7 week old has decided sleep is for losers

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

7 week old DD2 will sleep okish at night, once we finally get her down around midnight. She wakes for a 4.30 am feed but goes straight back to sleep. But when she wakes around 8am thats her up all day, minus maybe two 2 hour naps if we are lucky.

It could be worse, I realise that, but she gets herself so overtired during the day that she spends a large part of it really screaming. Nothing we do will work when she gets like this.

It only started 4 days ago. So its out of character. Is it a growth spurt? Is this normal around 7-8 weeks? How many hours should she be sleeping?

[LynetteScavo]

Are you letting her fall asleep by herself, or trying to put her down for a nap?

I think at around this age you should be aiming hoping for 11-12 hours during the evening/night (obviously with feeds, lol) and 4-5 hours in the day, split into three naps.

Your DD my totally disagree with this, though!

[LynetteScavo]

Just realised she's having two two hour naps during the day. If she's over tired, you need to try and get in a late afternoon nap, and get her to sleep earlier in the evening.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

We rock her, hold her, bounce her in her seat etc. All these methods used to work but they dont anymore. I am the only one she will settle for and even then she might just scream in my arms for an hour.

She refuses to sleep in the evenings. Midnight just seems to be her time. I give her baths, bottle then we lie on the sofa with the lights off and the tv low and still shes either wide awake looking at me or screaming at me.

[Megan1989]

My 7 month old dusnt sleep fru the nyt she eventualy goes through at 4ish dnt no wot to do really getin me down:( x

[Zara1984]

Agree with lynette! Your DD sounds overtired and needs more sleep, most of it at bedtime!! I totally didn't realise that you HAVE to make sure babies get naps during the day until my public health nurse mentioned it... and said DS looked exhausted. Babies of this age can't stay awake for more than 90 mins to 2 hours at a time. If they do it's because they've caught a second wind and are actually wired/overtired.

Since 5 weeks this is what I've been doing with DS (now 10 weeks) with reasonable success. I aim for him to have 2 short naps and 1 long nap during the day - totaling 4-5 hours as Lynette says. One short nap morning tea time, longer nap over lunch and short nap in the late afternoon. For the late afternoon nap - if he wakes from his big nap at around 2pmish I try make sure he gets an hour-long nap in the late afternoon. If he wakes at 3pmish it's ok for the late nap to be only half an hour. He then gets settled in bed/in my arms for his nighttime sleep no later than 2 hours from waking from his late afternoon nap (eg about 6.30ish). It can take up to an hour to get him settled to sleep properly for the night after that (rocking him asleep in my/DH arms with pacifier after bath and bottle seems to work best right now) - but after that he'll sleep through with sometimes just 1 feed in the middle of the night and maybe another at 5am.

It's really hard to try and get him to nap late afternoon but I simply have to do otherwise he goes bananas at bedtime and can scream for anywhere up to 4 hours before conking out with exhaustion (and exhausting and upsetting me in the process). Usually for the late nap if he's not going to doze in his bouncer in the living room I just have to get out the house and take him in the pram with blackout blind, rain or shine.

As for feeds and naps, if DS needs a sleep but isn't really hungry, I would still try give him a small top up as long as it's been more than 2 hours since his last feed. Not sure about your DD but it's impossible for me to settle DS for a long nap if he's within an hour or so of his next feed. DS needs sleep more than I need to worry about wasting most of a bottle. Usually now we're into the swing of things his naps come after his usual feeds, though.

You need to watch for the signals she is tired (I totally didn't know these until my health nurse mentioned it!!):

• bringing hands together in a fist to chest
  
• yawning
  
• staring into space
  
• getting grizzly
  

As soon as you see these signs, get her down for a nap straight away - BEFORE she really loses it and she's overtired. It's hard at first but you really have to perservere with it - darkened room, swaddle, pram ride, car ride, whatever. I start watching DS carefully when he's been awake for 1 hour+.

Also if you can avoid having visitors or having baby interact with anyone other than the usual people in the late afternoon (4pm or later) - I find it really winds DS up too much and makes him noticeably hard to settle. MIL gets all huffy about this but you know what, she's not the one that has to settle him when he's desperately overstimulated, overtired and screaming!!

So in summary: flexible routine is your friend and MAKE SURE BABY NAPS!!

