HI,

Baby's crying cuts through you like a knife, doesn't it? It's meant to, but that doesn't make it any easier. I was wondering, is your little one breastfed or bottlefed? How many feeds would she have in 24hrs? Is she gaining weight? At this age, she will rely on you heavily to help her settle and sleep. At this age, she is not able to "learn" by being left to cry. A little crying can help some babies "wind down" (that grizzly sort of cry) but other times they just get really wound up, and that makes getting to sleep more difficult. The interesting thing about babies is, the more sleep they get, the more sleep they seem to want. If a baby has been up for about an hour and a half then they will be tired and want to go to sleep. Has anyone explained how to read you baby's "tired signs"? Often, when they become tired they will start crying or whinging, turn away from you when they have been playing and "crack it" or shut off, or rub at their eyes and suck their fists. So, you might like to just make a note of what the time will be an hour and a half after she wakes up. Then, note what she is doing around that time. It takes practice! For the first few days you might want to feed her, rock her, cuddle her or put her in the sling to go to sleep - so she feels that going to sleep is a nice feeling, not a scary feeling. When she is "really" a sleep (pick up their arm and let it drop and if they don't stir they might be asleep enough to put down.) If you "miss the cues" ie dad comes home, and picks up baby and distracts her, she will "wake up" and won't seem tired, but then may be harder to put to sleep later. Kind of like when we are all snuggled down in bed, having cleaned our teeth, gone to the toilet etc and then the phone rings, or something happens and then you can't go to sleep for hours. Often when the daytime sleeps are sorted out a bit, then the nightime sorts itself out. People tend to want to start with the night-time, because that causes so much grief - but you are all tired! And it's hard to stick to a plan. You might want to show your DP this post so that you two are on the same page. Also, if you have been going out a lot, you might want to spend a few days on this, maybe when your dp is home from work so that you have support, and some-one else to hold a sleeping baby. This stage doesn't last forever, it will pass!
Regards
Barb