Fighting sleep!

[Cupcake9596]

My little girl will be 5 weeks old on Tuesday and for the past couple of days, has been fighting sleep during the day - to the point she's had about an hours sleep in an 8 hour period! Don't get me wrong, she sleeps good 5 hour stretches at night but has anyone else experienced this, especially with a baby so young?!

 

[pradabooties]

Yes my baby has been that way from around that age (now 3 months old). She sleeps through the night but during the day it's a battle to get her to sleep even when she's clearly tired! But it's best to not let them get overtired or it gets worse so the main thing is figuring out something that works. For my bub it's bouncing and patting her to sleep while wearing her in a baby bjorn style carrier - it's tiring but it works! If she's not in the mood for that though I lay with her on the couch and nurse her to sleep. Some would say it's creating not great habits but I think when they're so little you've just got to do what you've got to do to get them to sleep

 

[hlynne]

Exactly, you have to do what you have to do. I also nursed to sleep. With the naps, the thing that worked best for me was the 2,3,4 rule. Once your baby gets up for the day, they should go down for a nap 2 hours later than another nap 3 hours after they got up from their first nap and then finally go to bed for the night around 4 hours after the 2nd nap. This has been working for me since about 3 months old. It all depends on your baby though. I know they are all different. Just make sure you don't get your baby overtired. If my son gets overtired, he just won't nap at all. Frustrating.

 

[pradabooties]

That's a good method hlynne, I might give that a go because at the moment I've been trying to get my Bub to nap every 1.5 hours (I read somewhere to do this) but she fights it pretty hard and might be okay awake a bit longer now she's 3 months

 

[Cupcake9596]

Thanks for the advice She will fall asleep in my arms but as soon as I put her down, boom - wide awake! I guess holding her until she's in a really deep sleep might work?

 

[LittleLala]

I know this is the opposite of what was just suggested, but what worked for my lo at that age was as sooooon as he showed that he was tired (such a small window of opportunity before becoming overtired) I would give him a dummy and put him down while he was still awake and swaddle him tightly. He would always fall asleep very soon after

I used to worry so much about his naps and if he slept long enough or frequently enough... but when my midwife visited she reassured me not to worry because he slept well at night.

Good luck

 

[Cupcake9596]

She sleeps really well at night thankfully! It's usually just a case of giving her a dummy and I sometimes put on white noise and she will fall asleep on her own. I think it's just going to be a case of trial and error for naps 👍🏻