How to get a newborn to sleep

[beanie5]

Emma woke up around 4/5pm last night and wouldn't sleep for more than about 10 minutes until she eventually passed out- I assume of exhaustion, around 3am. Nothing I tried could get her to sleep and when I googled everything was talking about 6weeks+
Anyone got any tips on how I can get her to sleep when she's clearly overtired ?

 

[MummyEdgar]

I struggled with William to start with and found the following worked:
Feed , wind and feed until "milk drunk" and satisfied, swaddle, put in pre warmed basket( hot water bottle removed) and have white noise playing, if unsettled I would ssshhhh and rock him and place my hand on his tummy .
If that didn't work and he was over tired and not hungry, I would rock him to sleep and repeat the warm bed and swaddle bit but ultimately place him in his own bed to sleep, I could never get on with co sleeping and the one time I tried it I stayed awake all night and defeated the point lol

 

[MummyEdgar]

I'm sure others will be along shortly wth some other ideas

 

[JD.Deedee]

New borns don't understand the difference between day and night and don't sleep for long times in one go but more like short laps and wake up very frequent to feed.. The reason why you won't find anything on new borns sleeping proper is because it's really rare to find a newborn who'd sleep through before 6 weeks.. Aside from that it wouldn't be healthy for a newborn to sleep through and not wake for feeds.. They'll eventually get that it's day and night just not at such a young age.

 

[MummyEdgar]

Yeah for sure, with the above stuff I mentioned I was getting maybe 2 hour sleeps at the most but I think that was normal for my baby and he eventually fell into a rhythm

 

[beanie5]

she was sleeping 2 hours at a time before which was fine and i get that she doesn't know day from night. a few hours sleep at a time i can cope with. however nights like last night where she's clearly shattered but stays awake for 12 hours because she wont sleep or doesn't understand that sleep will soothe her, i haven't a clue how to go about getting her to sleep
when was sleeping in 2 hour segments it was generally after feeding but last couple of days (with the exception of this morning as she's actually sleeping!) she's stopped going into a milk coma which was the only way i knew how to get her sleeping
not sure if i've been missing the wind cues mid-feed and have winded her a few times this morning, maybe that made the difference and is why she's now sleeping

argh babies are so hard! i feel like i need someone to come sit with me for 24/48hours and tell me exactly what i need to be doing with her so i stop feeling like such a failure!

 

[JD.Deedee]

http://www.scarymommy.com/pep-talk-for-getting-through-newborn-stage/

Have a read of that, I read it way to late but I do very much agree and I'm sure if I would've known to think of it in this way, two week stages I wouldn't have thought about when is the light at the end of the tunnel finally going to come in them days. The third-fourth week is really really hard! But like this little read will tell you it will get better, in about two weeks!

 

[Phoenix85]

She's on target for the 3 week growth spurt which can alter feeding and sleeping patterns.
But my eldest would never sleep more than about 10 minutes at a time in the moses basket or cot on a night. That was the main reason I ended up just doing full time co sleeping second time around, because we tried everything to get the eldest to sleep on a night, but the only place they would was was next to me in our bed lol. Second time round it just wasn't worth the hassle so looked into safe co sleeping and just went with it x

 

[beanie5]

http://www.scarymommy.com/pep-talk-for-getting-through-newborn-stage/

Have a read of that, I read it way to late but I do very much agree and I'm sure if I would've known to think of it in this way, two week stages I wouldn't have thought about when is the light at the end of the tunnel finally going to come in them days. The third-fourth week is really really hard! But like this little read will tell you it will get better, in about two weeks!

thanks for that! so nice to know that i'm not such a horrid mum for being so exasperated by it all! my OH and I have both had ppl saying "enjoy this time it wont last" and all we could think is thank goodness it doesnt last we're miserable and i'm so fed up of crying and wondering what on earth made me think i could be a parent

been looking into baby groups locally and think i might try some out to be able to spend some time with ppl and get more hints & tips to help us through, especially when OH goes back to work next week

 

[MummyEdgar]

Brilliant article- spot on how I felt