HELP! I just want a couple of hours of good sleep at night! UPDATED w/ New ? !

[Calliope]

I am so tired right now. I know my baby is only three weeks old and I don't expect much in terms of sleeping at night, but I don't understand what's going on with him right now. Last week, we seemed to have something of a routine. Nursing every hour or so between 8 and midnight, sleep until 2 or 3, get up, change diaper, nurse, back to sleep until 5 or 6 AM, nurse in bed, sleep until 8 or 9. I complained in another thread that he was a loud sleeper, but that seemed to be working itself out and getting him back to sleep was getting better too.

The past two nights, he is wide awake and bushy tailed at 2 AM and I can't get him back to sleep for an hour or more. I've tried everything I can think of - rocking, wearing him in a sling, nursing him to sleep, let him sleep in my arms for a really long time, sleeping with me, etc. Sometimes, I get him to sleep and when I put him down, he wakes and we have to start all over. When I do finally get him to stay asleep, he is SO LOUD. Stretching, groaning, hiccuping and crying in his sleep. Trying to get him back into deep sleep, I attempt to nurse lying down and he gets even louder. Fussing, singing, gulping, loosing the nipple, protesting loudly. I finally give up and leave the room so poor DH can get some sleep.

The kicker is that this morning after 2 hours of nursing and trying to get the kid back to sleep, I finally got him down in his co-sleeper. He woke after only a couple of minutes and so back in bed we went for another round of "trying to nurse back to sleep lying down". Well, he went down and stayed down SILENTLY for almost 3 hours. Not a single peep for all that time. I even moved him from our bed to the co-sleeper toward the end and he was still out.

:hissyfit I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M DOING WRONG AT NIGHT!!! Why is his routine suddenly out of whack? Why is he such a light and loud sleeper during the night and a silent and hard during the day? I don't know what else to do. I'm just so tired. :cry

[schmamy]

I have no solutions except for the noisy thing: Get a box fan. We have been running one in our room ever since E was about that age because the little noises woke DH up. It doesn't even blow on us, it blows at a wall, but the noise (a white noise machine would accomplish the same thing, of course) helps SOOO much. DH sleeps better and I think DS does too.

:heart hang in there, mama... :hugheart

[Psyche]

:hug2 take a good nap today and have DH bring in take out.

DS did that a bit too. Just try to keep things light and lively during the day and when its night time, dark and quiet. To him night is day and day is night. They get used to being rocked to sleep when you ran all over during the day when they were in the womb.

Do you swaddle?

Also, it sometimes helped us when I'd lay ds on my tummy, so we laid tummy to tummy. He'd go to sleep better that way.

[klpmommy]

babies go through phases, esp in the early days. It sounds like some day/night confusion-- lots of daylight (sun) in the day, esp the morning will help. Also, def swaddling- good tight swaddling like Dr. Karp recommends.

You aren't doing anything wrong. :hug Newborns esp like to keep moms guessing & messing with sleep is so stressful. Take a nap (or two) today & don't stress about your house.

[Yuliana]

Some days when I really need my rest, I nurse Matthew and as soon as he falls asleep I put him in his pack-n-play. He usually sleeps longer there maybe because it is 3 of us on a Queen size bed and he can smell me, who knows.

But I think there is nothing wrong w/ that as long as you are not ignoring and paying attention to his needs.

[Calliope]

Do you swaddle?

Also, it sometimes helped us when I'd lay ds on my tummy, so we laid tummy to tummy. He'd go to sleep better that way.


I did, but DS likes to sleep with his arms sticking up around his head. I would swaddle him and then listen to him struggle out of the swaddle for a better part of an hour. I could try again, I guess.

He does sleep on his side.

[allisonintx]

Swaddle with his arms up.

Nurse as often as possible during the day, at least every two hours, even to the point of waking him up. Make sure the house is BRIGHT all day long while the sun is up, even if you have to turn on lights to do it, and make sure it's DARK at night. It helps.

[Calliope]

Swaddle with his arms up.

?? Arms up? How do you do that? You mean like Egyptian mummy style?

[allisonintx]

wrap his body tightly with his arms up by his face like he likes.

[Calliope]

wrap his body tightly with his arms up by his face like he likes.


Ah, got it. I didn't know that swaddling worked still if their arms were out.

[Calliope]

New question: If he sleeps a lot during the day, does that mean he's more likely to be awake at night? Do teeny babies work like that?

[allisonintx]

Most babies 8lbs or larger will sleep one good four to six hour chunk each day. If your baby is doing that during the day, I would encourage it to move to the night.

[klpmommy]

teeny babies sleep. :shrug honestly, IME, you really can't keep a baby awake longer in the day in order to get him to sleep better at night. S slept probably 20+ hours in the early weeks- the problem is that often her most awake times were the middle of the night. E was the same way, but she slept a LOT less. Even if you do nothing, your baby will figure out the day/night thing by about 6 wks. But to help lots of daylight during the daytime hours- open your curtains, sit by the windows, use lamps if necessary. At night keep it as dark as possible. In the day play with, talk to & interact with your baby. At night minimize that as much as you can. I have never been able to successfully wake a sleeping baby in the early weeks.

:hug He'll figure it out.

