzling or crying. However, some babies don't show any signs. DS didn't until he was a bit older.

Don't wake him for a dreamfeed (not sure if you're doing that or not) as you need him to learn to stay asleep.

As GetThePartyStarted says, 6 weeks is also classic growth spurt time. Ours was not much fun - fussy feeding and then yelling because DS wanted to sleep but didn't know how to. Things may calm down a bit once you get past this stage.

And remember: This will pass! It used to take me up to 2 hours to fight DS to sleep each time but now we've got past the overtired stage I can feed him to sleep in 15 mins and he's gradually getting the hang of going to sleep on his own.

A bit of an essay, but hope it helps.

I really hope I don't come accross as patronising, but - is this your first child? Six weeks is ever so young. Very few babies sleep well at this stage.

There is NO link between bottles and/or formula feeding and/or weaning and better/deeper/longer sleep. Trust me on this.I had a 2.5 yr old (bottlefed from 6 weeks) who did not sleep through until 2.5 yrs old, and a bottlefed baby who was sleeping 12-13 hours a night at 6 weeks old. Fluke. Nothing I did or did not do, unfortunately.

All I will say is the MN mantra 'this too shall pass'. And if you can get some respite (relatives, mum, DH etc) - grab it with both hands.

All the best xx

Try getting DH to do sling/buggy duty at the weekend so you can get some rest. If you're still wondering about the effect of feeding, use the time to express and see if bottles make any difference.

Statistically, a higher % of bf babies feed to sleep than ff ones so it would be a shame to give up bf, still have a bad sleeper and one less soothing method to try.

Swaddling can also help babies feel cosy for sleeping, and is good for feeding too if he flails around.

Really feel for you, for us day time sleep really improved when I swaddled our DS. Also gave him a dummy at the same time (6 weeks). Always said I would not give a dummy but it really helped him settle when he just wanted to suck but didn't really want to feed. I watched 'Happiest Baby on the Block' which prompted me to try swaddling.

Thank you all so much for your sympathy and comments.

I thought I did well yesterday with some good long buggy sleeps and 40 mins or so in his cot in the morning. Evening feeds weren't much better, although we had a good mid afternoon one. Nighttime was urgh. I think he's got some reflux which isn't helping matters (cue some attractive projectile vomiting last night), and point blank refuses to take the infant gaviscon... Hoping that some of this is the growth spurt although some of the patterns have been in place for a while...

AngelDog and GetThePartyStarted - thanks for your detailed thoughts. I've got a sling which we use to go out in but I will try using it more (and perhaps abandon the cot for the moment). Am also trying a dummy, and we've always swaddled and will be very fit after all my buggy walks (very sad its raining today...). Agree that not having the pacifier of my boob would be a pity, although he is more relaxed when feeding from a bottle.

APassionateWoman - not patronising but bang on. First child, and me very anxious. Comforting to hear that its not unusual for babies of this age to be bad sleepers - I seem to be surrounded by people who look at me like I'm mad when I say I have real trouble with daytime naps and waking 5 times a night.

Oblomov and Tiredpooky - you give me hope for the 13 week mark although it feels a long time away right now! Various people have checked my latch (and it has never hurt) and think its ok. I think that he goes on well at first but then it gets progressively worse the more pinging off he does.

Mad4MaineCoons - sounds like we're in similar boats - sorry about that. Let me know how you get on. Share your concerns about moving to bottle feeding and its not something you can easily experiment with without damaging your supply, is it?

Must go now. Non sleeping baby to attend to...

A modern variant of cradle rocking - pram back-and-forthing helps our DD nod off for her daytime naps and sometimes she'll sleep in there for more than 2 hours, after initially having problems managing more than 40mins at a time - if I catch her before she fully wakes at the top of a sleep cycle, I can wheel her back into snoozing - in time, it helps her to self-settle, which she does more often now without intervention.

Yes, a dummy can help - it does our DD, although replacing a million times can be wearing so beware! They're a mixed blessing.

Yay to Happiest Baby on the Block Dr Harvey Karp's 5 S technique - REALLY worth trying, especially for such a young baby. It's the order you do it in, apparently: swaddling; holding them on their side/stomach; swinging (rocking, including the all-important head jiggling); Sssshing (loud enough in their ear to drown out their crying); and sucking (he's a pacifier fan). Often, you only need 2 or 3 of the 5 to calm the baby...

