SUCCESS stories for Settling a 7 week OLD ???

[lovinit]

I know that there have been lots on this topic but I am wondering if we can do a summary of what has proven to work ...

At the moment I ahve a 7 .5 week old who cannot settle to sleep by herself despite me having tried since birth
a) no rocking
b) no feeding to sleep
c) limited use of dummy , only when absoloutely necessary
d) tried shhhing and patting
e) tried crying down, does not work !
f) tried leaving to cry for 5 mins at a time, sometimes takes 2-5 times before she settles but have been doing this for so long but she does not seem to show signs of knowing how to settle
g) tried pick and put down
h) tried topping up before naps

I hve her in a grobag and despite conflicting opinions, she sleeps on her tummy .

I feel desperate and exhausted from all the trying and dread each nap . I know it idoes get better , but would love to hear how you all managed it , eventually !

It's still rfeally really young lovinit.
Hard as it is,you just have to go with the flow.
It's way too young to be trying controlled crying techniques.
How does she settle?
My dd wanted to be in my arms constantly,sucking on the breast.
I was exhausted too but just accepted that this what what she needed and settled down to read a lot of books!

(Look back quite wistfully on it all now that my kids are never still!)

IKt is tough,but it gets better-promise!

Agree with Moondog, she's very tiny still and you'd be extremely lucky if you had a baby that age who could settle herself to sleep.

Personally, I would just do what works to get her to sleep - you won't be setting up bad habits for her at this age. Maybe at 3-4 months or so you can look at putting her down awake but drowsy to fall asleep herself, but I really wouldn't think you need to do that now.

It sounds like you are being quite hard on yourself - your standards are so high you're almost bound to fail. I've seen a few of your posts along these lines, and I wonder if going with the flow a bit more would help? The early weeks are very exhausting though, you really have my sympathies.

IMO at 7 weeks you just do whatever you can to get through the early days. It's chaotic. Parents of babies who settle easily at this early age and sleep for long amounts of time are just lucky and there's no trick to it. My advice is to just go with it and try not to stress as this is so normal.

she's only 7 weeks - i would simply enjoy the closeness at nap time

Lovinit, I agree with the others. Your techniques are really not meant for such a young baby. What she needs right now is you! The comfort of closeness etc. You will not be setting up bad habits at this age. In fact, by not providing the comfort she needs from you, you may well be making her feel insecure and she may be more difficult to settle later.

I wouldn't even think of controlled crying etc until at least a year old. Before that they are really so dependant on you - they are not naughty, but instinctively want you near. I attended to DS up to a year old every time he cried/didn't settle. In fact, he did not cry unless he really needed something (I put this down to him knowing instinctively that I would be there when he needed me - unlike friends who tried all your techniques to get their babies to settle, and ended up with very insecure babies because their parents left them to cry without the comfort they needed in the early days). DS did not form bad habits. He is now 2.3yo and is very secure and settles very easily both for daytime and nighttime naps. I am sure that the reassurance of having me at hand in that first year made him as confident and relaxed as he is. On the other hand, some of my friends who tried to force the issue with their babies when they were little, are still having somewhat of a nightmare time (of course, some of this could be due to personality, but it seems a bit more than coincidence that those of us who didn't try and enforce "good habits" at a really early age now have easy-going toddlers when it comes to sleep time, while those who tried everything to "avoid bad habits" have really struggled and some still struggle with bedtime issues).

Good luck
Enjoy the closeness while it lasts. They soon don't want to snuggle to sleep anyway.

Thanks for your replies.

I do enjoy the closeness I have with DD but the problem is that even when she falls asleep on me or whilst feeding , she wakes again on being put down. I cannot carry her for every nap, since I am so exhausted already plus I also have a 2 year old to attend to . Honestly, if she did stay asleep, then it really wouldn;t be such an issue with me !

Lovinit - you have my sympathy, it's really hard in the early days if you have a baby who won't settle.

