Trouble with Sleeping Situation...

K., Save the book advise until she is a little bit older. Right now, she has only been in this world for 10 days and all she knows is that mommy is safe. I let my daughter sleep on my chest some nights when she wouldn't lay in the basinet. It was the only way either of us got sleep! She just needs you now and eventually she will get more and more able to be without you. Try rocking her to sleep and then laying her down once she is really asleep. Give her time and keep trying to put her down alone and if she still needs you, then pick her up. My daugher was sleeping through the night, in her crib by 7 weeks. They just need to trust you first. I wouldn't worry about putting her to bed awake until she is 3 mo. old.

K.,
Congrats on your new little girl! This sleep issue will pass! If she sleeps better with you then just go for it! Our son slept with us off and on until he was around 18 months old. He still comes to me around 4 every morning (about the time his dad gets up for work) to cuddle and sleep for a few more hours. You just have to do what works for you and not worry about what the books (or misled advice) tells you. Co-sleeping isn't the devastating option that most people present it as. Just go with your gut and whatever allows you to sleep at this point in time. It will get better!!! Just take care of yourself and know that you're doing what's best for your precious little girl! Good luck!

Ok I think that I'm the odd ball but here goes. One of the best pieces of advice my mom ever gave me about babies is really easy. Sleep when the baby sleeps. My experience with my three babies(one that had colic) was that they have this bazar need to be up at night. Then about the time they are a month old they start staying awake for longer periods of time during the day and less during the night. Not fun, I know but it will pass. All these ladies have given you wonderful advice and they are right! You are doing the right thing by picking her up when she cries and that you can't hold a newborn to much. I guess my advice is when she is asleep during the day take advantage of it and take a nap, basically everything else (house work and such)can wait. Good luck!!!

K.,
congratulations on such a sweet cudly little girl. She wants to feel and hear you as constantly as she did in the womb and won't be ready to self soothe until she is 3mo old or more. There are 2 suggestions I have that both really work.
First know you are doing the right thing by putting her down on her back with a paci. That elevates seratonin and helps to prevent sids.
My suggestions are. She needs to be swaddled with her arms snuggly at her sides at night so that she will fill as snug as she did in the womb. Not necessarily in the daytime. I can teach you how to wake her but I don't know that we have enough space in this venue to do that. I can however refer you to Dr Karp's dvd, The Happiest Baby on the Block , which explains it in depth and also shows it in action with babies.

I use the miracle blanket for swaddling because they cant get out of it and you don't have to keep the leg swaddled, also because the fabric goes over the arms and under the back babies can't get it up around thier face's so it is safer. I am also certified to teach the Happiest Baby .... classes by Dr Karps foundation and have a class the first Sat morning every month. I can't recomend the techniques highly enough.
Good luck to you, I hope this has helped.
Please feel free to email or call me at ###-###-####
K. @ The Nestingplace

Dear K.,

Your baby will adjust to your schedule in a matter of time *promise*. It will seem like forever, but hang in there. Also, to address "crying it out". Please don't do that with babies. As I'm sure you've heard. You can't spoil a baby, especially during those first precious months. No matter how tired you are, it's important the baby knows you are there. I was ready to have a nervous breakdown about various issues with my newborn. She had colic too on top of it all! Then magically when she hit right before the 3 month mark, she sleeps ALL night (10-12 hours) AND no more colic! Have faith, as things will fall into place for you and your newborn little by little. Take care =)

Congratulations!
You're right -- at 10 days she's too young to cry it out. You should respond to her cries as soon as possible (I wouldn't let her cry more than 10 minutes at a time).
Also, babies tend to go through a growth spurt at 10 days, so she may be more hungry than usual. Otherwise, just feed her when she's hungry, hold her lots and sleep when you can. You don't have to worry about sleep training until she's 10 or 12 weeks. By then, she may have done it on your own and save you lots of trouble!
She will naturally start sleeping longer and straighten out her days and nights on her own too. The main thing you might focus on is simply the routine of Sleep, Eat, Awake. Feed her when she wakes up, try to keep her awake for 5 or 10 min after a feeding (this can easily be accomplished with a diaper change -- cold wipes should wake her up every time), then let her sleep as long as she wants.
You're instincts are right about not keeping her awake. Let her sleep! She's got a lot of growing to do! And I wouldn't wear yourself out trying to wake her up at certain times either because as you've already noticed, it's next to impossible!
You really won't get a lot of sleep in a row for a few weeks, so get it when you can. (I remember feeling of that glorious moment when we went to sleep and didn't wake up for 4 straight hours.) She should be eating every 2 to 3 hours (from the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next), so that doesn't leave much time for rest except in one or two-hour increments throughout the day. There will be some point during the day when she naturally sleeps a little longer. Take advantage of it and lay down!
If she's sleeping in the early evening, lay down then. I remember when our first child would sleep her long stretch between about 8pm and midnight/1am. We were not going to bed until 10pm, only to be awakened a short time later. So we tried to go to bed when she did. It was weird getting in bed at 8 or 9pm, but we were so exhausted, all we had to do was sit still a minute or two and we'd fall asleep!
My second child would naturally sleep a long time in the middle of the day -- like noon to 5. When I realized this was a pattern, I started napping then too. The point is, get it when you can! Dishes can wait, tell visitors to go away, turn off the phone and get some sleep!

