I am in desperate need of some advice. I am SO exhausted!! I have a 7 week old baby. The first few weeks went pretty good with his sleeping habits. At night he would fall asleep and stay sleep from at least 10-1am, giving me 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep. After that he would sleep 2 hours then get up to eat and fall back asleep. Lately, he has been getting up every hour to hour and a half, leaving me with no sleep! Our night goes something like this. I feed him and put him in his bassinet where, in the beginning, he will sleep perfectly fine. 2 hours later he is up to eat. I feed him and put him in his bassinet. Then he will start moving (eyes closed)until he wakes himself up. I pick him up to nurse him or burp him, he falls back asleep. Put him back in the bassinet for him to move and wake himself up. By 3-4am, I'm so tired I nurse him while in bed laying down. We both fall asleep for about an hour and, surprise surprise, he starts moving to wake himself up. This has been happening ever night and I can't do. It much more. I don't remember my others doing this. What am I suppose to do? I've tried wrapping him up in a blanket and that doesn't help. I tried ignoring him to see what he does and he will move until he wakes then start to cry. I would love any advice! I'm in need of some sleep and so is the baby. With him not getting good sleep at night, he sleeps a lot during the day (him sleeping in the day isn't affecting his night sleep). Help!
Swaddle! He may act like he hates it, but it keeps him from waking himself up. Get one of those swaddle blankets/sacks that are designed for swaddling. I also use a sleep positioner. Something about that makes my daughter feel snug.
Also, I had to move her into her crib in her room at about 4 weeks old. My husband's snoring kept waking her up... lol
Um, no. He's only 7 weeks old. He actually sounds quite normal to me. An interrupted sleep pattern is quite common at this age. Young babies do wake often to feed. My son was still waking every 2 hours for a bottle at 18 months (self weaned from breastfeeding at 8 months), and still at age 5, wakes usually at least once a night, sometimes more. And I know he's not even the *worst* sleeper out there. He was a high needs baby, and those babies are often poor sleepers.
Sleep deprivation can get the best of you. Try your best to rest as much as possible when he does. Nap during the day when he naps. Everything else takes a back seat to sleep when you are up all night with an infant. And take any help you can get. Best wishes!
No you still dont have me beat for the first 9 weeks straight my first DD only slept 1 hour at night and 2 hour nap mid day, thats it!! She fed every other hour too (breastfed) i was far beyond sleep deprivation.
You need to sleep when he sleeps during the day. Its going to be a bit before he regulates his sleep cycle. I know what your going through and any chance of anyone can help you take a nap, take it. Its time to call family and friends to step in and let momma get some real sleep!! About 16 weeks you will see a huge change in sleep habit. Good luck!
Such a difficult time. Sleep deprivation is brutal. Hang in there, it will pass.
For me it was our oldest, so I could nap during the day. The one thing that really helped though was nursing in bed. If he was right beside me, I could latch him back on and fall back to sleep quickly. Not getting out of bed was a really life saver! If you're ok with co-sleeping, I highly recommend it.
Another thing to try is pumping enough for one bottle each night. Maybe your husband can do one feeding so you get to sleep 3 or 4 house straight. During that phase, 3 to 4 hourse is huge!
He is pretty young so this sounds about right -- the not sleeping part :( . But it will get better (hopefully). Maybe try a different bassinet? Here are some sleeping suggestions I found on another site that may help you out:
http://www.theskinnyscoop.com/search/sleep?utm_campaign=t...
sounds pretty normal. our kids liked the miracle blanket, was the best gift someone (a nurse) gave us. really holds the swaddle. also, pump and have hubby give a bottle 1x at night so you can get sleep. good luck. should get better in the next month.
Sounds normal to me based on my experience...the first couple of months were tough with my baby too...he constantly whimpered or moved around in his sleep..He whimpered so much that the hospital suggested using a paci and that helped temporarily(my son rarely takes a pacifier now- he prefers to chew on them now than suck on them)Swaddling helped to a certain extent but my son hated it from day one and we stopped swaddling him at 2 months. He will sleep better when he is ready and I used a co-sleeper so I just turned and picked him up, nursed him and put him back to sleep and that helped a lot. We both learned to nurse lying down and that helped tremendously. Co-sleeping was not something I wanted to encourage but we both slept well from those nursing in bed times when he outgrew the co-sleeper.
Also, from the first month itself I started with a nighttime routine trying to help him distinguish nights and days and needless to say it did not produce immediate results but it paid off down the road. At 7 weeks he still has his days and nights mixed up so I would highly recommend starting a nighttime routine with massage, bath, pjs, books are optional now and he will slowly but surely catch on.
It is a phase and this too shall pass...hang in there mom!
Oh dear. Well, I can assure you he is not the world's worst sleeper; my son woke up every hour from 2 months old to 5, and is still barely better than that. The main problem is that the adult sleep cycle is 90 minutes but the baby's is just an hour, so if he wakes up at every cycle, you never get to finish one of yours. Effectively, you never actually sleep. It's incredibly devastating to your mental and physical health - I sympathize 100%!
The good news is, with a little coffee, you can sort of learn to kind of function without any actual sleep.
I have to go deal with cranky baby now :) but will try to post some more thoughts later; we've tried a LOT of things, maybe one of them will work for you!
He could be going through a growth spurt. Also, you wrap in him in a blanket? Try a swaddle sack. Worked with my last one. Also, white noise machine which can be soothing. Do you pump? If so, I would so that you can have someone help you here and there so you can sleep.
