6 week old's naps

[LHcj2008]

I am at my wit's end as I write this. My son is 6 weeks old today, and while he has needed to nurse 24/7 since he was 3 weeks old (I kid you not), now suddenly it is taking him HOURS to fall to sleep during the day, and then he wakes right back up after 10 min. I have been nursing him since 10:30ish am, it is 2:20 pm, he has successfully fallen asleep 3x at the breast, only to wake up within minutes and he is still awake (nursing again) as I write this. I know he is a comfort nurser and I am happy to provide him with the comfort, but the need seems to be increasing instead of decreasing.

I have tried the pacifier which can work sometimes if he is already groggy and half-asleep- it helps him fall back to a deep sleep.. It has not worked today. I put him in the Moby- he cried, so now he is nursing in it in some makeshift wrapped position. Ive walked him around the house shushing him- hasn't worked. He has been up since 9:30, and has maybe spent 30 min of that time not nursing.

Yesterday we woke up around 9 am and I couldnt get him to sleep successfully until 3 pm.

I am losing my mind. I cant get anything done- I can't pee, I can't eat. I've only had a Lara bar all day for breakfast because nothing else is prepared in the fridge. I don't know what is going on and why he is fighting sleep so much. I know he needs to nurse to sleep, but if he does fall asleep, if I move a muscle, he is up again.

I've heard it gets better but lately I am feeling like a prisoner. Don't get me wrong. I love my son more than anything. He is my first and I am enamored with him. I am practicing AP just by nature (i did not have a parenting style planned. But he is 6 weeks old and I can barely brush my hair. I will put him down- crib, bouncer, I'll tie him in the wrap, etc., & he has a threshhold of about 10 min before he starts to cry to nurse again. He doesn't stay content very long. Nothing seems to "work" but my boobs.  I hold him all day long. He sleeps with me at night. I'm just feeling burnt out and I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel where he will be this baby that I can take out in public who doesnt need to nurse every waking minute. I want to meet his needs and I make the sacrifices to do so, but it just seems to be getting worse, and I'm getting frustrated. The sad thing is, I have no photos with the baby because I look like such s*&^ every day and am practically topless all the time. He will probably look back on his baby photos and wonder why his dad is in half of his photos, and mommy is nowhere to be seen.

The other thing is that my DH and my mom try to help, and while my husband is a big help for taking him off my hands when he is content, or when he is in a deep sleep, no one else is able to really calm him successfully, since he needs to nurse.

Ok. Now he is officially asleep and seems to be staying asleep *crossing fingers*. It is 2:40 pm. So it is starting to take nearly 4 hours to get him to go sleep for a 2 hour nap (3 if I'm lucky)! Is this normal? Is he going through a growth spurt or something? I think I just needed to vent before I lost it.

[CrunchyChristianMama]

I would say that he is probably getting overtired from being awake so long, and that is part of why it is taking him so long to get to sleep.

At 6 weeks old both of my girls were only staying awake for around an hour - hour and a half tops.  After they were awake for about 45 minutes I would start to soothe them including swaddling, nursing, rocking, etc., then lay them down to sleep.  For my DD1 she had to be asleep for me to lay her down, DD2 would let me put her down awake and did better than way.  If I tried to keep them up longer than that and didn't work toward getting them to sleep at that point they would often struggle for a long time to be able to fall asleep. 

Hugs mama, new babies are hard, especially your first.  It will get easier!

[macy]

My LO slept a ton until 5 or 6 weeks, then she could stay awake 7 hours in a row and not seem tired. she could get by on as little as 10.5 hours of sleep in a day and i was going crazy and thought it would never get better and I'd never get to shower or eat with both hands again. Now she's 3.5 months old and things just started getting easier a few weeks ago when she learned how to tell when she's tired. Now she's up to almost 15 hours of sleep a day again and when she needs a nap she gets fussy and lets me know, and if she needs it quieter or darker she cries until I take her in the bedroom, turn off the lights and nurse her in bed. Now we are getting into a routine and I can even put her in crib and she can fall asleep on her own some times. In hindsight I think she wasn't fighting sleep, she was fighting being awake and shutting out the distractions in our house, even though it's relatively quiet here. So - I'd try to keep things darker and quieter and don't expect her to sleep through a lot like a newborn. I have to blast a loud fan on for my LO to sleep now.

My LO also recently stopped nursing constantly. She used to eat until she vomited and I think she did that because she was over-tired and was trying to comfort herself to sleep but the lights and noises wouldn't let her.

I know it's rough and I hope it gets better soon.

[Beltane]

I just realized that your dd is 6 weeks old, not 6 months old as I had originally read.  Hang in there Mama!  It will get better!

[LHcj2008]

Thanks everyone. I'm better now. Just had a moment there. My LO finally fell asleep and stayed asleep for about 1.5 hours, after which my DH came home from work and I could pass him to my husband...then he woke up, nursed again, and fell right back to sleep (thankfully) and has been asleep ever since.

