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My little man (7w5d) has turned into a sleep devil! He will not sleep during the day - this started about Saturday and is driving me crazy. I do my usual routine and it is just NOT WORKING. I get him to sleep in my arms post bf and as soon as I put him in bed - PING- he is wide awake. Is this just a "wonderweek/growth spurt" thing or am I stuck with this?
Any ideas?
It could be his wonder week, I think there is one about now. DD is like that most of the time with day sleeps, fast asleep in my arms then put her down and bam she is wide awake again (or awake within 10 mins). It is so frustrating!! I think that is just her though, she generally doesn't sleep much during the day, will have a couple of half hour or one hour naps, sometimes she will have a long sleep of 2-3 hours (must be when she gets really tired!). But when she has her big sleep at night she does 3-5 stints between feeds and often sleeps in (this morning we had a feed at 7 and then we both went back to bed until 10am! Or she often wakes at 7.30/8am to start the day - it's great! Lol).
I think all you can really do is keep doing what you are doing and hopefully he grows out of it if normally he is a fairly good sleeper. There are a couple of books I'm looking at buying on ebay - "The Contented Baby" by Gina Ford and Save our Sleep by Pinky McKay, I'm hoping one of those can help me with our daytime sleep issues as sometimes she is like that at night when I try and put her to bed. So will be watching this thread with interest, I hope Blake improves!
:hug: Been there....
The BEST thing you can do right now is whatever works to get him to sleep. The last thing you want is him getting overtired, cause then you're in a whole world of trouble :wall:
Do you have a wrap/sling/carrier that he likes to sleep in? That can be a real lifesaver when they need to be held all the time.
He will get past this stage and settle better, but in the mean time it's best to go with it and make sure he (and you!) is as rested as possible.
Hi CF - a sling could really help.... i know how hard it is my DS1 was like that a lot (and DS2 is also waking up a lot more now in the day). Hope it is just a developmental leap or something...
SStorm - those 2 books are quite different - hope at least one of them offers you some help!
hi controlfreak - my boy seems to struggle with day sleeps too - he might have a couple, but usually only manages one cycle, so can be awake for up to five hours at a time :wall: - I will be interested to see what replies you get! How do you get him to sleep at night? I think part of my 'problem' is that we co-sleep, so he doesn't have a going to sleep routine really for day time. I find that walks in the pram or doing the vacuuming around him can be good...
ss-storm - I don't think Pinky Mackay wrote Save Our Sleep - she has a book called Sleeping Like a Baby, which is about as far away from Gina Ford as you can get. As far as I know, Gina Ford's approach is more of the "controlled crying" style.
i second the idea of a sling.
i found a hug-a-bub an absolute life-saver when both my sons were newborns and didn't like daysleeps:)
my DD is a shocker for day sleeps as well - has been since birth - she just doesn't seem to like to sleep in the day unless she is being held. i can sometimes get an hour or so out of her IF i can get her wrapped really firmly and hold her until she is in a deep deep sleep - but usually, as soon as i put her down, she wakes up (or within a few minutes anyway). i have pretty much given up on expecting her to sleep - she sleeps at least 8 hours at a stretch at night, feed and nappy change and then another few hours. she's done this since 5.5 weeks (was shorter but still 6 hours back then). i figure she is getting enough sleep. the only time she gets over tired is when she has a pain that stops her catnapping during the day. as soon as the pain is gone, she's happy again.
she's a generally happy bub during the day so i don't fight it. when she gets grizzly and won't settle on her own, she gets wrapped and she will sleep a bit more, but not enough to make it worth wrapping her every time she wants a feed (she'll often catnap after a feed and is feeding up to 1.5hourly - often less - in the arvos). i figure during summer i don't want her over heating. both DH and I have/do work jobs where we have/had odd hours and survived on cat naps during the day - DH has 10 minutes here and there all the time - so i guess maybe DD will be the same - as long as she gets a long stretch at night, she only needs small naps in the day.
Our little girl is a bit the same. In the past few weeks she had progressively stayed awake, especially during the morning after her 10 am feed. I have given up wondering whether she need to sleep more during the day because she sleeps close to 12 hours at night (9 pm to 10am with a feed at 10 -11 pm - I have to wake her for this feed- and one at 6 am). However, she is especially hard to settle after her 6 pm feed. By 8 pm she is clearly tired but often looks for another feed even though she had a full feed (160-190 ml) already. We had to put her on the baby carrier and walk around the house until she falls asleep usually at 9 pm. I maximise her awake time during the day for play and as soon as she shows sign of tiredness, I put her to sleep. She often requires some patting and firm holding in between sleep cycles (sometimes she would only sleep for 1 cycle) but so far it is working for us.
Hope things settle for you.
Just a question, do you ladies carry your babies until they sleep then put them down or do you put them down and allow them to go off to sleep on their own. With my girl now being more awake I find that she doesn't automatically go off to sleep after her feed so when she is tired I often have to carry her until she nods off, then put her down, hold her until she goes into deep sleep. I am starting a bad habit here?
I really feel for you. Your sleep deprivation is a soul destroying exercise. Unfortunately there is no easy way out. Once you have checked that the basics of feed, wetness and comfort and safety are all OK, you have to just delay going into your baby by longer and longer. Also reducing the contact from big hugs to a pat on the head. Good luck. It can be soul destroying in the extreme.
I'm not a fan of the 'let them cry' approach. At this age they cry because something is making them unhappy, and when you figure that they've spent nine months being held close and warm inside you, it's not too surprising that they might want the same on the outside :-)
What I've been finding with my LO is that if I miss his sleepy cues, it all goes pear shaped pretty rapidly, and that's when it's really hard to settle him, if not nearly impossible!
As soon as I see the first yawn, I try to get him ready for sleep - change nappy, wrap him up etc. At the moment he's still small enough for the bassinette that goes in the pram so I wheel him around the house a bit - not quite sure how I'll manage once he's too big for the bassinette, so will need to start introducing him to his cot for day sleeps.
Besides, as everyone says, this time will be over all too soon, so if falling asleep in your arms is one way to make sure they get a decent nap, treasure the time to remember when he's a stroppy teenager and doesn't want anything to do with his mum ;-)
I can't remember what we did with DD at that age as she is now nearly 1 but maybe a BF then some 'playtime' and then try getting him down to sleep?
I know DD went through a stage where she just didn't want to go down straight away, even if she did fall asleep in my arms, so we started having BF then 30min playtime (or even less) just to get her a little worked up and then a cuddle and bed!
As i said i can't remember what age that was at but i know it was somewhere around there, then that set the routine for as she got that little bit bigger!
Sorry if i haven't helped much... GL with the sleeping!