[Calliope]

Most babies 8lbs or larger will sleep one good four to six hour chunk each day. If your baby is doing that during the day, I would encourage it to move to the night.


Hm, blah. Well, he's in middle of his chunk right now then. And he's been doing this around the same time for the past few days. I'll work on trying to move it into the night. In the meantime, I'm trying to wake him up to nurse every two hours like you suggested so hopefully that will help.

[illinoismommy]

Sweet, I've never seen a sleep thread that has the same advice I was going to give.... if baby is sleeping hard and heavy during the day, wake him up. I'd wait until an hour and a half in to the long sleep session and wake him, that should be enough to complete a sleep cycle. Make the house bright. Nurse more often during the day. I remember taking note of a part in So That's What They're For where she says babies who sleep longer at night eat more during the day. I did notice (although bottle feeding by this point) that when she ate a certain number of ounces during the day, she wouldn't eat much at night, but when she didn't she would wake to eat. DH and I joked that she had an ounce-o-meter.... where she knew how many calories she needed and made that happen no matter what.... smart babies.

[crunchymum]

DH and I joked that she had an ounce-o-meter.... where she knew how many calories she needed and made that happen no matter what.... smart babies.

:giggle

[Calliope]

Update:

Okay, so we went to nursing every two hours during the day, swaddling, keeping the house dark at night and bright during the day and I bought a white noise machine to play in our room. Things seem to be a lot better. He' s going back to sleep much easier (I also improved my "laying the baby down" technique quite a bit) even though it seems that the wanting to eat every two hours thing has carried over into the night. I'd prefer the 3-4 hour stretches he was doing previously, but as getting him back to sleep is going so well, I'll take two good hours of sleep separated by 30-40 minutes of nursing over 3 hours of lousy sleep separated by 1-2 hours of nursing and trying to get him down again.

The new problem is that he's become really fussy between 8PM and midnight. He's overtired and it's hard to get him to sleep to start now (as opposed to before where he went down easy to start but was hard to put down again thereafter). I try to nurse him down, but he eventually gets too full and starts pushing me away and is even more hysterical than before. DH can usually get him settled, but he still wakes when we try to lay him down. Any tips on calming and putting an overtired 1 month old to sleep?

[Yuliana]

I got flamed for this once before but here it goes :O http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/fussy-evening.html

My ds went through what it is called cluster feeding/fussy evenings around that same age as your lo. What worked for us was to bf continuously and also changing breasts whenever he got fussy until satisfied. He always did it from 9 pm to 12 midnight, it was rough. My boobs looked like deflated balloons. But it worked, after a few days it stopped.

[klpmommy]

That is why I don't mess with a newborn's natural sleep schedule, b/c overtired = harder to fall asleep. If it were me, I would continue with everything *except* waking up the baby to nurse during the day- continue the daylight, white noise, swaddling, etc.

But how does he do if you offer your knuckle to suck? S likes that when she wants to suck but not nurse. Also I spent a lot of time the first cole of months in the recliner in front of the tv holding S skin to skin, nursing off & on all evening until around 11 or so when I swaddled her & went to bed.

[Calliope]

That is why I don't mess with a newborn's natural sleep schedule, b/c overtired = harder to fall asleep. If it were me, I would continue with everything *except* waking up the baby to nurse during the day- continue the daylight, white noise, swaddling, etc.

But how does he do if you offer your knuckle to suck? S likes that when she wants to suck but not nurse. Also I spent a lot of time the first cole of months in the recliner in front of the tv holding S skin to skin, nursing off & on all evening until around 11 or so when I swaddled her & went to bed.


Yeah, I've decided to go back to just nursing on demand because he used to cluster feed on his own around that time anyway.

I was going to ask about the sucking thing because he has a STRONG urge to suck. If he's awake and I'm not nursing him, he has a hand in his mouth. I think he's been doing that since the womb. He's not much into comfort (sucking for the sake of sucking) nursing, because my letdown drowns him. I'll have to try the knuckle thing. I confess the day we bought the white noise machine, I scoured our town for a Soothie pacifer for this reason. Never found one, but maybe that's a good thing. :bag

[jewelmcjem]

I scoured our town for a Soothie pacifer for this reason. Never found one, but maybe that's a good thing. paper bag over head

Target. We use a pacifier, all but one of my kids did right from the start and never had nipple confusion or latch problems (beyond my OAL issues). They didn't have Soothies back when they were born so we used Nuks, but Fiona loves the Soothie.

[klpmommy]

S likes her hand, too, but her control isn't good enough when she is tired yet. pacis are not evil, they are just often overused. :hug

[Yuliana]

I let Matthew use a pacifier at daycare so he wouldn't be overfed. For some months now he has been using them when w/ me. We love the MAM pacifiers because we can get several colors to match his clothing :O

[Linnis]

DS took a pacifier but only a Nuk. I'd replace my nipple with the pacifier when he was asleep and only sucking once every 30-40 seconds. The slip the pacifier in rock him for a few minutes and put him in his own bed. Then I could get 1-2 hours of sleep alone...without him in the bed so I could stretch out. Now on good reflux days I can get him to sleep 4-6 hours alone before he wants to come to bed with me.