Remember babies don't know how to fall asleep when they're tired, we have to teach them!

[Zara1984]

Oh yes and as lynette says - bring your bedtime back way earlier. I thought my public health nurse was nuts when she said this to me (ie starting baby bath and bedtime at 5.45pm?? Get real!!) but honestly it made a HUGE difference.

As I said in my other post, baby needs to be in bed or getting rocked to sleep in your arms for the night no more than 2 hours after waking up from last nap of the day.

The more naps DS has during the day, the easier it is to get him to settle for the evening! Sounds counterintuitive but it's true!

[LynetteScavo]

We rock her, hold her, bounce her in her seat etc

You are overstimulating her...try swaddle, dummy, putting down in the dark.

Sleep breeds sleep with babies, weird but true.

As Zara 1984 says;
"The more naps DS has during the day, the easier it is to get him to settle for the evening! Sounds counterintuitive but it's true!"

In fact, I agree with everything she says.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Thats great advice. The problem is, we are already doing most of it. She just will not sleep.

If we swaddle her she goes apeshit because she hates her arms being restricted and she will fight the swaddle. She has never liked the dummy but I persevered with it and now she might take it now and again. I try to give it to her if she looks tired though.

Bouncing her gently in her seat was the only thing that worked until this week. Now it will still get her over but she wakes straight back up.

Dark rooms are the same. Lying her down and sitting beside her causes even worse screaming or she just lies wide awake smiling and cooing to herself (because I dont want to wind her up more so I ignore at these times.)

The only thing that does work is the car. But we absolutely cannot afford the petrol for that. Its just not sustainable. She hates the buggy (I have no idea why, we have to carry her everywhere.)

Its getting ridiculous. Nothing we do works.

[minipie]

Hi wannabe, just saw this thread - my DD sounds just like yours, she will not sleep in the day and ends up overtired and fractious by the evening. And recently she's not slept too well at night either due to a cold which makes things worse.

Ours hates the swaddle and dummy too. We have tried rocking, gentle bouncing, shhing, dark room, white noise, swing... these might help to calm her a bit but they don't make her sleep, especially once she is already wound up. the one thing that works for us is the pram (mostly) but that's not really feasible in this snow, at least not for long, and she wakes up as soon as the movement stops.

Did you ever find a way to get your DD to nap?

[Isandri]

I have a similar baby. If he's been awake for more than 4 hours I put him in a sling(close carrier/caboo). It exhausts him. He's asleep by the the time I get to the end of the drive. The only downside is I can't take him out until he's awake. If I bounce up and downwhen he starts to stir he'll fall back asleep. He can sleep for 5 hours in the sling and usually sleeps for at least 3 hours. He sleeps much better at night when I do this with him. Oh and he's ebf so 5 hours is wonderful. At night he normally sleeps from 21:00 to 8:00 and he either naps or cluster feeds with us in the living room before bed.

[minipie]

Thanks Isandri. Does your DS object to being put in the sling before going to sleep? DD fights the sling at the moment, I haven't persevered but maybe I should do.

[minipie]

Could you do the car for a few days? I've spent the past few days (since I posted above) taking DD out in the pram for hours on end, to get her caught up on sleep so she was no longer overtired. It has made a massive difference -huge - she now pretty much self settles (provided I get the timing right) and takes long naps in her crib. I can't believe it.

So, maybe 2 or 3 days of naps in the car if you can manage it, just till she catches up on sleep?

[Isandri]

hi , minipie, he does protest sometimes, but is normally quiet within 5 minutes. If he is still complaining after 10 minutes I'll take him out of the sling but so far we haven't got to that point. Worse case senario he'll be grizzly on and off for 10 minutes as he falls asleep. When he is fighing sleep I head outside with him as normal and he snuggles into me and falls asleep.

Yesterday he was in the sling quietly alert for almost 30 minutes before he fell asleep as I slinged him after he'd woken up from a nap.

Yesterday he had 4 naps for between 2 to 4 hours in the day and last night he slept from 21:30 to 9am with 2 night feeds.

I find if he gets overtired it can take a few days for him to settle into a good night sleep pattern.

My DS was a terrible sleeper when he was first born but is getting better all the time. He can now self settle most of the time at night and most of the time can settle to sleep in his crib in the day.