The other thing that is frustrating is that even when he is asleep he turns his body so that his cheek is up against my boob (usually the left one, ha), so he twists himself all up in the Moby to the point where he is laying horizontally and I have to hold his head, so I'm never quite hands-free, even when he is asleep and I'm wearing him! It makes me laugh when I'm not frustrated, thankfully.

CrunchyChristianMama, I totally agree with you about him being overtired. The problem is that I do start trying to get him to go to sleep about an hour after he has been awake (because he can only spend so much time alert and then he starts to get a little fussy). I settle myself down on the couch with a movie and start nursing him. I definitely don't try to keep him up. But it takes so long to get him to fall asleep and actually stay asleep and I don't know what I'm doing wrong or if there is anything I can do at all.

My son also nurses until he throws up too (which he did about 30 seconds before I posted this thread...all over him, the Moby I had just wrapped him in, and me...down my cleavage...and then I couldn't get to it because I had just wrapped him up! Hence my mini-meltdown).

So I do think everyone is onto something about him being overtired, maybe overstimulated, and needing to nurse because it soothes him. And good point about him fighting "awake" and not fighting sleep. It makes more sense based on his need to nurse...I guess if he was fighting sleep he wouldn't want to nurse constantly. Tomorrow I will try to keep things dark, quiet, and maybe start some kind of routine as far as rocking, nursing, shushing, etc. right off the bat and I'll see if that helps. He is such a light sleeper!

[AdinaL]

Oh, that is hard.  I remember when DD was 6 weeks old.  Her already frequent nursing ended up being constant, and at most I had 45 minutes between nursing sessions.    I went digging here and found that a *lot* of moms have this same problem and kind of post right around 6 weeks. It does get better, and the nursing will stop feeling like it is around the clock.  This time is hard.  Newborns are needy, and right around 6 weeks seemingly more so. I started feeling good and much better, and it was hard to sit and wait for DD to sleep, or to stop nursing.  

A good friend of mine, at this point, when I was feeling much like you said to me, "Wait two weeks, it will all be different again."   She was so right.  Even now, when DD is coming up on 5, a couple of weeks will change everything. 

[Llyra]

Six weeks old is probably the roughest age of all. I've read several researchers describe it as the peak of infant fussiness. It's a common time for a growth spurt, and for baby to suddenly become more "awake" and aware of the world. This means a baby who's less able to tune out the world to fall asleep, and who's therefore very prone to getting overstimulated and cranky and miserable. It's also (and this is just my own observation) a common time for the reality of life with a baby to kick in for mothers, and for the effects of chronic sleep loss to really start to drag you down.

It really does get better. They learn to control the flow better, so that they don't overeat and then vomit. They learn to control their heads better, so that you can nurse without having to pay such close attention to the process. And the periods of waking and sleep start to become more regular and predictable.

Have you tried side-lying nursing during the day? I had good luck with lying down to nurse mine, and then carefully sliding away once they were asleep. The last time, I was dealing with twins, so I had to get one to sleep and then work on getting the other to sleep, and it's side-lying that saved us. Are you swaddling, too? My kids couldn't sleep worth a fart without the swaddle-- they'd wake themselves up five minutes after they fell to sleep.

Hang in there! This is the hardest part of all, right now.

[LittleBirdy]

I just want to send hugs and to let you know that I was there too... at that age DS nursed every hour on the hour for about 30 minutes, so I would get maybe a 30 minute break between sessions - and that was on a good day!  He also took forever to fall asleep, wouldn't nap, etc.  A baby swing (turned up as fast as it will go, even if it is scary, unless your LO is a preemie and really tiny) saved me.  He could fall asleep in minutes in the swing.

The other thing I want to tell you is how fast it can all change.  DS is 6 months and I can't get him to nurse to save my life.  He will nurse for 90 seconds, pop off, try to sit up... lather, rinse, repeat.  Hang in there! 

[LHcj2008]

OH MY GOD I just got my baby to fall asleep in the swing this morning. He just fell asleep 5 min ago, so here's praying that he stays asleep (since that is really the issue). I hadn't used the swing in weeks because he seemed to hate it (cried as soon as I put him in it), but with the addition of a pacifier, and perhaps now that he is bigger, it seems to work!!! I feel like a new person!!!! And, I tried to get him down pretty immediately after his bath and a nursing session so he wouldn't get overtired. I even have white noise playing on my computer full blast, haha. Ok, he just woke up, I put pacifier back in mouth, he's out again.

Fingers crossed!!!

[LittleBirdy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LHcj2008 

OH MY GOD I just got my baby to fall asleep in the swing this morning. He just fell asleep 5 min ago, so here's praying that he stays asleep (since that is really the issue). I hadn't used the swing in weeks because he seemed to hate it (cried as soon as I put him in it), but with the addition of a pacifier, and perhaps now that he is bigger, it seems to work!!! I feel like a new person!!!! And, I tried to get him down pretty immediately after his bath and a nursing session so he wouldn't get overtired. I even have white noise playing on my computer full blast, haha. Ok, he just woke up, I put pacifier back in mouth, he's out again.

