11 Week Old with Sleeping Issues...

I would suggest swaddling tightly. you can google how to do it, if no one showed you in the hospital. the sell swaddler blankets that have velcoro if its easier.
also read or watch dr harvy carp (karp?) happiest baby on the block.

she'll get it. ask for help from anyone you can.
good luck

My son slept in his bouncy seat next to my bed at night until he was 5 months old (then he no longer found it comfortable & preferred his crib). During the day he either slept on me or in his swing. He could not sleep laying flat. I know this is true of a lot of babies. I have many friends who have used the car seat or bouncy. My son is now a stomach sleeper (which may be your child's issue as well).
As for feeding. My son was breastfed & ate every 2 hours (for about 15 mins each time) - even at night - until I started feeding him solids. I started feeding him (in his high chair, with a spoon) rice at about 3 months. (One meal at about 7pm. I started with one tablespoon & worked my way up to 5. When he was doing this consistently I added another meal during the day & started veggies). This is considered early now a days, but it worked well for him. What made me comfortable doing this was that my mother in law still had the prescription sheets from my husband's trips to the doctor as a baby. At one week he was started on solids. By 3 months he was eating meats. He's very healthy, so I figured a little rice wouldn't hurt my son. My boy is now a year and a half. He is happy, healthy & a good eater & sleeper.

s.

L.,
IMO, she is awfully little yet to be doing CIO or "no eye contact, no talking" yet! She's only 11 weeks old! She's also much too young for you to be concerned about spoiling her. You can't spoil a baby!
If me memory serves me, this pattern of feeding will continue until that dreaded super-early bottle is slept through. That said, when she gets a feeding at night, she can be held & cuddles. make sure she is full when she goes to bed. Make sure she has burped and is sleepy.
You could try a few things to get her to adjust to her crib:
Try a smaller area--a bassinett or pack & play. The crib may feel too huge to her now.
Try propping up the head of the bassinett mattress with a folded towel or pillow--in case she does have a little reflux--it might help to have her head elevated.
Good luck. Hope these ideas help a little bit. Enjoy that baby! Hope you get some sleep soon! :-)

I have a 6 week old (and a 22 month old) and my motto has quickly become "do whatever works". My daughter was a fantastic sleeper and even though she breastfed, she slept for at least 5 hours straight at night by the time she was 8 weeks old. And she slept in her crib by the time she was 3 weeks old with no problems. This time around....my son usually doesn't sleep longer than 3 hours at a time (and thats only if I have him in the wrap when i carry him).

I was against co-sleeping as well especially since our dog already sleeps in bed with us and my husband is a REALLY sound sleeper. However, I quickly gave it because it was the only way I felt like I got any rest at night. And really, everyone has been getting better sleep since we started having him sleep with us. The other thing I did for awhile that also worked somewhat well was moving the swing into the bedroom. Then if you don't want to co-sleep she can still be in the swing and you don't have to sleep on the couch.

With a husband who works rotating shifts, a 22 month old and a little one who doesn't sleep for long periods I threw out all my previous conceptions on how/when/where a baby should sleep and just go with what works. Sleep was more important to me than sticking with the idea that my son HAD to sleep in his crib at night. Hopefully you'll find a solution that works for you and your family! Just remember, you're not alone!

Swaddling is golden. Try it nice and snug. It calmed my kids down after they got in it and they didn't startle and wake up.

Also, if you do need to resort to sleeping in a seat of some sort, you may want to look for ways to discourage any positional plagiocephaly (flat spots on the head...one of our kids favored turning his head one direction and got a flat spot that we had to take measures to correct.) According to a doctor we saw, sitting up in a seat like that puts pressure on the head. So, make sure the seat isn't too hard and flat and that your baby sometimes leans left, right, and straight ahead. This condition, that is treatable early on, is becoming more common with the back to sleep campaign but when we were dealing with it the doctor told us that sitting up at an angle was also a culprit.

Have you tried waking her up during the day? If she can't sleep during the day, she'll be tired at night. It will probably take 2 weeks or so to reverse her schedule. When she's taking a nap during the day, wake her up and keep her awake after an hour of rest. With my first, if I kept him awake after his 730 pm feeding until his 1030 feeding, he would sleep through the night (after he was 10 weeks old). If he slept even for an hour between 730 and 1030, he would be up until 1 or 2 in the morning. I think you're smart to avoid co-sleeping. My boys have always gone to sleep by themselves and now, at age 5 and 7 years, go to be without any problem (in sharp contrast to a good friend's son - she would lay down with him to get to sleep and now, at 5 years old, still "needs to" every night or he won't go to sleep). Good luck! I remember how awful the sleep deprivation was!

If she only seems comfortable sleeping sitting up, put her in her carseat to sleep, it can even be right next to you in the bedroom or placed inside a pack-n-play. I certainly don't think 3-3.5 hours for feeding is unreasonable at this age. You can try feeding her more frequently during the day so she'll do it less at night, that will require keeping her awake more, too. Try feeding her after 2.5-3 hours during the day. I'd also try swaddling. I have 5.5 yo twins who never slept on their backs, although not recommended, I had to place them on their bellie with their little legs tucked up beneath them in a little ball. Good luck, this too shall pass, remind me I said that after my 3rd is born this February ;-).

Try lowering the noise level during the day. I know that sounds wierd. but if you turn on the vaccuum cleaner, it's noise overload, and a baby will check out -- go right to sleep.

