Need Advice About an Infant Who Does Not Sleep!

i want you to write to me by email - ____@____.com - if you would like to talk and stuff. ... i feel really compassionate toward you - and i would really like to help you. some of what i have to say is straight to the point, and that may come across as rude or arrogant or hurtful, and i dont want you to feel that way - so please call me on any offensive statements....
in the end of my response i have an offer for you - i would like to send you something...
anyway... read on....

nope. sorry mom, this is typical, normal infant behavior.

www.askdrsears.com - and any book by william and/or martha sears (and family) will be of GREAT use for you. they have one book called "the baby book" that covers pretty much everything from birth to age 2.

baby's tummy is about the size of their fist. thats pretty small. it fills up fast, and empties fast. this is the ONLY time in a persons life where they will double their height and TRIPLE their weight in only one year. thats a HUGE amount of growth, and though it seems small, its really HUGE for a baby. that requires lots of food. theres really NOTHING you can do at this age except keep responding and feeding your baby.

a friend i know of had her daughter and thought it was some sort of deception that her daughter needed her that much at night - and they pushed baby out in the hall in the bassinett.
ill have you know that this baby does NOT listen to mom - is very violent toward mom and her baby brother - and is simply a terror.

my son, and the son of a friend, were both raised with very much response and connectiveness, feeding on baby's schedule not mine (its important that baby only eats when tummy tells him - not the clock. otherwise they can start to forget that eating is to fulfill hunger - and thats one way we have obese children) - any my son and his friend are both VERY compassionate, empathetic children - they are very concerned when they see people cry, and are very touched by others love and affection. :D attachment parenting. it works, i swear. :D

one thing i KNOW wont work - do NOT put cereal in a bottle. first of all - cereal, or any solid foods - are simply NOT needed until after baby's first year. we start giving them solids around 6 months in order to get them used to other textures - and although it seems that cereal is the usual first food - i HIGHLY encourage (at 6 months or aroudn there) giving simply a pear or something like that - in one of those mesh bag thingys they make for babies.... but moving on.... cereal in bottles is not going to work so dont do it! especially not now - allergies are a lot of times caused by solids too early - the digestive system is not ready to deal with that stuff yet! :D

allow baby to suck on a nuk or something if feeding is over. DO NOT WORRY as much about the amount of the feeding as making sure baby gets fed when baby is hungry, and stops when baby is full. never force a baby to finish a bottle just because you think that baby should. :D the more things you can do to connect with your child and make sure baby's needs are fulfilled, the more happy, healthy and confident your baby will be. independence is NOT created by force and making baby be alone - independence is taught by building trust and respect - the more you respond to babys cries, no matter what, the more baby can trust you - and the less afraid baby is going to be. its PROVEN over and over and over.

this is VERY normal. it will not go away until baby is read to developmentally deal with this. babies DO NOT manipulate us - babies only cry when they have a need - this wont change until around a year old - the more you respond to your baby's cries now and fulfill baby's needs - the easier it will be for you to understand what your baby's cries mean, and when baby gets around that year old mark - you will notice a shift in the cries. my son was about 11.5 months old when i noticed that my son didnt sound so urgent. i could let him fuss a little before i had to get to him. however, there is no reason a baby should be left to cry, unless you fear you will hurt baby. please take a break if this happens.

babies who cry are more likely to have high blood pressure, more stress in their life, have more fears, and they are MORE likely to cry MORE about things that children who arent left to cry wouldnt cry about. my son doesnt cry over every injury, he trusts me, he knows im taking care of him, he knows if he is seriously hurt or something that i wont dismiss his feelings..

this is a long process, and really, the way you raise your baby now directly determines what kind of toddler, kindergartener, school ager, and most importantly, the kind of teenager you will have. teens of parents who were responsive to them as babies and never used cry it out methods are more likely to feel their parents are 'with it' and understand their feelings. they are more likely to communicate daily events and feelings with their parents because that bond of trust has never been broken. its really simple, though thoroughly exhausting.