Unlike some others, I wouldn't have said any of the things you have tried are necessarily inappropriate for a 7 week baby. I do think it's reasonable to be wanting to get your dd to settle herself. Of the things you suggest I wouldn't bother with the topping up which imo just prolongs the process. When she doesn't settle I assume you have ruled out the obvious things like wind or colic. If it's colic, from friends' experience it is unlikely to be helped by anything but she will grow out of it around 12 weeks.

All I can suggest is either keep going with the same, or get a sling for her, preferably one which she can fall asleep in and then you can take it off and leave her in it, or feed her lying down in bed (if breastfed) so it's less disturbance to her when you go (also seems to minimise wind ime.)

I find that even my five week old needs to be tired enough to have a sleep where i am able to put him down after i have say - b/fed him to sleep.
E.G if he has been awake a good 2 hours i am able to feed him and put him down and he is zonked
Also - wind can be a problem - often if you lay them down even after they have been settled on you - they wont settle with wind
Also - i know you are putting her on her front - are you still trying her on her back in case she becomes more comfortable that way??
Are you using Infacol for wind??

Have you consideresd gina ford?

Hi Robina, , DD! was colicky, but she definitely is not ! Tks for your reassurance that things I have tried is not inapporpriate , I feel like such a hitler sometimes but I too think that it is not wrong to want them to settle by themselves .

Tessiebear ... I do not think it is wind but how would you know for sure ? I do make sure she burps and generally she needs to be carried upright a lot so has plenty of opportunity to burp. Not tried to put her on her back ... do not dare to be honest with you ! Generally when i wake her up for feeds during the day I turn her on her back and that has the effect most of the time of waking her up !

Hercules, she is on GF's routine ! Took a few weeks but she does seem to be settling into the routine now. Am not strictly following it though as DD seems to need more sleep than suggested.

TIPEX .. have been roughly following yr thread ! How are things now ?!!!

Perhaps she's simply not ready to fall asleep on her own yet. I suggestede gf as I thought it might help you with a routine but perhaps that's the problem iyswim. I really wouldnt wake her to feed if that is what gf suggests. I would let her find her own routine as babies do.

Sorry, just read your post on the other thread about you not being good with baby going with the flow so ignore my last post. Perhaps better to persevere in that case with the routine. Whatever gets you through this time,.

I too have a 7 week old, and i too, had this problem. I'm trying to tackle each nap at a time. At the moment, i've cracked the morning nap, and always put ds to bed after about an hour and a half of being awake. Sometimes it takes him 5 minutes to get to sleep, sometimes it takes an hour, but he is always wide awake when i put him down. And he normally sleeps for a good 2 hours. Mayve i am just lucky, or maybe, it is because i am being him to bed before he gets tired, that he can fall asleep by himself. I'm not sure, but it seems to work. Just need to work on the rest of the day now. I'm crap at knowing when he's tired, and i always miss the 'signs', so later on in the day i have to take him out in the car or in the pram for a nap.

Posted this on other thread and thought I would copy it here too.

I think that mums have to be careful af avoiding things that work because they may be habit breaking. My babies always fed at the breast till they fell asleep and then I put them down. If they woke again I sat with them in my arms or on my chest under my chin. Do did DH. In the evenings often sat watching the telly like that. It did not turn into a habit. As they grew older their habits changed and they could settle on their own. Always breastfed to sleep before bedtime after bath until they stopped breastfeeding. They wwere all good sleepers bar one - DS3 who was 8 months before he slept through the night. The other 3 ranged between 9 and 16 weeks. They are all individuals.

I think that you should never shut yourself away in a quiet darkened room with a young baby - they can sleep through anything wheras you will get increasingly tired and depressed.

My sister had 4 poor sleepers and she learned after number 1 that she spent too much time trying to avoid feeding and cuddling to get baby to sleep. She did whatever she had to do for sanity.

I hope you all find solutions to work but be aware that yound babies only conform to sleep routines if that is what they are naturally going to do. Sleep traing is not possible under 6 months (at least)IMO.

