Advice please for 3 week old napping problem

[mrs f]

Ok some advice needed please, our 3 week old has decided not to nap properly during the day (he sleeps well at night, feeding at aprox 11/3/7am) so after I feed him, we wind him, change him & have a bit of time for cuddles & smiles then even before he starts to get cranky or yawns I take him to our room, swaddle & cuddle him to sleep, there are usually a few mins of tears befor he nods off then I put him down, either in his Moses basket or buggy depending on weather we are going out or not. The problem is he only sleeps for about 30 mins then wakes up & is distraught & over tired & I can't get him off again or if I do he wakes up again after 30 mins.

It's an exhausting process & I hate to see him cry so much.

I'm quite strict about only feeding every 3 hours. He is a very healthy weight -91st percentile I think so certainally doesn't need any more milk! we have had mixed results with the dummy from him refusing it to it soothing him but not getting him off to sleep.

I always swaddle & shhhsh pat him in my arms before I put him down but have yet to shhhush pat him to settle him back to sleep as he gets to the crying stage pretty quickly.

He can sleep longer in the sling but it's not garanteed. & some days we do really well, eg yesterday he managed 2-3 hours in the buggy & another 2 hours cuddled up with me but today the longest we have managed is an hour.

Do you think his growth spurt is affecting his sleep in this way? This has been going on for about a week now...

Thank you wise forum parents!

[bluesuperted]

No major nap advice but just wondering if you are breastfeeding? I have no idea about timing gaps between formula feeds at this stage but when my LO was 3 weeks old I was demand feeding him roughly every two hours in the day (I feel like this went on til he was 6 months actually!!). He could well be growth spurting and hunger is waking him up. My son was/is on the 98th centile but I was of the opinion this meant he needed more frequent feeds given how tiny their tummies are at 3 weeks and how quickly breastmilk is digested.

[catjo13]

Honestly.....you will be amazingly lucky if you can get a 3wk old in a proper napping routine :) It is about the time they 'wake-up' from their newborn state and start to get more interested in the world. I was a bit of a nap fanatic with my first one and spent forever stressing over her not napping/napping too short a time/too long etc. and it drove me mad. Eventually around 6-8 months she just seemed to get it and it started getting better and more regular, but even then there were bad days.

I think what I am saying is don't stress, you are doing all the right things, be consistent and try and keep nap times similar every day - some days it will work and some days it won't. My 2nd (nearly 6 months) is a nap nightmare and all the things that worked for my 1st aren't working and I spent the first 4 months with him napping in a sling as it was the only thing that made him sleep in the day. He refuses most days to sleep for more than 40 mins in his cot, but I keep persevering and get the odd 1.5 hr one in.

I don't know if you've read it, but I found an interesting book on the general topic of sleep was Solve your Child's Sleep Problems (I didn't like some bits, but it gives good general info on what to expect at each age) by Richard Ferber. Weissbluth's book on sleep also has some good background.

[minder]

Think you are expecting too much for a 3 week old!

Sounds like he is doing great for sleeping night-time so if he needs a bit extra during the day I would go with it.

Like bluesuperted it seemed like I was feeding (formula) my own three virtually every couple of hours at this age and this was through the night too.

[snowboarder]

The trouble is if they don't sleep well then they don't feed well....and so on (this has been my day today too with baby sb and I've fed him about 5 million times and he's fallen asleep each time for about 10 mins than alternately grinned and shouted at me....). I also don't have any particular advice on the nap situation as neither toddler nor new 9 wk old were/are great sleepers and nor did I establish much of a routine in the early days with no. 1....my only advice similar to above would be don't worry too much at the moment - more regular feeds and baby having lovely cuddly sleeps on you at 3 weeks by no means precludes more order as they get older. I'm loving the cuddles so much this time round (when demon toddler doesn't attack us both!) and although I sometimes think GAH I'm doing it all wrong AGAIN...then I look at the snoozing warm baby on my lap and think oh whatever...I'll sort it later but he won't always want to sleep on my lap!!

[reren]

If you are breastfeeding I would second the thought about on demand feeding - was the best thing i did - at that early stage it often involves periods of cluster feeding and is tiring cause you feel like you are feeding all the time- but in my case it really helped with sleep. More importantly i think it helped me avoid a lot of the problems others i know had who were on a routine of feeding 3-4 hours. A lot of people i know had to give up breastfeeding and struggled w mastitis and other things - it mqy have been a coincidence but they were all trying to follow q strict routine of feeding. I think on demand really helps you tune into your babies rythms and makes sure your milk supply (which is still establishing itself at your stage)gets to right levels. Before long the baby usually falls into his own pattern anyway and ends up feeding at regular intervals. Anyway - it is all down to each mum's personal preference - but if you are bfing and hadnt considered on demand feeding you might be interested in trying it! If its not for you - then fair enough!

[bluesuperted]

Agree with snowboarder, but I too do it all wrong (and love it!). Just thinking back to my life 8 months ago, with a 3 week old... and it was feed, baby asleep on me, stare at him, feed rinse and repeat, husband made a lot of squash. 3 weeks is soooo tiny! I occasionally put him in his carrycot once he was asleep and he would sleep for 20 mins or so and then wake (not crying just wide awake) but if I kept him on me/in the sling he would sleep for ages. I definitely agree with the thinking that at this age, if you feed them, and then they cry afterwards at some point, and you think, no they can't possibly be hungry only an hour has passed etc... feed them again!