Start on a weekend, and enlist your children to take turns and play with their sibling while you get some rest. Dad can join in, with the baby on his chest while he watches sports on TV. He can also take over baby responsibilities the minute he gets home from work, and you can make supper, nurse the baby, and go to bed. It's good for him to have daddy-bonding time, too, and if you get some sleep, you'll have a better relationship with him, as well as with your twins and infant. Ditch the chores. Who is going to remember 10 years from now that you skipped doing chores when you were too tired to stay awake ? Your health is much more important to your family than a carefully crafted meal, or a perfectly tended building. Home is family life, not better homes and gardens.

I don't do the "cry it out" thing, either -- esp at this age. I did, however, prefer to sleep with my child between my husband and me over not sleeping at all. We slept in a queen sized bed, and there was plenty of room for a wee infant. As our babies got older, they went to bed in the crib, but because I worked full-time, I was too tired to stay awake while they nursed at night, so I cuddled them in bed with me, and they nursed, and I half-dozed. We would usually get about 5 hours of good sleep without the baby, then a few in the early morning when we were conscious of having company in bed. If you don't want to do that, you could go to bed with your baby earlier in the evening, fall asleep, and have your husband move the baby to her crib when he climbs in. I think it is more important to get the sleep YOU need to cope with your child, and your family, than it is to worry about whether or not your infant sleeps in your bed temporarily.

I would not do the "no eye contact" thing at feeding time. All you are doing with that is frustrating both of you when you should be building your relationship. (and obviously, you don't enjoy that at all.)

You could try heating the crib sheets with a heating pad, and fully removing it from the crib before you put your baby down. The warmth might help her to stay asleep. also, if you cuddle her in a blanket before you put her down, keeping her in the blanket, in basically the same position might help. . . . . and then there's my sister's method. she would hold her babies until they were so well asleep that she could pick up an arm, drop it and have it plop down, totally. No, half hearted, slowly lowering the hand that implies some level of awareness and muscle movement. she would wait until the kid was so far gone that the hand simply "fell" to the baby's side. At that point, she knew the baby was so well asleep that putting him or her in the crib would make no difference at all to the baby.

Bsbies seem to quite naturally be up all night in the womb and sleep during the day. When they find daylight, it doesn't necessarily change their habits. I always found that their habits changed when my habits changed -- like when I returned to work FT and they had no choice but to do what I was going to do, because I couldn't alter my schedule to theirs. My kids generally landed into a schedule of a morning nap, an afternoon nap, and bedtime around 10:00, because that's when I went to bed. If they laid awake while I slept, I didn't really care. If I nursed them longer to get them to sleep, I didn't really care. But I did go to sleep. I had no choice if I wanted to keep my job.

the twins will be home from school for vacation soon, and they can help you. Ask them to help play with and entertain their sister, esp while you "do chores", and use the family time as a time when everyone bonds as well as helps you cope with baby. As the little one becomes more and more able to digest stimuli, she will find that being awake is fun, during the day, when there are more stimuli to enjoy. This time period you're in right now, is horribly exhausting, but it isn't permanent. In another month, you'll begin to see a better sleeping pattern emerging, and you'll begin to feel better.

Meanwhile, Merry Chtistmas ! Won't you have fun with the 8 yr olds, and won't they have fun playing with the baby's toys ?! :-)

Hi L.,

Have you thought about a pediatric chiropractor.

check the web:

http://www.fussybaby.ca/fussybabieschiropractic.html

Hope this helps. D.

Do you know if she has issues with wind/gas? Both my two would not sleep well on their backs if they were having wind trouble. Maybe she is only sleeping alot during the day because she can't get comfortable enough to sleep well at night. If she does have wind, proping her on her side to sleep may help. When you are just holding her slide your arm under her tummy side down, with her head towards the inside of your elbow and legs dangling down by your hand. She may find this position more comfortable and be less wiggly when held. I had to hold my daughter like this all the time for about 3 months because she got such terrible wind when fed.

I disagree with setting a sleep schedule for an infant that young. It is hard that they are awake at random hours, but it won't be that way forever.
It seems that it is just more convenient if they sleep at night.
My daughter made her own schedule and eventually that schedule began to match mine around 4 or 5 months.
My advice is to allow her to wake and sleep as it naturally occurs to her. As with anything with kids, it will change before you know it.

My daughter had days and nights confused too. I also had a 1 year old when I had her so the who Cry it out has never been an option for me. I let her sleep in the car seat in the crib, or on the floor next to the bed. The swing anything that worked. At this point my son is 3 and she is 2, no one sleeps. I got up at 4 today with the older one and she got up at 6 crying and tugging her ear. I have come to the conclusion that odds are I won't sleep aagain for a few more years. Good luck to you.

Hi, my son didn't sleep through the night until he was like 9mos old...I thought I was going to die. lol But he also mixed up his days and nights when he was only a few weeks old. I used only a nightlight at night when I absolutely needed it or I would turn the TV on muted for the light (again only when absolutely necessary). Also, I would only make soothing sounds (or whispering) at night, no playing or talking. During the day I would try to keep him awake as much as possible. We also used the Aquarium thing for the crib that played soft music and bubbled which helped keep him occupied at night when I absolutely needed to get some sleep. We used the Momma Bear that made womb sounds in the first few weeks also. And my husband helped me to get some sleep by taking my son once I fed him so that I could get a few minutes of rest. My son soon figured out night and day and was sleeping a few hours at a time at night.