The "I need sleep" thread..ideas, suggestions, support welcome

[hub1176]

I'm a mom to a 6w1d old girl who seems to think the hours between midnight and 6 are play time. I think I got 3 hours of sleep last night. She is still on the every 3 hours of eating schedule and it doesn't seem to matter if she gets EBM or formula. For those of you who went through this:

What did you do? (besides tearing your hair out or crying over the crib begging for a few more hours? :D )

Any recommended books that really helped you?

I know babies this age need over 14 hours of sleep - but should I try to keep her up more during the day (when she wants to sleep it seems that there is no way to keep her up)

At 6 weeks should they be going longer between feedings?

[devil_kitty_1]

At 6 weeks, she sounds right on target to me. They have a big growth spurt at 6 weeks and NEED to nurse/eat more.

Hang in there! This too shall pass!

[BTB]

We tried the "keep her up during the day so she'll sleep at night" bit and it way backfired - the more tired DD is, the worse she sleeps, so then she didn't sleep during the day OR at night. But sleep begets sleep, and a well-rested baby goes down easier for naps, bedtime, etc. and stays asleep longer. I recommend 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Weissbluth.

No matter what you do, many babies that young do have some day-night reversal, according to Weissbluth it's a neurologic thing and will persist until the brain is more mature even if you try cueing day and night via light, noise, and your amount of interaction with the babe (which are still good ideas though, because they breed good habits later). They were night owls in utero, but most little kids are morning people, so hang in there, it will get better. Can you nap during the day? Or if you're back at work, can you sleep in shifts with DH - one of you sleeps from 9 to 2, the other from 2 to 7?

[scout]

hi, Hub! Good to see you over here! Unfortunately, at six weeks, babies eat all the time. I hate to say it, but my ds is still eating every three hours or so at four months. I guess I have no words of advice, but I can relate.


But sleep begets sleep, and a well-rested baby goes down easier for naps, bedtime, etc. and stays asleep longer. I definitely agree. At first, I was trying to get ds to stay up until 11:00 p.m., thinking he'd sleep longer. He slept worse. Eventually, the day/night thing will work itself out, but I think 6 weeks is still pretty young for a true day/night pattern to emerge. In a few weeks, you can start having a bedtime routine that might cue your ds that it's time to sleep for the night.

[hub1176]

Thanks for the advice! Some friends of ours were saying their kids started STTN at 6-7 weeks of age (6 hours at a time) and I got worried - add that to this morning when she was wide awake at 3:00am....Luckily I'm not working but it is hard for me to nap during the day, and I find myself anticipating when she'll wake up and not getting the deep sleep I need.

I'm afraid that if we don't start doing some type of schedule it will be more difficult later on to implement one - but I'm also not interested in something that won't meet DD's needs.

Scout - Hi! 4 months! AGHHH!! Is it much better now?

I will look in to the book BTB - I just want to be careful about my sources - there were 2 books our hospital came out and told us not to get and I can't remember what they were....

[ButterflyJen]

Don't know if you've tried this, to kind of "reset" your DD's internal clock, but when our DD was a few weeks old, we would stand in a sunny, bright window for a few minutes when she woke up in the morning. It definitely helped her start figuring out her nights and days. I'm not saying it's going to help her STTN (heck, our DD is 11 months old and has *just* figured it out - sorry to say) but it might help if she still has day-night reversal.

And yes, 6 weeks is a huge growth spurt time!

[Renrel]

Can you co-sleep at all, maybe during naps? We did that after the early morning feed - 4am or so I think and at some nap times. It really helped me get some rest, the hormonal relax from the bfing helped me sleep. We also used the swing alot. Gabe really liked it and would go to sleep in it, or at least be quiet when other things did not do squat.

I would second the Wiesbluth recommendation. I swear by him. Even if you decide you don't like his sleep training methods (he has several depending on parenting styles ) you can learn alot about how and why children and adults sleep the way they do from his book. His conclusions are based mostly on footnoted research which I found reassuring.

And along with getting more sleep don't put any unnecessary expections on yourself. Use paper plates so you don't have to fill or empty a dishwasher. Use take out or the simpest of meal plans. Have DH do the laundy and other cleaning as much as possible. Just because you are home does not mean you have the time. An infant is a 24/7 job and if you are not getting nights off and an hour off for lunch and 2 15 minutes breaks, you are probably working harder right now then DH. If you are bfing I would say you are definately working harder. Remember that making bm is hard calorie buring work, even if the actual feeding part looks like a low energy activitiy. You are creating a high calorie product that is causing your child to grow at an amazing speed.

[Brady]

Some friends of ours were saying their kids started STTN at 6-7 weeks of age (6 hours at a time) and I got worried - add that to this morning when she was wide awake at 3:00am....Luckily I'm not working but it is hard for me to nap during the day, and I find myself anticipating when she'll wake up and not getting the deep sleep I need.


