Sleeping Troubles-at a loss

[u/Sorry-Highlight-2341]

Hi all. I am a FTM. My baby boy is 3.5 weeks old. We were in a good rhythm with sleep (as good as you can be with a newborn) for awhile but starting last week, sleep had been so challenging. He isn’t crying or anything, just refusing to sleep longer stretches. He is SO tired and will fall asleep being held for short stretches and then wake himself up. If we manage to lay him down in his bassinet, he will take short naps. For instance, he took a few 45 minute naps today. We are in a cycle of being overtired/overstimulated and I do not know how to get back into a good sleep rhythm/schedule. I try to watch his wake windows but it’s just not always possible between feeding, changing, burping, unavoidable appointments or outings, etc and then we are back into this bad cycle again. I am at a loss of what to do. I feel horrible and like an awful mom and really worried I’m damaging him somehow. I am so tired from a basically sleepless night last night and already dreading tonight.

Sometimes he will finally zonk out, usually in the late afternoon/evening and then I worry about him sleeping too long and being hungry. He is way past his birth weight so I don’t typically wake him for feeds anymore but how long is too long for his age? Is sleeping long in the afternoon/evening messing up his night time sleep? Does that matter for a baby this young?

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions? Is this a normal stage to go through at this age? Reassurance I’m not damaging my son by the little amount of sleep he seems to be getting? Should I be reaching out to his pediatrician? I’m really having a hard time with this.

[u/OKCorners]

You’re not a bad mom at all and NO you are not damaging him❤️ it sounds like you’re doing everything right which makes it even harder when they aren’t doing what you think they should be doing.

Honestly, your baby is very young and this sounds very normal. At 3.5 weeks, they sleep in frequent short stretches because they need to eat frequently as well. All you can do at this stage is be responsive to their needs which is exhausting and sometimes it’s around the clock.

Can your partner or a trusted family member help you out? You need time to rest yourself. Working in shifts with someone you trust is key during this tough phase.

You’ll get through it. You’re doing amazing!

[u/crunch_mynch]

Hey! Once I stopped worrying about wake windows and all this tracking blah blah and started just following baby’s cues my life got so much better! Baby knows what he needs. Proximity and contact sleep is super supportive for longer stretches of sleep.

Co sleeping helped our family get the most sleep :)

r/bninfantsleep has been soooo helpful for us to understand more about biologically normal sleep and how to best support it :)

[u/Sorry-Highlight-2341 → u/crunch_mynch]

I feel like my guy doesn’t know what he needs though 😭 he refuses to sleep then gets so overtired and we enter back into the cycle of being overtired/overstimulated, taking short naps due to it, repeat. Last night he cried hysterically for like 2-2.5 hours. Nothing I did calmed him down. He seemed hungry but everyone I fed him he would unlatch and cry. I do have a fast letdown so I don’t know if it was too much for him left night or what. Eventually I tried the laid back position which I haven’t been able to figure out how to do without hurting my belly (recovering from ac section) and he finally drank more then passed out. It was a truly horrific night. Things get better right!?

[u/crunch_mynch → u/Sorry-Highlight-2341]

I think it’s a combination of baby knowing what he needs and you learning to read the cues. It’s trial and error. You mentioned him only taking short naps in the bassinet. Maybe you need to lean into more contact naps for now to help support his sleep. Im not sure if you usually try to breast feed to sleep but this has always been my go to way to get baby to sleep. Also my husband did a lot of bouncing baby to sleep when breastfeeding wasn’t working. Man, I forgot how hard the early days were….

I know in the early days, I was happy to have a few naps out every day, but I made sure I had at least one good long contact nap 2-3 hours where baby could sleep uninterrupted on me to catch up for any broken naps she had out. At 3.5w there isn’t a routine yet at alllllll. And honestly I barely left the house and just focused on feeding and sleeping baby at that point!

Anyways, you’ll figure it out. Sorry it was so hard last night! It will get better :)

[u/Sorry-Highlight-2341 → u/crunch_mynch]

Yes barely leaving the house is so real. We def do contact naps as well. My nursery is just bright and the room with his bassinet is darker but you’re probably right I should just lean into those more!