Hardly any sleep during the day

[june05isttimer]

I have a 2 and a half week old who seems to be incredibly alert.

Yesterday she fed every couple of hours and was awake all day.
She power napped on either my husband or I for about 30mins here and 30mins there but that was it.

She didn't end up going to sleep until 1am in the morning and I think she was soo tired she slept through til almost 10am when we thought we had better get her up and moving.

i have rung the riverton centre line who advised she should only have about an hours wake time between feeds and then I should try and settle her..

I have tried this to no avail and as the day goes on the tireder she gets and the more she fights going to sleep.

Friends are now saying that maybe its time we started putting her in her cot to sleep and leaving her cry and hopefully she may put herself to sleep. Im just not sure yet as to whether she is still too young for this.

Has anyone else had similar problems at all???

Im yet to get her and I into any routine as some days she is great and other days she is really cranky.

Im going to start bathing her in the evening and try and do it at the same time every night then feeding her and putting her down to try and establish some small pattern. Is this the right thing???

Yesterday we almost went insane with her fighting going to sleep and her crying which gradually got worse and worse by the afternoon.

HELP !

[drewid]

Hi there June05

My bubba, now 4 months, was much like yours at the same age. He was awake a lot and fed very often. It was absolutely exhausting. We had quite a few nights with little sleep and hubby and I shared the load of getting up with him and settling him constantly. One night we were so desperate that we went for an hour long drive at 11pm!

Does your bubba fall asleep during or at the end of a feed? Sometimes I would just keep Andrew at the breast until he did fall asleep. Depending on what i had to do, sometimes I would just hold him while he slept for up to an hour. Its worth it for the peace you get. Sometimes I would transfer him to the bassinette but invariably he would wake up about 10 minutes later and we'd have to start all over again.

What we found really worked for us was after his feed and about half an hour to settle his food, we'd wrap him up. It took quite a while to get the knack of wrapping him properly, and in such a way that he couldn't wriggle it undone. When we got him wrapped up we'd put him in the bassinette and gently rock the bassinette for a few minutes and then he was off with the fairies.

Which works until they get big enough to wriggle a bit harder. At 6 weeks he was already wriggling his arms out, which really defeated the purpose. At that point, we started putting him in the cot and his sleep changed dramatically. He slept SOOO much better alone in his room than he ever did in the bassinette in the lounge room or our bed room.

Are you using dummies at all? We didn't start using them until about 3 weeks and they were a godsend. Sometimes they just help the bubba to push over into sleepiness. They really do seem to soothe them when they are otherwise inconsolable. Andrew didn't get addicted to it, he only needs it at night time occasionally now.

I wouldn't try leaving your bubba to fall asleep alone in the cot. At such a young age, they really do still need your comfort and help in making them feel at ease enough to close their eyes. We would wrap him up, give him a dummy, cuddle and rock in the arms for a few minutes and then put him down to sleep. If he spat the dummy out, put it back in. It very rarely took many dummy-spits (!) before he gave in and went to sleep.

I woudlnt' worry about the whole routine thing too much yet either. At that age, you are really just going with the flo and doing what she requires. Having said that, we started the bath routine right from the beginning, so there would always be a constant trigger that it was night time and almost time for bed. We bath Andrew at 7.30-8.00 at night and always have. After that we have our final feed and then he goes straight to bed. I do believe that because we have always had that bath and the feed that he knows exactly what is coming next, and he can find comfort in that routine.

I know its hard, but really try not to let it get to you. You've really got to fully surrender yourself until about th 6/8 week mark. Just totally go with the flo and forget about housework, your own sleep, making dinner, everything. It really does make it so much easier to cope with if you try not to think about everything else. Just focus on bub and things will get better in time.

Sorry this was soooo long! I just really feel for your situation, but trust me, it does get better. Andrew is now 4 months and thriving and sleeping from 8.30 till 4am without a stir. Bliss!!!!

Happy Days....

