[CJ]

How do we do that though if she needs to be held to sleep

[CJ]

Honestly these are all things we are currently doing. She is just so resistant to sleeping if she doesn’t want to. We try to encourage correct wake windows and cap her naps but then she is just angry for when it comes sleep time and becomes overtired crying nonstop and it creates a cycle of not sleeping then sleeping too much.

[CJ]

One thing we aren’t doing is doing naps in the bedroom. We were told that day should be bright and active since she is still developing a circadian rhythm. Should she be sleeping in the same room for naps and nighttime?.

[CJ]

1. You mentioned her wake windows aren’t typically long, but also said she’s awake from about 9 am until 1 pm. Could you clarify what happens during this time? For example, do you feed her around 9 am and then spend the next 4 hours trying to soothe her to sleep while she cries? Or does she initially fall asleep feeding, wake shortly after in your arms, and then repeat this pattern until she’s extremely tired around 1 pm, at which point you can lay her down and she will sleep for around 3 hours? Sorry that is confusing. It’s a new development. I’m asleep for most of this time. From what my husband has said she is just wide awake but generally not too fussy. He does tummy time and other activities with her. When she gets fussy he will feed her. So she seems to eat a lot in that time. He knows she shouldn’t be awake this long though so he will try to get her to sleep but that is the time she is most awake.

2. When she is sleeping, does she generally seem settled and comfortable, or is she squirming, grunting, or otherwise appearing uncomfortable? She is very very squirmy. She squeaks and grunts and is very sniffly. I don’t know enough to say she’s uncomfortable because I’ve always been told they make a lot of noise and are active sleepers.

3. How long does a breastfeed typically last? She is very efficient. She takes like 6 minutes to get what she wants. I will keep her on for closer to 20 though to make sure she gets everything she wants and I will switch sides. Usually meaning I will try to wake her up to switch sides but that rarely works

4. When she’s awake, are there periods where she’s content and calm, or is she consistently fussy and upset? In the 9 am – when I wake period my husband says she is awake and fine. But I think he has a higher tolerance for her fussiness than me haha. She will cry through tummy time and I can hear her crying other times.

5. Have you noticed any mucus or blood in her stools? No, she is pooping much less frequently which is normal according to the pediatrician.

6. Overnight, when you feed her, do you typically find she falls asleep while feeding and you can lay her down to continue sleeping or does she feed, then cry and fuss for an hour or two before falling back to sleep? Honestly it’s 50/50 haha we hope for the first but often is the latter.

7. Lastly, it sounds like the inconsolable crying is happening all day – not just in the afternoon or evening. Is this right? Yeah if she isn’t asleep or eating she’s crying. During the day she is pretty easy to calm but then that just means she falls back asleep. At night so often she is impossible to calm.

[CJ]

1. Have you started waking her at a consistent time each morning? If so, what time? We assumed she was too young for a sleep schedule. We wake her for feeds during the day and let her wake us when she needs to eat at night. Normally my husband gets her in the morning around 9 am when she’s crying around that time.
2. Is she starting to stay awake after some feeds during the day? You’re right in that for the first few weeks newborns tend to wake up, feed and then fall asleep while feeding. But what you should see is that instead of falling asleep while feeding she occasionally stays awake for a short period. No we are not seeing this. If she is hungry and needs to eat we feed her and then she eats until asleep. If she isn’t hungry she will just cry
3. If she is staying awake after feeds, have you been able to follow the wake, feed, play, sleep routine during those wake windows? See above, No she doesn’t have long enough wake windows. When she doesn’t fall asleep eating and refuses to eat she is inconsolably crying (often because she is over tired) so that time is spent trying to get her asleep
4. How many naps is she having, and how long are they? Recently she has been awake from 9 am until like 1 pm with maybe a 10 minute nap, then she will sleep for like 3 hours until we have to feed her again. Then that repeats until midnight when she goes for bed. So like 3 3 hour naps
5. You mentioned she only naps on you. How do you get her to fall asleep on you or your partner? (Feeding to sleep, rocking, wearing her, etc.) she sleeps on him too, I just meant she has to be held.
6. When she naps on you, do you hold her for the entire nap or lay her down in the bassinet once she’s asleep? Entire time. If we put her back she wakes up and cries
7. Does she use a pacifier? Yes but she only wants it sometimes if she wants it so we can’t just give it to her to soothe. We have to wait for her to want to self soothe which means most of the time it doesn’t work.
8. Is she breastfed, formula-fed, or having mixed feeds? Breast fed except for around 4 am and 9 am when my husband bottle feeds pumped milk so I can sleep
9. When you wake her for feeds during the day, where do you feed her? Do you change her nappy mid-feed or at the end? We change her then feed. We are in the living room on the couch in a normal environment. Loud with things happening
10. What time is bedtime, and what time does she fall asleep and stay asleep at night? Recently it has been so irregular and unpredictable. Most of the times I start the bedtime routine around 11:30 pm and change her, feed her, swaddle her and hope she will sleep. She never does so then it’s two+ hours of trying to get her to sleep without luck and her randomly crashing eventually. Then I will put her in the bassinet and she will cry ( I try the calming pyramid and never works) so it’s always me picking her up to calm her That will be another 30 ish minutes before she can be in the bassinet sleeping.
11. Have you been able to start a bedtime routine? If so, could you describe it? It is almost exactly as you suggest. Diaper change, feed, swaddle, white noise, lights off, rock her to sleep. Lay in her bassinet. But like I’ve said she is just fussy so after feeding it’s mostly survival and trying to get her to sleep for hours while she cries. So I have to turn on a dim light so I don’t die while rocking and walking around. Red lights haven’t provided enough light
12. Do you swaddle her for naps and overnight? If you do are her arms up by her face or down by her side? She is swaddled for almost all sleep, Otherwise she is very very active to a point we have to worry about her safety. (At night she sometimes somehow rotates herself in her bassinet and ends up perpendicular to how we lay her…. And that’s with a swaddle). Recently we realized she really prefers the arms up swaddles so she’s switched to pretty exclusively those. Even in the hospital she would fight to get her arms out if they were constrained by her side. The arms up has been so much better but I worry she isn’t getting the full womb like tight swaddle effect with these
13. When she wakes overnight, do you follow the wake, feed, sleep routine, or is she still pooping overnight and needing diaper changes? We normally don’t have to wake her at night she wakes us around every 3 hours. Recently it’s been closer to 2 hours though….even though we are trying to make it 4 hours since she is gaining weight appropriately. We don’t change her unless she smells or seems very uncomfortable. We try to keep it strictly to feeding and hope it’s a feeding to sleep and we don’t need to do hours of rocking back to sleep,
14. When she wakes overnight, do you keep the lights low and feed her in the bedroom, or do you go into the living space or turn on the lights? Lights as low as possible and we feed her in a special night time room right next to the bedroom. We have two dogs who are still too interested in her to calmly feed in the bedroom at night

Happy to answer any more questions. Any advice is probably better than our situation….