[snowboarder]

Have to say I do find the 'on demand' bf concept quite hard even second time round - as my little one could hang out snacking and comfort sucking and short snoozing all day if he could - which is just not useful when you have a toddler/stuff to do/want to get out etc - so I kind of loosely do a bit of both - have a sort of 1.5 - 4ish hr schedule and try to make sure baby has around 5/6 feeds during the day and that they are a proper feed rather than a snack which will hopefully result in a better sleep...but if not and there's screaming 2 hrs in (or we need to get out and don't want to feed whilst out) then I'll feed again no prob.

[bluesuperted]

That's one of the things I love about demand feeding - it can work both ways and sometimes I would do a pre-emptive strike before going out and about - which was good when I was less brazen about nursing in public. Now I just whack them out anywhere. And today I knew I was going to be away from my LO for 2.5 hours in the late afternoon so I just offered a bit more this morning/lunch etc and felt really chilled that he would be fine without me for quite some time.

I imagine the luxury of having just one small person will become very apparent to me when I end up with a newborn again at some point in the future Snowboarder! Ignorance is bliss for now :)

[buggie]

Wondering if you could be putting your little one down for a nap too soon - can understand not wanting to let them get overtired, but, beginning to look out for signs of them being tired are useful for weeks/months to come when trying to understand when they want to sleep/if there is some sort of pattern.

Always planned to demand feed Bugglet, but when she was born at only 2.1kg that went out the window and I was feeding her every 3hrs (bit of formula for 2 days and breast fed/EBM until breast feeding was fully established). Found the baby whisperer v useful for signs of tiredness and found following her EASY plan worked well for us both - now at 7.5mths old we don't really do EASY anymore and can cope with daytrips/family events where "typical" naptimes are out the window without stress (prob also due to Bugglet's nosiness with any new situation/people!).

Remember 3wks in being really difficult and without the baby whisperer I might have ended up a dribbly/messy heap on the floor!

[supergolden88]

The thing I found when they are so young is one week they will nap/sleep great and the next they will do something completely different. It changes almost daily. Just go with the flow ... for now at least. You can try to put the baby down for a nap at the same time each day but there's no guarantee that it will follow the routine and sleep as planned.

I think it is more important to establish a bedtime ritual/routine as that is something even really young babies respond to (marathon breastfeeding sessions followed by bath, massage and more breastfeeding in my case). Going to bed at the same time each day helped my second realise it is bedtime/night pretty early on - just out of necessity having an older child to put to bed at the same time.

enjoy your newborn and good luck

[Fuschia]

Littlest f is a great napper at 5m

Still mostly feeds every 2h in the day

I agree with the others, try feeding him more often and see if he cheers up and becomes more settled

If anything, IME the bigger the bBy (size) the MORE often they want to feed

[mrs f]

Thanks for all your responses...

I have been reading the baby whisperer and was attempting a vague easy routine, which he is mostly brlliant on, i do look out for signs of tiredness as initially we didn't notice when he was getting tired & he would get really over tired & then not sleep & the cycle begins!

Also when he wakes early he isn't rooting, he is yawning & v. Tired looking so does need more sleep. I am exclusively b feeding.... & I did bfeed on demand initially but wanted to avoid him comfort eating/snacking as he is rather keen on the boob! He doesn't seem hungry before the 3 hours is up & can sleep right through his feed time if he gets to sleep & I'll wake him after 4 hours

We will try more sling naps, I'm just trying to work out how to shower with him in the sling(!)

Perhaps I am expecting too much, it's just all those people who say newborns sleep all the time... Well mine doesn't!

We have just enjoyed a 5 hour stretch though (after only having a 30 min nap at 5ish then putting him down at 10 ( with no sleep inbetween but 2 feeds)) so I can't complain, and of course he is the cutest baby ever :-)

[Fuschia]

Is he well- not jaundiced, gaining weight, plenty of wet And dirty nappies/ yellow poo?

[Claire29]

I do remember with my first baby who was formula fed been quite strict in terms of feeding him every 3 or 4 hours, would try and make him last as long as possible till his next feed - in hindsight all this done was to cause me a lot of stress with a crying baby, who was probably hungry but I wanted to get a "routine" set up. Now with baby no 3 it's all been a lot more relaxed, when he was tiny if he was hungry i'd feed him, he was a big baby to start with 9lb 4oz so thinking how tiny their stomachs are he did need a lot of feeding on 2-3 hour basis. At 3 weeks old they are tiny still so I would try and do what ever keeps baby happy and if that means feeding him a bit more perhaps thats the best way, until he's a little older. A happy baby means a happy mum! They grow so quickly so try and enjoy the new born baby phase for as long as possible.

[Moos]

Ha! Neither of my newborns 'slept all the time' or had long deep-sleep naps. If slinging or buggy naps work, relax and go with them. I do think it's a good idea however to continue to encourage at least one daily nap in bed if you can - one less thing to introduce later. But don't worry if you can't.

Also, I think 3 weeks is a growth spurt-maybe up the feeds?

Best of luck - sounds as though you're doing brilliantly. Try to rest if you can, it's a long road ahead even with a baby who sleeps regularly before you regain a normal sleeping pattern yourself.