Nic

[Jamily]

Hello june05isttimer

I am facing exactly the same problem except my 10 day old bub is awake from 11pm right through until about 7am. Nothing will settle her and she demands hourly feeds during those hours. By the time she has finished feeding she needs to wind and then she may go down for 10 minutes before crying again. We are exhausted! In the day she is quite happy to feed and then sleep 4 hours!

I wish I had some words of advice or suggestions, but as you can tell I don't...! I just wanted to let you know that I'm in the same boat :) Sometimes I feel it is just me going through this!

Fingers crossed we come across a technique soon!

[kailensmum]

Hi mummas,
just letting you know, i've been there. Bub is nearly 5 months old now, only has 40 min naps (x4) during the day. But luckily he sleeps from about 5pm -5am and gets his dream feed at 8.30pm. But for the first 8 weeks i would have the same drama during the, until i started picking up the tired signs. Even now he still fights it sometimes. I would even give him a feed to settle him because he had got overtired. Other times my parents would take him for laps around the paddock in the pram, only once i resorted to a car drive. But wherever he fell asleep i left him.
I might not have given you any help, but good luck.

[funnyfarm]

My daughter was exactly the same. She was very alert and i think this was half the problem. There was too much to see.

It took me a couple of months to get her sleeping better during the day but i persisted in wrapping her tightly and putting her into her snuggle bed inside the cot and she learnt that when she was wrapped, it was bedtime. She slept in her own room from the second day home from hospital as she would be such a noisy sleeper that it would keep me and hubby awake all night.

She still gets a blanket wrapped around her loosely (not her arms anymore) and is 12 months old. She associates this with sleeptime.

She still isn't a great sleeper during the day but now that she is older, she can handle it alot better. She is still a very alert and active child.

It used to annoy me alot when everyone would ask if she was sleeping well at nighttime and say that as long as you are getting a good night sleep, you can handle the bad days. Even though they are awake alot during the day, it can be very very very draining to listen to the whinging all day long. All i can say is hang in there as things will get better.

Janet
Mother to Briana Sage (12 months)

[Tea Lady]

Just a couple of suggestions:

* make sure the bubs get some bright daylight during the day
* if they're sleeping during the day don't feel bad about doing the same
* if there is something that gets them to sleep, for goodness sake do it and don't stress about setting them up for bad habits later - they can't even remember what happened an hour ago so they're not going to know if you're starting a "bad" pattern (plus they can't dob to the CHN).
* try a dummy (as someone else suggested)
* try bouncing them on a big gym ball or vigorous swinging/rocking to get them to calm down
* try a relaxation bath when you bath them - face down (obviously not face IN the water!) in a deep bath
Probably not much help, but I hope things improve for you guys!

Lucy

[BJelly]

Don't worry, my bub was the same.

Some of these nurses can make you feel so hopeless, and make your bub sound like they are unusual because they aren't sleeping like they "should". When I came here, I soon realised how many other Mums and bubs were going through the exact same thing.

It does get better ... the bubs do eventually figure out how to calm themselves and get increasingly better at it as time goes on. And we get to figure out the best way to help calm baby too. I tried doing as the nurses told me to put baby in the crib and pat to sleep - all that did was stress me out, I could spend 6 hours doing that and bub still wouldn't sleep - eventually what worked for us was carrying her until she was relaxed. But every bub is different - lots of great advice already given, so I don't have any more to add.

Just hang in there!

[june05isttimer]

Hi guys its me again

Thanks for all the replys and suggestions. All will no doubt be tried.
I have been mixing breastfeeding with formula feeding lately and have found that when she is formula feed she is soo much more relaxed and drugged looking then when she is breastfed. My husband actually formula fed her for a full 24hrs as I was really ill with a vomiting and diarrhea bug and she fed and slept on a 4hrly cycle. It was brilliant !!!

I breastfed her this morning at 9am and she stayed awake till her next feed at 1pm in which she had formula and has slept like an angel since then. Am planning on giving her another formula feed tonight to see if she will sleep a little longer.