Good luck!

I was at the end of my tether by 6 weeks and thought that I would never sleep again but I think that their nervous system is so underdeveloped that they find it hard to settle - the crying does subside quickly after and they fall into much deeper sleeps on the whole. I found that everything clicked into place with DS about 3 months.

For us, routine and transition to formula after struggling to breastfeed changed everything and she went from being a screaming non-sleeper to a happy little thing that slept through the night from an early age (with a dream feed at 10.30pm). She is 6 months now and we have had peaceful nights for as long as I can remember.

Hang in there, the first 6 weeks is notoriously bad but it will get easier really soon. I know that a lot of people disagree but I cannot put enough emphasis on creating a feeding/sleep routine as soon as you feel your baby is ready... only if you want to though. I don't want to come across as a know it all... different things for different people.

That's really interesting gt17. Can I ask at what point you switched to formula and why you think that made the difference? I think I'm going to try angeldog's suggestion of expressing and seeing if the bottle makes a difference at the weekend. Somewhere my gut instinct has been that he has never really been satisfied. In any event, I really hope that his getting a bit older makes some difference. The poor liitle thing is exhausted (and so am I...)

Suchanamateur, I was reading just yesterday that the crying/fussiness peaks at 6-8 weeks for most babies - both the 20% with colic and the 80% with 'normal fussiness'. So take heart that things may improve soon.

Thanks angeldog. A terrible day yesterday where ds only slept for about an hour in total all day. Then, unsurprisingly, a terrible night. Poor thing woke so tired today. Have slung on and off all morning so he's had some sleep although yawned as soon as he woke.. Am sending my mil out for a walk with himshortly! Am taking heart that we might see improvement in time. And trying the bottle/ expressing thing this weekend, if only to rule out that connection..

Poor you!!!

Do try the expressing - bet that works.

We introduced formula after a trip to the ER where I was exhausted like you and bubba was poorly because she was over eating (I was unsure how much milk I was feeding her with the boob) and the doc told me to give her a formula feed (dream feed at 10.30pm) once a day to give myself a break... it worked for us and she started sleeping longer spells. (10.30pm - 5am for starters). It was SMA hung. baby milk... but don't use that!! It made her constipated due to high iron content... then we had to change. Good luck, let us know how it goes!!

So we tried 24 hours of the bottle and me expressing and had probably the worst night yet- and no better sleeps in the day. Profoundly depressing as I thought that might be a way forward (we were already giving him a bottle at his 10/11 drramfeed). I think he is chronically overtired but don't know how we are going to break this cycle. He yawns and cries from the minute he wakes up which makes the 45 minute window tricky. I'm going to put him in the sling after every feed today and see if that helps, but feel at my wits end. He is 7 weeks today and despite being told it got better after 6, this hasbeen thehardest so far. And cannot see an end in sight. Anyone had any luck with a swing? I know these things can create rods/ backs etc but I think we need to try anything to get him to sleep a bit more. Also cranial osteopathy, or am I really grasping at straws??

You poor thing. Mine was like this and it was just awful, traumatic in fact.

Please try to ignore the advice that it gets better at 6/8/10/12 weeks. I found that I was forever holding out for milestones and it just raised my hopes and expectations and made me less patient. Holding on to the fact that it will get better is all you can do. He's still tiny tiny tiny, things will change so much in the next weeks and months.

The best advice I got on here when I was going through this was to abandon all plans for a while and just do whatever it took to get DS off to sleep. In our case that meant the day started with a nap 45 minutes after waking, and DS spent most of the time in the sling. I didn't try out new or different things, I just accepted that the sling worked and persevered with it.

I think this was a turning point for us - DS must have been around 3 or 4 months when I was given the above advice and he didn't improve overnight but slowly he fell asleep more easily.

I also tried cranial osteopathy - made no difference but it was great to have someone listen to us and try to help. We did try almost everything but in the end the only thing that helped was accepting that things were going to be this way for a while and resigning ourselves to minimising stimulation for DS and doing what he needed, not what we wanted.

If it's any consolation DS turned from a horror baby to a really delightful toddler. He's bright, gregarious and affectionate, and I would do it all again for him. In fact, I'm expecting another one in the Autumn!

