My five week old daughter will not settle to sleep until 1-2am, me and my husband are just exhausted and really need this to change. She sleeps till 6.30 and then wakes for a feed, she doesnt settle back well to sleep then but is restless till about 9.30 when she feeds again and we get up for the day. Usually im out running errands or at mother-baby group./baby massage in the mornings so she sleeps in her pram or car seat most of the time till 1pm feeding about 11 and 1. We have started a bed time routine with bath and breastfeeding in dark bedroom at 8 with soothing music, then we swaddle her and put her in her cot, rock the cot and pat her chest she needs a soother to go to sleep. This worked last night but she was awake an hour later and fed, went to sleep in my arms - I put her down but five mins later she was wide awake... this went on till 1.30am!!!
I was putting her down for a nap in her room (usually in bed beside me she would fall asleep feeding and sleep for 3 hours) between 4-7 which is very late. I didnt do this today as thought it would help for the nights, she slept from 3-4 in travel cot in the living room. I have read the no-cry sleep solution book and am just logging her sleep times at the moment, to be honest im so tired I cant retain a lot of the info I read so maybe the answer is obvious but can anyone help.

I read in excerpts from the NCSS book (I ordered it a few days ago), to start rolling back bedtime (or maybe in your case, natural sleep time) 15 minutes per day.

I also end up fighting my son often for several hours before he will go to sleep. Another thing that I read to do is if they won't sleep, give them 30 minutes and then try again.

I really feel for you! The past few nights (since starting the NCSS methods) have been really tough, with me trying to get the boy to sleep for 4 hours! I am hanging onto the hope that things often get worse before they get better. We are messing with their schedules and it takes some time to adjust.

We can get through this!

Elena

Thanks Elena.... yeah I hear you on the four hours... it seems worse when your fighting with them to sleep, its much easier to just accept it and go with them but then im afraid things will never change and we will still be doing this next year with more wrinkles and grey hairs. You could set your watch by her at the moment... asleep at 1.30am, feed at 6.30 and up at 9.30. I think I have to read the book again. Good luck.

Hi! Congratulations on your new baby! 5 weeks old! I'm just looking at the NCSS section that is especially for newborns, and she sort of starts off with saying they simply sleep when they are tired (bottom of page 67)..."you can do very little to force a newborn to sleep when he doesn't want to, and conversely, you can do little to wake him up when he is sleeping soundly." So keeping that in mind, you can slowly begin to change sleeping patterns by following the suggestions on page 78 "Help Your Baby Distinguish Day from Night", and particularly because you say she sleeps all morning, and then has another big nap in the afternoon you could check page 80 under "Don't Let Baby Nap Too Long" and following all the tips she has for you there.

After all that, she has a section on page 85 that says "Accept Night Wakings with Your Newborn" while you are waiting for all of these gentle tips to slowly start swaying your little sweetie towards sleeping longer at night and less during the day... I sort of had to settle with accepting this "accepting night wakings" with my second baby... he woke every hour or MORE for about the first 5 months, and then I started with the tips for babies 4 months and over which are very different than the newborn tips in some ways. It can be a tiring time during those newborn months, but they do start settling into sleeping more at night and less during the day if you follow those tips in the newborn section!

Hope this helps!

__________________








Host of:
The No Cry Sleep Solution
Attachment Parenting