i want you to know that this time is VERY short. you will have this child in your house, hopefully, for 18 years! eating every 2 hours all 24 hours of every day wont last long - maybe 3 or 4 more months. trusting your baby has a need and responding to baby without forcing baby to deal with it on his/her own ..... maybe another 10 months. how much time is that really? there are 216 months until your child is 18. being highly sensitive and responsive for another 10 months? what is that? in the long run, its no time at all, and you will look back and go, wow. that wasnt very much time.

one thing you DONT want to do is look back and wish you had spent more time you know? you dont want to look back and say 'i wish that i had just given more of myself'.

parenting is NOT easy. anyone who tells you it is isnt being completely honest. i will tell you that attachment parenting makes things a MILLION times easiER. it doesnt make it easy, just easier. its easier to respond to a child who is crying or having a tantrum when you understand why they are crying or having a tantrum. i cant tell you how many times ive heard a still small voice inside going "your son just needs ____" - i give it to him, hes fine. for example, i have a small child care in my home. my son loves the company, but sometimes he starts getting cranky and spazzing out everywhere - i simply bring him to his room and shut the door. though its not the easiest response to make, i never hear a complaint. he plays in his room for 30 minutes alone (or so) and he will knock on his door and say "KNOCK KNOCK" or "moooooooooom" and i can go get him and let him out and hes FINE. :D trust me, listening to the instincts that you have and just doing things... almost automatically - is the best way to go.

every child is different. its unfair of anyone to assume that if they have had children, they are all the same, they should all be treated the same. thats a really unfair assumption. there are high need babies. there are sickly babies. there are healthy babies who just want attention and comfort. their are babies who are just excited about their world. babies come the person that they are. and nature gives mom the EXACT instincts for THAT child. if you follow them - you will NEVER go wrong.

and im sure this is exhausting. im sure you just want more sleep. thats normal. but honestly, you are a mom now, you wont be getting 'normal' sleep ever again! even when they graduate and move away you will lose sleep over who they are hanging out with, what they are doing, if they are safe, if they have food, if they have too much food, if they are doing something bad, or what they are doing that is good....... i swear, it will never be the same.
HOWEVER, you have a sweet little baby who loves you unconditionaly. and even if you screw up and they grow up to 'hate' you - they would be devastated to lose you. so the best thing you can do for your child is to start NOW being the parent you want to be when they are grown. a parent who responds when their child has a need, no matter what it is. a parent who allows their child to have their feelings and tries to make it better. someone your child can trust to always be there for them - night or day. parenting isnt just a day job - its 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year - 25,000 + days left of your life. 36,792,000 minutes for the rest of your life. the sleep you had before you were a mom is history. its a hard fact, but its true. im not going to tell you its not exhausting. but every minute i spent awake nursing my son, every second that i spent holding him, rocking him to sleep, laying with him in bed, talking to him, singing to him, reading to him..... every second of that time is precious. and even all the times ive responded to his cries, every time ive talked to him, played with him, read to him - it never seems like enough. but at least i know that im doing what i can in every second that i can do it.

one thing that i always say about parenting is that we dont have children so we can continue our regularly scheduled lives with them. we have children so we can change our lives and make it more fulfilling. and to see fulfillment in the eyes of our child??? theres nothing better than that. it absolutly breaks my heart to see a child who is angry, and who simply doesnt trust their parents and a young young age. it makes me scared for who they are going to grow up to be - what kind of idea of love they have if they cant trust their parents to be there when they have a need, who can they trust?

i dont know. in your exhausted state i doubt you need all of this information. im just really passionate that the best way to raise a child is by following that still small voice inside taht tells you what your child needs. its not like someone is literally talking to me - i dont literally hear a voice, my heart just aches and i feel i should do something - and every time i do it, its building not only my son's trust for me, but my own trust in myself. i have many times rejected someone else's ideas of parenting, even from my own family, simply because my heart knows better. and i never once doubt it. i simply KNOW.