For getting the baby to sleep, each of our kids were different in the beginning, but we would hold them until they were almost asleep (that point when their eyes close and their head bobs, but they're not completely asleep), then lay them down.
For my daughter, I'd swaddle her and put her down and she'd fuss a little, so I decided I would come back to comfort her every 10 minutes. I literally watched the clock (from another room, of course). At first, she would fuss the whole 10 minutes, but would go to sleep within 5 minutes of the first time I went back to her room. We never made it to 20 minutes. After a while, she never even made it to the first 10 minute mark. I'd go back to find her sleeping soundly. Sometime by the end of her first month she got pretty good about going right back to sleep after middle-of-the-night feedings too.

My second child was a different story. He spent the first 2 weeks of his life sleeping on my chest in a recliner because he did just like you are describing your baby.
With a toddler in the house we were more desperate for sleep than the first time around, and he would kick out of even the tightest swaddle, so I held him til he went to sleep, then put him down on his tummy. Our problem with getting him to stay asleep was solved. Yes, we felt all kinds of bad, but nothing was in his bassinet but the fitted sheet and the baby. I would certainly try other methods before tummy-sleeping, because the AAP has good reason to recommend back sleeping.
Of course we did eventually have to get him to go to sleep without being held, so around 6 weeks or so we did the same routine as our first -- hold til he's almost asleep, then put him down, then he would scream like a banshee as we walked out of the room. We'd come back every 10 minutes. It would often take 3 visits before he'd go to sleep. It was exhausting to listen to the crying and to have to keep going in there. So one day I decided to just wait a full 20 min. He went to sleep at the 18-minute mark. He did that every time for days and days. After a few weeks it got less and less until it was less than 10 minutes.
I had read somewhere that some kids are comforted by getting "checked on" and others are actually made more upset. Apparently I had one of each of those kinds of kids!

For swaddling, I've heard great things about the Miracle Blanket (maybe if we'd had this we wouldn't have put our son on his tummy!).
Good luck!

I do not suggest letting your 10 day old baby cry until she falls asleep. Of course sleeping with you is easy!! We're made that way! I don't like sleeping by myself either! (Thanks, DH!)

I have let all of my kids sleep with me. They let you know when they're ready! My oldest (now 9 yrs old) began sleeping in his own bed at around 18 months because he wanted to. He would still occasionally come into my room to cuddle in the middle of the night until he was around 3yrs old. Now he goes to sleep with no issues. My middle (now 2.5 yrs old) goes to sleep in his own bed with no fussing or anything, but still occasionally gets up and comes in with us (which we don't mind a bit!!) My youngest, 4 months old, has slept with us every day of her life and I plan on letting her do so until she decides she's ready!

I suggest doing some reading on co-sleeping among those of us who do this. A great site is www.mothering.com for information. There are just as many people who co-sleep as those who don't. Use your heart and follow your instincts. You can't spoil a baby by showing it love.

Get the book The Baby Whisperer. I called it my baby manual. Do what it says. It will be difficult and you will think you are getting nowhere. It will work though. It is not "a cry it out" type thing. I do not agree with that. I hop thisn helps!

When my daughter was born, I kept the blinds and curtains open throughout the house.This made her biological clock get on track of day and night. They say they cannot decifer day and night and become accostomed to it within time. As for letting the baby sleep with you, my daughter never used her crib. I truely believe this helped both of us in the new situation we were put in! She has NO problems sleeping in her own bed (although she crawls in our bed every now and then, which is so cute...) but besides that, welcome to motherhood!