Fingers crossed!!!

Hooray!!  With my LO, he might periodically wake up for a minute or two but I would always wait to see if he would go back to sleep.  Usually he would.  Mine is a super light sleeper, so eventually we put the swing in his nursery with a white noise machine & a shade.  I felt like I was putting him in some sort of baby prison but he really needs a dark quiet room to sleep - he is an active/alert type and just needs all stimuli blocked out.

Now, my next piece of advice for a couple of weeks from now when you start freaking out because you realize eventually he is going to outgrow that swing and then what do you do... I will tell you that one day when ds was maybe 4.5 months I just tried putting him down for a nap in his crib and he slept for an hour, and then we didn't need the swing anymore.  (Can't tell you how many times I had tried this before and he wouldn't stay asleep and then this one day he just did.)

 

[LHcj2008]

The honeymoon ended fast. He has never been this restless before! He is very alert when awake and has been a light sleeper, but suddenly this has turned into ridiculous-ness.

He slept in the swing for 40 min, with the first 10-15 including constant waking back up, etc. I took it and I was thrilled. That was the first time he has ever been able to sleep without being on/next to/nursing from me. Then my mom came and I was easily able to get him to sleep another 20-30 min, and I handed him off to her, but she kept mentioning putting him down and I was like DO NOT PUT HIM DOWN...I went downstairs to cook dinner for later (hooray!) and he wakes up. She may have tried to put him down, maybe not, who knows. So then he slept for another ~15 min at some point during her visit. And now here we are and Im struggling to get him to go down again...its been about 2.5-3 hours since his last catnap and I've been trying to get him down for about 2 of those hours. He has fallen asleep but wakes right back up and he is even rejecting his pacifier (and he screamed when I tried to swing again...oh well). He's nursed until he's spit up several times now, and at this point I've just wrapped him up in the Moby and he is nursing again b/c nothing else has worked. At this point he seems asleep but is still sucking away. Sigh.

Even though I'm right back where I was yesterday, I feel a little glimmer of hope that he was able to catnap fairly successfully today. I really was very aware of the time and started trying to relax him/put him to sleep about an hour after he'd been awake. Usually he takes at least 2 giant naps (2-3 hours) during the day, and I haven't gotten that from him yet, but at least he has slept some already without me taking up to 4 hours to get him to that point.

I do think he is going through a growth spurt as well...suddenly I'm thinking his newborn clothes and even some of the smaller 0-3 month clothing are fitting him better.

[LadyCatherine185]

was he born premature? i ask because of your last statement regarding his size.

have you looked into reflux or food sensitiviteis?

[macy]

my LO's 6 week growth spurt was the worst. she slept horribly after her growth spurt because she was more aware of her surroundings after it, as i said earlier, and i thought maybe that was what was going on with your son too but maybe your are just experiencing a growth spurt. my LO's 6 week growth spurt started around 5 weeks and lasted 3 days and i really could not leave the couch for anything. it was rough.. she just wanted to eat and catnap. i think if it lasts more than a few days it's not a growth spurt but if you haven't had a few days of constant feeding recently before this maybe that's all your son is going through right now. if that's the case just get a ton of snacks near your nursing spot and try to relax and forget about making dinner and keeping up with laundry for a few days. you can order pizza. yum!

[peacelove&camping]

my dd was like this, nursing down on and off all day into a light sleep and that was it. i had to work incredibly hard at finding what else would work for her. i would nurse, wrap her, and then go into the nursery where it was darker, and sway and bounce, and sing and shush, and rub and pat, until i found what would put her to sleep. if he's nursing all the time he's probably just craving comfort, like mine was, and for whatever reason just can't let go into sleep. if you switch it up a little and try to lull him [on a full tummy], he may have an easier time of it, and won't be overeating to the point of making himself sick.  

the other thing that, although we didn't know it at the time, was causing her to be clingy and cranky was a milk protein allergy, like pp suggested. i thought i was going to tear my hair out, all she wanted to do was nurse and scream and then sleep on my chest. cutting dairy out entirely [eventually, once we figured it out--it was rough going for a while] gave us a whole new baby :) good luck!

[LHcj2008]

LadyC, he was not born prematurely- he was born at 39 weeks, but was 5 lbs. 14oz. He was a peanut. So I think sometimes the constant nursing is also a way to "catch up", weight-wise.

I have thought of allergies. I guess I should try to cut out dairy and see if that helps. The spitting up has increased majorly but I tend to think it is more due to his tendency to nurse for comfort and overfill himself.

Macy- He has nursed for hours on end since he turned 3 weeks, but the not-able-to-stay-asleep problem just started this Tuesday and he turned 6 weeks on Wednesday. The comfort nursing hasn't changed much, but it is just seemingly happening more b/c he is sleeping less.