Newborn Sleep - Roseville,CA

Every baby is different so what works for one won't work for another. Also I am a ftm and my DD is only 5 months old. That being said, what worked for me was swaddling her and having her sleep between us. I know this is like a big no-no but babies need sleep and so do mommies. DD slept with us until she was 4 months. Now she sleeps in her crib through the night just fine*.

*Except when I don't give her her nightly dose of mylicon. Then she'll wake up in the middle of the night and fuss because she is gassy.

She sounds just like my son who now at three months is able to sleep 8 hour stretches at night in his crib and at least two of his 3-4 naps. So here is what I did for the first 2.5 months before I transitioned him to this (and I went solely off of his cues of readiness).

The first few weeks I wore him all the time. He did most of his naps sleeping on me cause it was the only way he would sleep. I started him out in his bouncy seat at night to sleep and if he woke up in the middle of the night, I would often transition him to my bed (because he could sleep for much longer in there). When he got to around 5 weeks, he slept for 4 hours straight all of a sudden (he was always swaddled to but always breaks out of them. As long as it didn't physically wake him up, I didn't bug him with it). Each week he added about an hour to how long he would last in the bouncy seat. Then one night he went 6 hours. I angled his crib mattress and I placed him in there after a week of the 6 hours straight (it was around 8-9 weeks). He slept 7 hours that night! So now he goes down in it every night. I still wore him during the day though. Once he was night sleeping, I started working on his naps, pretty much doing a similar routine of swaddling and rocking then putting down in his crib. He has transitioned off of me and/or his swing (that is the one difference is he started to like the swing around 5 weeks, wasn't a big fan of it at first though) for half of the naps he takes each day. Now we're working on self-soothing. I'm totally making up how I do this (as I don't think any experts agree with it), but at first I would put him to sleep by rocking, patting, etc. Then I started having him fall asleep in my arms with no stimulation. Just these past few days, I wait till he's really really drowsy and then I put him down and he falls asleep the rest of the way. Again, I'm starting with bed time.

I don't know if any of that really helped except to say to wear her and that once she gets a little bigger you'll notice her changes. I just paid close attention to his cues of when he seemed to be "maturing" and jumped on those changes quickly! I have gone from having an awful sleeper to having a great sleeper just by paying attention to when he might be ready for something. If we tried it and it didn't work, we would wait a couple of days and try again if he seemed ready again.

Get the book babywise!

Have you tried laying her with out swaddling her arms? My ds hated his arms swaddled and wouldn't stay asleep long like that either. Might be worth a try. other than that not much advice sorry, my ds did most of his sleeping at that age in my arms or the swing.

I always tell people that things change at week 8. Keep trying to lay her down in her areas (bassinet, crib, swing, bouncer). If you keep being consistant she will catch on.