8wk old won't sleep during the day

[carla25]

HI everyone my DS is 8 wks old and is refusing to sleep during the day. We've tried several different routines/techniques but nothing is working. Luckily at night he sleeps fine but we don't get him to sleep until about 10:30-11pm but then once he's asleep he sleeps through til about 4am before waking for a feed and then going back to sleep for another 3hrs. Sometimes if I'm lucky he'll go back after the 7am feed for a couple hrs til 9am but then he's up for the whole day. He has mild reflux and is a bit colicky so maybe that's part of the reason. But after about 2 1/2 hrs of being awake he starts to become very unsettled and over tired and then he's cranky for the rest of the day/night til we finally get him to sleep late at night again. Some day6s a little better then others and we can get 1 or 2 short sleeps out of him during the day but most days are hard and frustrating.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice? Any chance of him growing out of this and settling after a few months? Thanks : )

[JE's Mum]

The second month is pretty horrible all round. Sounds like my second at 8 weeks. He wouldn't sleep anywhere during the day other than in the baby bjorn. Once he hit 12-14 weeks he really settled down and now settles in his cot for naps quite happily most of the time. He still only has 45 mins at a time though. No amount of resettling will make him go longer. Don't stress, most bubs will outgrow this after 3 months or so. Just have to ride it through. Good luck :hugs:

[majano]

My youngest DD went through a phase from about 3 months to 5 months where she would NOT have a day sleep, or if she did it was only about 30 mins max. Now she's 9 months and sleeping around 2-3 hours a day! (Yet sleeping through the night; which is wonderful!!)

Babies can change their habits a hundred times over, particularly during their first year. So if I were you, I'd put it down to a 'phase' and cross your fingers things will change soon! :)

[MrsTiggyWinkle]

Carla, that sounds just like my little Fiona! She's 9 weeks today, and I have just got her off to sleep, its 3pm now and she's been up since 7am with a couple of catnaps. We're even having Christmas day at home, the three of us, cos we can't take her anywhere.

We have definitely found that the colicky behaviour is much worse when she's tired. We did a few things to improve her and the last weekor 10 days has been a big improvement, though I can still barely leave the house and some days are still just awful, though at least we have good days now, all of November was just horrendous.

I found that 2 hours was too long to keep her up, I now head for bed after an hour or hour and quarter. That's the recommended time for her age I think.

I also found that passing her around for cuddles to visitors really upsets her, so now I refuse or just don't offer. Perfumes, aftershaves, heat and cold upset her too.

Look on raising children - in the newborn sleep section they have a patting settling technique. Fiona cries when I do this but when I know that she is fed, changed and burped, and is just crying because she is overtired, I persist and she *usually* settles in 5 or 10 minutes. (Today was a disaster though, which usually means we are in for a rough evening.

The Karitane website also has lots of information on settling.

I also bought the book "secrets of the baby whisperer" which has helped me better understand what might be bothering her, I'd highly recommend that.

If all else fails I let her fall asleep on my shoulder and either watch a DVD or then prop her up on a pillow (with supervision) so I can get some stuff done.

I'm trying to keep a track of her 'routine' (hah!) to see if that helps.

If you have or learn any other tricks, I'd love if you can let me know. How do you know she has reflux? I think Fiona might have a bit too. What do you do about it?

Hope that thelps,
Anna.

[MrsTiggyWinkle]

Just came back to add...
By 7pm she had 2 hours sleep all day. She was fed, burped, changed, everything was fine but still crying her eyes out in the cot. She stopped every time one of us picked her up. Which meant nothing was wrong, she just wanted a cuddle/attention.

So we left her for 3 minutes, came back and calmed her, left the room, she started again, came back and calmed her after 5 and again after 10 - this time she stopped after about 7, sucked her hand for another 10 and is now out cold.

Despite all the attempts to take the softly softly approach, she's not the boss. Now I'm off ot bed cos i'm exhausted!

[carla25]

Thanks everyone for your replies, it's so reassuring to know that I'm not the only with a non-sleeping baby lol!
Annamac - When we went to our 6 wk paediatrician check up he diagnosed Kyan with mild reflux (often reffered to as sient reflux). He doesn't spit up a whole lot but when the vomit starts to come up into his throat it goes back down and aapparently can burn quite badly. He was also having pain while feeding, after about 10-15mins into his feed he qould stat crying out in pain, but the cries weren't normal, they were little sqeauly, painful cries and we were getting so worried. Our paediatrician advised to try mylanta, 1ml 4 tmes a day for about 4days and then if that didn't seem to make matters better then he gave us a script for infant oral zantac which we give 1 ml 3 times a day, he's been on the zantac now for 5 days. So far it does seem to be helping with the pain but he's unsettled during the day. I got him to sleep today at 11am but he woke after an hr but after another feed he went back to sleep at 12:15pm and is still asleep now at 2:30pm. This is the most day time sleep he's had for a few days. Last night he slept from 10pm-5:30am, had a feed then went back to sleep til 9:30am. At least he's sleeping well at night I just wish he'd settle more during the day.

If I come up with any successful techniques I'll let you know!!