My 7-week-old never sleeps for longer than an hour and a half at a time at night. Then when she wakes up, it takes 1.5 to 2 hours to get her back to sleep again, so I'm lucky to get 4 or so hours of broken sleep a night. Then during the day, she will nap for 2-3 hours. I thought I could just tough it out, but then last night she slept a total of 45 minutes from midnight to 5:15 am. Ahhh!!! She usually sleeps in her bouncy chair, but sometimes I can get her to sleep in her bassinet (on a slight incline). She also spits up like crazy, so I wonder if that is making her hungry every hour or so. I don't know what to do. People talk about schedules and feedings, but my baby's day is one long feeding. If I wanted to space out her feedings more, I'd have to let her cry for hours in between each one. I have no idea what to do.
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was your baby born early?
the HEalthy Sleep book says that week 6 past due date is the worst and then it gets better....it is a biological thing
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I don't think my LO ever slept more than 2 hours until at least 8 weeks. And he nursed for an hour, so I was also barely making 4 hours of sleep a night. It sucked, and I feel for you. He had reflux, though, which had a lot to do with it.
You said that your LO spits up a bunch...have you considered the possibility of reflux bothering her? I had to sit up and extra 20 minutes after each feeding to keep him upright before laying him back down.
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I do think she has reflux - she's on baby Zantac. I hold her upright for about 15 min after each feeding. Sometimes that works, but a lot of times she still spits up when I put her in the chair or bassinet. I wonder if the Zantac is keeping her up?
She was actually born at 41 weeks, so she's past 6 weeks past due date. I just hope it doesn't get any worse!
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You sound like you are in a situation very much like the one I was in. He ate constantly, which I think was because he thought eating made him feel better, but it also led to him filling up too much, which led to spitting up, which was painful, and then he'd feel bad and want to eat again...the cycle continued. I cried. A lot. and I felt like a zombie.
All I can say is not to worry about schedules, just go with the flow. Stick to smaller, more frequent meals, and know that it will get better. Around 8 weeks, with my ped'a blessing, I started adding rice cereal to his bottle and it was a miracle how much better life got. All babies are different and it took a while to get the formula down that made him feel better, but you'll get there.
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I have had a few friends whose babies had reflux and their babies slept much better in the fisher price rock and play sleeper because it keeps the baby at a slight incline. I've also heard letting them sleep in the car seat can help too. So maybe try one of those instead of the bassinet.
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@MamaMoose: Our LO slept in the rock and play for a long time. We eventually switched him to tummy sleeping, which is the ultimate last resort, but it did the trick. So basically, we've done all sorts of things we weren't supposed to. It's amazing what desperation will do.
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Do you swaddle her? Does she break out? My baby is 3.5 weeks and did that for the first two weeks...my pediatrician told me to double swaddle and he can't break out! The very first night I did it he slept for 3-4 hours at a time and has since (knock on wood!). Hope you get something figured out soon! I thought I was going to go crazy after 2 weeks of it...I can't imagine sleeping so little for 7+ weeks : (
Good luck to you!
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Thanks for the tips. Ive been thinking about the rock n play but the amazon reviews talk about babies getting flat spots on their heads from them. So I'm torn. We tried rice cereal last night at our dr's suggestion but it definitely didn't help since last night was her worst night by far. :(. I'm at the point now where I don't want to have any more children unless we somehow get rich enough to hire a night nanny. Which of course is not going to happen. Sigh.
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@FabG: Are you formula or breastfeeding? He did much better on breastmilk than formula, but we supplemented. Formula never went well (we tried Similac Advance and Enfamil AR). We eventually put him on Alimentum Ready to Feed and it has been wonderful. A change of formula might help if she is formula fed. I'm just trying to throw every suggestion at you. My LO is only 4 months old so I can fully remember just how horrible that time was. I will say that he is currently at the tail end of the reflux and he is so much happier, so it will come.
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i would try swaddling, my lo is 7 weeks and he doesnt have a prefance with the swaddle ro not but i notice he sleeps alot better with it bc he doesnt wake himself up by flayling arms/legs. what about a sound machine? have you tried a pacifier, maybe your baby wants to suck something instead of eating alot or maybe a paci would help with her falling asleep? just throwing out suggestions tht have worked for us
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@FabG: I know how you feel because I have been there, in the end the only thing that worked for us was putting her to sleep on her belly, although many people are against that now and say its unsafe, i worked for us since her crib is right next to our bed and she had good head and neck control from the beginning.
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Ours wasn't quite this bad, but we had some awful evenings for the first few weeks. Here's a few tips, if you haven't tried them yet: swaddling, white noise sound machine, putting the crib at a slight incline (which I see you do with the bassinet), putting the baby down when still a little drowsy and not fully asleep.
And if you have family or someone else who can come over and help, make sure you switch off wake-ups so you can get some rest! DH and I alternated wake-ups, but if one person got super frustrated (usually me), he was okay with me asking him to take over.
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@bree72: I'm exclusively feeding her pumped breast milk. I've never been able to get her to latch, so pumping was my only option. I'm glad to hear some words of wisdom from someone else who has dealt with a similar problem. Was your LO on reflux meds?
She seems to hate swaddling, so I stopped after a couple of weeks. I might try it again tonight. She fights so hard and cries til she's able to get her arms free.
I thought about a white noise machine, but she also has a hearing problem, so I don't know if she could hear it or not
Pacifiers definitely help, but when she drops it out of her mouth, she wakes back up and starts screaming again. If I stay up and hold it in her mouth she'll stay asleep, but that doesn't help me get any sleep.
And now she has been sleeping almost all day. Probably because she's exhausted from not sleeping last night.
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@FabG: I agree with everyone about the swaddling. DD hated being swaddled so we didn't do it during the earlier weeks which resulted her waking up every hour. At 6 weeks out of desperation we swaddled her and she fell asleep and stayed asleep right away! We've been swaddling her since and now she sleeps much better. She still fights it when we swaddle but we know it's important that all of us get a good night sleep.
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I agree with the swaddling too, and also, white noise helped for us a lot in keeping our little man asleep - there are great iPhone apps that you can try for free or a couple dollars instead of committing to buying something, especially if you don't know if she'll hear it well. "relax m p" is the one I used at first I think, with the ocean and river noises...
Also, she may just still have day and night reversed....try keeping the house bright and noisy during the day and then having everything dark and quiet at night. Maybe that will help....
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@leelee: that's good to know. I'm going to give swaddling another shot tonight and see if it helps.
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My LO didn't like swaddling at first, either, because he likes to move his arms around a lot. But he got used to it after the first few nights and now we swaddle him every single night and for every nap he takes. I think he actually likes to be swaddled now, because he calms down immediately when he realizes I'm wrapping him up. We use the Miracle Blanket at night and that keeps his arms in tight.
We also use a white noise machine and started a bedtime routine a few weeks ago - he starts with a bath, then we do lotion and pjs, nurse, read a story and then swaddle.
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