My baby won’t go to sleep

My 3 weeks old daughter is suddenly very awake and doesn’t want to go to sleep. Used to be easy, feed and she’ll be sleepy and just put her back in cot. Only fusses when diaper is soiled, and when she’s hungry again. Now she’s not having it. She’ll go quiet during feeding and unlatches from the mother after she falls asleep, put her in the cot and she immediately stirs up and cries. Carry her and cradle her and sing to her and she doze off, put her back in and cry again. Checks her diapers and change, feed again in case for comfort feeding. She falls asleep and put her back in cot and immediately same thing happens again. This can go on for hours! Instead of 2-3 hours feeding interval it’s become 6-7 hours of just cradling and re-latching just to keep her at that “sleep mode”. We are at our wits end. Don’t know what to do! #pleasehelp #advicepls

Chris Herwan Polii

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Your baby might be having her first growth spurt! The first one happens anytime aroung 1-3 weeks and they start to do this thing called cluster feeding, you can go read it up. During that time they get so hungry and uneasy they literally want to be glued to you. Is your baby really hungry when she wakes and cry? When my boy was around 3 weeks it was when he started getting more "awake" and started noticing more what's going on around him and would start to notice him being left alone in his cot which makes him have a bit of separation anxiety. He also started refusing his cot around then, but he wasn't hungry (I have a bit of an oversupply) just wanted to be carried, when we let him lie on our chests to sleep he can sleep for hours without stirring. It's tiring as hell because you can't sleep like that, but for me that was the only way my boy would stay asleep. He's now 2 months and from around 1 month he started accepting his cot a bit at night when he's really sleepy, but it's getting a bit better with time. It's still too early to sleep train him in the cot so we're holding that back to around 3-4 months, for now just setting up a good routine for him which makes him sleep better at night (and more likely to sleep in his cot). When he refuses my hubby and I just takes turn cuddling him. Find a nice recliner or sofa, make yourself comfortable and get ready to book or your phone to pass time while baby sleeps. In the day if you need to be up and moving try using a sling or carrier, although mine doesn't like that, a lot of babies would happily sleep in one while you're up and doing your stuff. If it's really a growth spurt it might really just pass in a few days. All the best and hope things improves for you!

Chris Herwan Polii

3y ago

Yeah. After some reading, that seems to be it. And nope, she’s not very hungry that’s just it. After having a heavy feed of about an hour or so she falls aslp and unlatches. It’s only after swaddling and leaving her in the cot she starts her crying streaks. Which goes on every time we put her down after that, of which the feed only lasted like 5mins, more like comfort feeding to stop her crying but it doesn’t last as she falls aslp. Only to happen again once she’s put down. So yeah, we went on to just having to settle for keeping her cuddled. I do most of it so my wife can rest as otherwise it’s literally breast feeding, + cuddling, then zero rest. Seems to work for now. Hopefully it’s really the growth spurt phase. 🙏🏽

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