Keep posting on here, the support is such a help.

Honestly, I was exactly the same and one day they just get used to the world and the intense crying stops - I promise.

Definitely try Dr Karp's 5 S technique, if you haven't already....

When you tried him with the EBM in the bottle, did he drink it all? Does he fall asleep during feeds?

I used to have terrible problems feeding my DD. She would take 1+ hours to feed, kept falling asleep during the feed, and then wouldn't sleep afterwards, and would want feeding again within 20minutes. The problem was she was too tired to feed properly and then too hungry to sleep properly.

In the end I had to do everything I could to get her sleep sorted (whether that be sling, pushchair, holding her) despite my grand ideas that she would only ever sleep in her cot!!!! I then had to do everything I could to keep her awake during the feed (tickling, stripping her clothes off, jiggling boob etc etc). The Baby Whisperer EASY routine was the perfect solution (although didn't work for DS - so horses for courses I guess!). I also tried not to let her fall asleep straight after feed.

All this crap about making a rod for your own back re. sleeping is a load of rubbish. Once I got DD out of the vicious circle, she went on to sleep perfectly in her cot.

Good luck - and remember it doesn't last forever - it just feels like it!!!

Suchanamateur, we are in the same boat. DS2 is 6 weeks and a terrible sleeper. He just cannot seem to settle so we have endless cycles of spending ages getting him to sleep and him waking up 10 minutes later, getting him back to sleep for 20 minutes or so then him waking again and the cycle repeating itself. The days are ok as I have him in the sling literally all day which is killing my back but really the only way to survive at the moment. The days I don't have him in the sling and actually attempt to get things done are disastrous as I spend the whole time trying to settle him. Mornings and evenings are the worse, evenings in particular as every time I am trying to do the bedtime routine for DS1, DS2 is screaming his heart out so I am constantly picking him up, settling him for a minute then having to put him back in his bouncy chair for 5 minutes whilst I take DS1 out of the bath/put his nappy on etc. Every night since he has been born he has screamed throughout DS1's stories then DS1 starts screaming as he LOVES storytime - complete nightmare! I know it will get better, just not sure when! I am so tired that feeds/naps all become a blur, just trying to get through the day. The only thing that has helped has been co sleeping - I do try and settle him in his moses basket for the first part of the night, ie around midnight then take him into bed with us. Not ideal, especially as our 24 month old ends up on the bed with us most nights but it's at least giving us 3 or 4 hours sleep a night as opposed to 1 or 2. I'm not convinced that there is any point trying to work or or solve the problem at this stage as they are still so tiny and change so quickly. Think it's best to do whatever you need to survive and remember it gets better soon. Good luck!

Again- thanks all for your comments. It's making a world of difference to know people who understand are out there. My nct friends are all comparing how their sleep is improving, just when my ds is waking every hour in the night. And another friend texted me that her three week old is already sleeping five hour stretches.Arghh. Major attack of green eye. We are co- sleeping- like gangle, after about 12 or 1- more survival than choice to be honest. Good luck Gangle- I've only got one - don't know how I'd manage with that. You are a hero!

I am using a sling but he's got so heavy it's hard. But will psrservere. There's no moving him from the sling once he's sleeping without waking.

He doesn't always take the whole bottle - picky eater. And he used to fall asleep on the boob but now just shouts at me instead. I'm also trying to get jim down quickly after waking but proving very hard. Especially since he is yawning from wake up.

OhExpletive - good to know there is hope even with a horror baby (we call him our little terrorist- poor thing)and that my failure to help him sleep might not damage him forever, although toddlerhood seems miles away. Sorry for the long complaint. Dh has been ill so it's been a long weekend... Good luck Gangle

wow your post took me right back to the bad old days with my dd. she was much the same with sleep.

to give you a ray of hope though, my dd was also an alert baby, she became quick to take an interest in the world, very independent. she is now 2.5 with the language skills of a 3.5 year old or more, very bright and a super fast learner.

my advice is that by 12 weeks you might want to begin a bedtime routine. I am evangelical about this book:

www.amazon.co.uk/Teach-Yourself-Baby-Sleep-General/dp/0340939583

in my opinion the wakeful, quite fussy and hard work babies are the smart ones.