Agree with Mears. Seven weeks is so small. What is wrong with rocking, feeding etc? Women have been doing those things for thousands of years, because they work. BTW I have a six month old who still wakes at night and doesn't have real day naps and a three year old who is only in nursery two days a week.

My dd never really settled for her day naps until 12 weeks when she started sleeping through at night. I find that if you watch very carefully you get to know their sleepy signals. If I catch my daughter just right, she naps without me needing to do anything but put her in her bed. Leave it a bit longer and I have to cuddle her for about five minutes. It's almost as if she has to 'chill out' and transition from playing, interacting with people etc, into being ready for sleep. If I don't give her that little cuddle she moans like mad when I put her down, but she will eventually go to sleep. She has a little handkerchief doodoo blankie that works wonders. She only has it when she sleeps and as soon as I put it in her hands she immediately puts her thumb in her mouth ready for sleep.

I used to pat my dd until she was drowsy and then put her in the cot, when she would inevitably start crying. And, no matter how much more I picked her up and patted her again, she would just not stop crying. The only way was for her to cry herself to sleep, which I hated.
Then my dh had some time off work and started putting her down in her cot - he didn't do the patting and comforting, just plonked her in teh cot, and she would go off to sleep no problem!!
She probably hated all that patting and cuddling, when all she wanted was her bed!

Now, at 12 weeks, I look out for her 'sleepy signs' - which is always about 2 hours after she has woken (almost to the minute), take her up to the nursery before she gets overtired and put her in her cot. We have a non-musical mobile with flashcards over her cot, which she looks at before she nods off. Sometimes, she'll go down without any crying, more often than not she'll cry for a few minutes, then stop and look at her mobile, then she turns to look at the side of her moses basket and then she'll be asleep (I know all this because I spy on her through the crack of teh nursery door.)

I still hate the fact that she cries for a few minutes before she goes down, but I read in the Baby Whisperer book the other day that some babies will do this - Tracy Hogg calls it a 'mantra', as a means to get themselves off to sleep. And, indeed this 'cry' isn't really like crying, more like shouting or moaning, so feel better knowing this.

Sometimes, I miss my dd's 'sleep signs' and then she'll be overtired and will become inconsolable and cry herself in a horrible way to sleep ... that's when I wish patting/cuddling/rocking would help her settle, because it would give me something to do to help her. But, as my dh says, it's all about what helps her in the long and short term, not what makes me feel better.

Have you tried reading DR Harvey Karps book - "The Happiest Baby on the block - the new way to calm crying and help your baby sleep longer" He's an American author.

My HV advised me that my DD 11 weeks old had colic at 3 weeks.....however Colic to me is a baby screaming consistantly for hours at end....etc...

Anyway my point being that he has a principal of the 5 S's basically:-

Swaddling - tight wrapping
Side/Stomach - laying a baby on her side or stomach
Shushing - loud white noise
swinging - rhythamic, jiggy motion
Sucking - suck on anything from your nipple or finger to a pacifier

Basically he says about the fact that a baby under 6months...

At first and at the hospital my DD resisted swaddling majorly but as the book says perservere and it works!

For white noise I find that I have to shush above her crys!

Anwyay I have been trying the above for about 2 weeks so she is no longer failing asleep on me to sleep, I can settle her and as she is drowsy I can put her down without tears....if she wakes up I pick her up immediately and resettle her then put her down...

I personally couldn't do GF I read some of it and it is probably down to taking what works for you...but the having to making the baby sleep from 2pm - 2:45pm in a darkened room etc... wouldn't work for me I need flexability....I read the BW by Tracey Hogg and I like the EASY routine but it doesn't work for us DD defo is the boss!!!

We have been using Infacol (she spits out) then we switched to Denitox and yesterday I tried leaving it out and she was full volume scream feast....as she has colic...I also have taken her to a cranial osepath and afterwards she was much better I am taking her again next week.

HTH

lx