I completely remember that feeling of anticipation and then being so mad when my DS did sleep for over an hour, etc. "Why didn't I take a nap?!" Hang in there!
As hard as it is, try not to listen to people that say their child slept for however long, etc. I found myself going NUTS, lol. I felt like something must be wrong with my son, why wasn't he sleeping as much as so and so, yada yada. You'll def. see both sides of the fence, but it wasn't until I posted my own sort of thread on this a while ago that I realized I was not alone and had a "normal" baby for that age! I started keeping a sleep log for my son, because he was just like your DD with the waking every 2-3 hours, and what I can tell you is that at just about 11 weeks, I stopped keeping it because he was finally down to one night waking. So, I can attest it wil eventually get better.

Is she only sleeping in her crib? I remember that I would put my son in his crib at say 8pm, he would be up by 11pm, he wasn't hungry, but wouldn't fall back to sleep in there, but if I moved him right into his swing after that first waking, he would then sleep a 5 hour stretch. We called it our miracle swing. Of course, I was then convinced that he would be sleeping in a swing when he was 13 years old and never sleep in a bed, ever :rolleyes: Needless to say, around 3 months he finally took to his crib, and now at 4 months he's sleeping from 8-5 in there. We had the fisher price cradle swing, I would have become a walking zombie without it!! Just a thought of something to try.

[hub1176]

Brady She sleeps in the crib at night only. During the day she naps either in her PNP, bouncey seat or the swing. She usually does well sleeping in the crib but the last week has been rough!

She was doing the every 3 hour thing, then all the sudden it was like every hour and a half. I noticed we were constantly feeding her. I don't mind if she's waking up and needs to eat - I just want to make sure she's actually hungry and we are not stuffing her!

Today she got up at 7:30 I fed her and put her in the bouncey seat - she fussed around 8:30 so I held her and she went to sleep. I put her in the PNP and she slept until 10:30. DH fed her and she fell asleep - she is in her bouncey seat and still sleeping. Of course when I tried to lay down a little while ago she was grunting and groaning so I stayed up thinking she was waking....

[scout]

Some friends of ours were saying their kids started STTN at 6-7 weeks of age (6 hours at a time) and I got worried - add that to this morning when she was wide awake at 3:00am People would say this to me too, but I found that on internet parenting boards this is not the norm. According to the books on sleep I've read, this isn't common at all either (I know it happens, though and it's hard not to be jealous!)




Scout - Hi! 4 months! AGHHH!! Is it much better now?(I guess he's nearly five months now.....time is flying) As for the sleep, it JUST got better, but that's because I did some sleep training. We did a modified version of CIO and I'm letting him sleep on his tummy, because he keeps rolling onto it. You can't do either of these things at 6 weeks, so that's not going to help you now. :( As for the eating....he's still eating every three hours, except for a six-seven hour stretch at night. Last night, I fed him at 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. he seemed really hungry. (I'm not very helpful, am I?) :)

[BTB]

I will look in to the book BTB - I just want to be careful about my sources - there were 2 books our hospital came out and told us not to get and I can't remember what they were....

I'm willing to bet one of them was Babywise, lots of hospitals warn against it. I'm also willing to be that Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child WASN'T the other one - hospitals warn against books that advocate parent-led scheduling because that can sabotage breastfeeding and has caused some babies to become dehyrdrated. HSH,HC is more about understanding neurologic development and learning to identify and work with your baby's cues.

[BTB]

Some friends of ours were saying their kids started STTN at 6-7 weeks of age (6 hours at a time) and I got worried

P.S. The lucky few to whom that happens seem to never shut up about it. ;)

Some kids are just ready sooner, it's not that the parents of early sleepers are better parents. Just like some kids talk sooner, walk sooner, etc. It'll happen when the baby's ready, and someday all too soon those late night cuddly feedings will be a thing of the past, shrouded by the passage of time and reminiscence into something so sweet, and then you have another baby... :D

[Lydia]

I haven't read this whole thread but wanted to chime in that "The Happiest Baby on the Block" techniques worked like a charm with Maddie.

[alienhost]

At first, I was trying to get ds to stay up until 11:00 p.m., thinking he'd sleep longer. He slept worse.

We did the same thing for about a week until we caught on that she wanted to go to bed earlier not later. She was extremely fussy around 7-8PM and we found that if we start the bedtime routine sooner than later (bath, change to PJs, eat once more, then down to sleep) she would actually sleep from 8:30 until 4 or if I'm lucky 5:30. She occassionally wakes at 3AM hungry but I just BF and she falls back to sleep. She is 11 weeks now and this started working at 9 weeks maybe? Wish we knew about it sooner... :D

I totally agree with BTB that a well rested baby sleeps better. Actually once we got to putting her to bed earlier at night, her daytime naps are even better.

[marchfamily]

The best book I've read is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weissbluth. But, I don't know that I'm the one to ask....DD is 6 months old and has yet to STTN (totally through the night)...argh.

[Koala_Gurl]

I know this isn't the best option, but I remember in those early weeks, the only way I was getting any sleep was to fall asleep with DD on my chest after nursing while I was reclining in my glider. Well, I didn't intentionally do this, but several weeks of no sleep, and it just sort of happened. But it was a lifesaver.

Just keep in mind that it will get better, and you can make it through this.

I haven't yet tried to schedule DD (4 months.) I just try to read her cues (I did read through the HSH HC book.)