Anyone else had any similar experiences ??

[ajs]

I've been going through the same thing, and i thought i must of been doing something wrong, im also breastfeeding, for the first time, (second child) and I also find im feeding constantly through the day. Since my daughter was born she has just about never slept through the day(now 3 months old) but has slept perfectly through the night since birth, waking only once for a 20 minute feed. This might sound silly but i didnt know you could alternate between formula and breast. How did you go about this and does it confuse bub and does she still attach well? By the way does it matter what formula you put them on?

[mella]

Hi,

In reply to the bottle and breastfeeding my little girl is 6 weeks but when she was 3 to 4 weeks I started giving her a bottle at night as she slept for 4 hours and I got time to rest. I rang the breatfeeding association because during the day she was feeding every hour and more and never slept.

Anyway she told me at that age they go through a huge growth spert and need to increase your milk supply so will constantly feed for a few days then when the supply is up to what they need it will settle, she said that adding the bottle will only interupt milk production.

So I stopped the bottle and within a week she was feeding every 3 to 4 hours. Now she is nearly 7 weeks and during the night I've been getting a few 4 hour stretchs.

The thing is it's really hard and I got really upset when we took away the bottle because I was back to square one but persisted and it really didn't take that long. Also what helps is expressing a little milk and freezing it between feeds, this increases your supply also.

Anyway you do what works is what I think is best and don't worry too much they do get into a routine eventually.

It's very hard but you sound like your doing a good job, hope this helps.

Melissa.

[june05isttimer]

Hi AJS

I have now switched fully to formula but yes it is possnle to use both. I soke to the CHN about it and you can really only supplement one or two feeds per day with formula without it upsetting your milk supply.
I have just found formula easier as im not constantly feeding like I was when she was on the breast. It also makes no difference on what formula you use as long as bub is happy.
As for the nipple confusion.. some say switching does confuse them but our bub took a bottle of formula and a dummy both well before we left hospital so I guess she is fairly adaptable..
She haf no latching probs but I was also using a shield due to other boob probs.

[meshan]

You can't miss the sleep train!!! As soon as you see those tired signs you put the baby to bed. If you miss them and the baby gets over tired ( this only seems to take 10 mins or so!!) then they become very hard to settle.

[mattress]

My baby is 7 weeks old and she is also not sleeping during the day. She sleeps quite well at night - 3 to 4 hours and can get back to sleep by herself. But during the day, she constantly wants to feed (or so we think anyhow).

Our paediatrician told us that she shouldn't be feeding anymore than every 3 hours. We starting giving her a 9pm bottle of formula from about 4 weeks as some friends told us that you need to introduce the bottle early on as they may not take it after a few months (especially if you need to go back to work). She sleeps very well after formula but doesn't seem to be able to settle for more than 2 hours with breastmilk!

She appears to go from being content after feeding to been overtired within minutes - we look for cues early on as to when she is getting tired such as yawning or arms/legs kicking, but no matter how quickly we try to get her to bed she is overtired and fighting sleep. She only manages to catnap during the day and cries when not sleeping. I have started wrapping her legs and then putting the sheet over her firmly, but sometims she can still manage to wriggle free. We have decided to stick with wrapping to let her know that it is bedtime.

I am hoping to go to one of the daycentres that Qld Health has to get some settling techniques and then if this doesn't work, hopefully get a referral to have a stay at Riverton.

Let's hope things will improve soon....

[BugBias]

My daughter was like this for nine months, I had PND and thought I was just going to die. One night I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OO desperate for sleep that I fed her and left her in the bed with me (I know but I needed to sleep) and she slept for the first time ever for 10 hours! and so did we!
She stayed in our bed till she was two and is still a bit of a pain! My DS went straight into his cot and has slepted 11 hours at night since I brought him home. So sometimes it's just the kid, my DD just needed us to be around, but I am glad my DS doesn't!

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DM 22
DH 23
DD 3
DS 4.5 months