7 week old overtired & won't nap (trying baby whisperer)

[sophiepumpkin]

Feeling fairly desperate.

My little boy is 7 weeks. I have been feeding on demand but he is struggling with wind and I think I was feeding him instead of putting him to bed when he was tired. I read the baby whisperer book and have tried to implement the EASY eat activity sleep you routine for the last 2 days.
The trouble I am having is he just screams when I put him down. He also screams when I hold and try and comfort him. I presume this is when he is overtired or overstimulated which at the moment is every time I try to put him down. Last night he slept from 9pm (after trying to put him down and him screaming from 7pm) until 12.30, then 4.30 until 7am. He has just now resisted sleep until 10am.
This morning I resorted to feeding him before his nap because I can't stand the upset. But now I don't know where to go.
Do I need to give it 3 days? Do I give up? Do i need to persist? Need some kind of routine for my sanity and I feel he would be happier too. Feeling so upset and alone.
All the threads I've read seem to be of people's experiences with babies who will sleep or who do after a few goes etc but I can't see an end in sight.

[Chachah]

I think your baby is still too young for any sort of routine, in fact I don't think the baby whisperer method is recommended before 3 months?

At this age, I would go for a "whatever works" approach. It does sound like your little one is overtired, have you tried carrying him in a sling? It really relaxes them, and it was the only way mine would nap at that age.

Good luck!!

[Greenstone]

Oh yes, this magical 'putting the baby in bed' business. Look, it just doesn't work for some babies. It didn't work for mine and it doesn't work for a lot of other babies, despite what you will read. Feeding to sleep before a nap is completely normal, relaxing for the baby, and much less stress (IMO) than trying to get a squalling overtired infant down to sleep when they are so far gone they don't know what they want.

It's true that overtiredness makes babies insane. With my dd it took me ages to realise that I needed to get her back to sleep after her first wake-up very quickly - at that age, probably within an hour or 1.5 hours at most? (It sounds like it shouldn't make sense, but it's true.) Does he sleep in the pram or sling? It doesn't actually matter where he sleeps right now, so long as he sleeps. So if you can be ready to go for a walk first thing in the morning, that should help you start the day without overtiredness.

Google what the maximum awake times are for a 7-week old, and make that your routine for now. Have the baby fed and then in the pram or sling or just in your arms by the time the next nap is due. You don't need much else :)

[Chachah]

oh yes, Greenstone is absolutely right - it also took me ages to realise Dd could not really stay awake for more than 1/1.5 hours in the beginning! Once I understood that, it became pretty easy - the trick really is to try and put them to sleep when they are ready to sleep, then they go down easily. If you wait too long (ie more than 90 minutes of awake time!), then they get overtired and it's a nightmare.

[beccajoh]

Some babies just don't do routines, or at least not one you try to impose on them. DD resisted every attempt to try and introduce a tiny bit of regularity into our lives! DS on the other hand got himself into a routine even Gina Ford would be proud of. I did nothing differently with him. DD needed to feed to sleep whereas DS has self-settled since birth, which is freaky.

Get your baby to sleep any way you can. Reckon on him only being able to stay awake for an hour.

[NeedaDiscoNap]

Hi OP, I posted recently about a similar thing - I was trying to do EASY with my 11 week old DD and it was driving me insane. I got lots of good advice from mumsnetters and I'd agree with a lot of what has been said above.

I decided to try it for the same reasons as you - my baby was going crazy in the evenings and was often overtired during the day. However I was so set on doing everything 'properly' that it didn't work - I felt like I was stuck in the house all day and it was ruining my enjoyment of my baby.

Over the past few days I've changed approach; still aiming for a 7pm bedtime and 7am wake time, but am being much more flexible during the day. My baby sometimes follows EASY perfectly, but other times has a feed and goes straight to sleep. I figure as she gets older and her feeds start to space out as wake time increases, then I won't be feeding just before naps all the time (I am terrified of feeding to sleep!).

I moved my baby into a quiet, dark room for naps at ten weeks which has really helped. I spent a few days watching her for sleep cues (for her, first yawn means get her upstairs, second yawn needs to be in the Moses basket, if we get to eye rubbing then she's overtired) and put her down for a nap when I see them. Sometimes she has long naps with no help from me, and sometimes she catnaps and I have to help her back to sleep, or of she won't go to sleep I get her up, and put her back down earlier next time.

The best piece of advice I got was to respond to my individual baby. It's made me much less anxious and she is napping better during the day and going down better at night. Hope things work out for you OP.

[blushingmare]

Greenstone's absolutely right. Just make sure you're putting him down after he's been awake for 1-1.5 hours, and work your "routine" around that. Sometimes you'll need to feed to sleep, sometimes rock him, sometimes wear him, sometimes push him in a buggy. Babies this small just need to sleep anyway they can. There's plenty of time for a more rigid routine once he's older and more amenable to it and then it won't be such a fight. It's tough having a little baby - don't make it harder on yourself by trying to force your baby into a routine that might not suit him