i would like to send you "the baby book" by william sears. please email me if you would like someone to talk to - if you need me to clarify anything ive said - and if you want the book - you can send me your address. it was really the best thing that ever happened to me - finding william sears's books. and i want to share that with EVERYONE i meet :D
anyway, good luck mom, just try to do the best you can. if you have a husband, get him to do one feeding - thats one benefit you have by bottlefeeding.... someone else can share the load with you. if the dad or husband isnt involved - see if your mother or siblings or someone can help you out for a while. usually babies will stop waking every 2 hours sometime around 3 or 4 months - though they will have much night waking until far past one year - far past 2 years ..... kids dont sleep at night and thats a good thing! :D :D

a few things that may assist your sleeping though - we used a white noise CD - and we still do. we found a disk called "for crying out loud" - it has 8 tracks on it of different noises. our son was a fan of the vacuum - we ran our vacuum at night for the first 2 months of his life - every night. yeah we wore it out - when we found this cd, we were very scared it wouldnt work - but it did. so you can try that.
nightlight. always helps everyone. when getting the bottle, dont use bright lights while preparing, that can wake baby up more.

yeah. please write to me. i would love to help you out - talk you through things. again, my email address is ____@____.com - i hope to hear from you soon! please put something in the subject line about writing to talk from mamasource so i know who it is - but i will watch for a P. in my inbox too... i know i wrote a HUGE response for you, and im sorry it was so long - im just really passionate and excited to help you -

so anyway, i hope to hear from you.

I feel for you. It's so hard not to get enough rest - there's a reason they use sleep deprivation as a torture technique! Not to discourage you, but it's really normal for infants to eat small amounts every couple of hours. "Sleeping through the night" doesn't happen as early and often as many people would have you think and generally even that only means a 6 hour stretch.

My breastfed 3 year old was never much of a sleeper, unfortunately for us. Didn't get a 4 hour stretch until 6 months and didn't sleep through the night until 2 years. He still wakes up once or twice a night relatively frequently. It goes in spurts and can be affected by all kinds of things: colds, teething, growing pains, seasonal changes, stress, diet, you name it!

But it really does get better - you get through it (I'm about to have another soon:) and see that everything has its stage. Get as much rest as you can, nap when possible and give yourself and your baby lot of slack. Good luck mama!

My son did the same at that age. I nursed at that time and we shared a bed which helped me get more sleep. There are co-sleeper cribs that allow the baby to sleep right next to your bed which might help too. If you're concerned about cosleeping, google James McKenna MD.

HI P.,
I would try stretching out the time between feedings during the day. A seven week old baby is still going to eat every three hours or so but try to feed her, keep her awake a bit and then let her take a nap. A good day time routine will help the night time. Congratulations on your little one!
L.

This is purely guessing, since you didn't say if she is waking up crying or not. But I'm wondering if it could be acid reflux. Even though they don't sleep long stretches at 7 weeks, they should sleep a little more than 2 hours at a time. If she's waking up crying because of reflux, and then you feed her, drinking makes the reflux go a way for a little while until it starts all over. Could be worth mentioning to your doctor.

Sorry but his is SO normal. Some parents have a little one who sleeps in "long" stretches (3+ hours). Some of us get 1 1/2 to 2 hour stretches. At about 8 weeks, when my son would first be put to "bed" he would sleep for three hours and then it was no more than 2 hours at a time for the rest of the night (7 am-7pm) for feeeding. This went on until he was 1 year old and I cut off night feedings. I could and probably should have cut them off at 9 months but the rut stuck for a while longer.

My rule of thumb for my son was to pay attention to how much my baby should eat in a day (24 hours). He was not drinking/eating enough during the daylight hours (until about 9-10 months) for me to feel comfortable cutting off night feeding. He needed the nutrients.

I used the book "Baby 411" as a guide. Found it REALLY helpful for all sorts of things!

Good luck. I do know how tough it is without enough sleep. Does your partner help with the night feedings? You both need to get two 3 hour stretches of sleep at night. Less than that for you can lead to PPMD - speaking from experience here.

She is still pretty young to be sleeping long periods of time. You can't really make her drink more.

Looking back at my first daughter's eating log.(yes, we kept a log) She ate between 3-4oz, approx. every 3 to 4 hours at 7 weeks of age. You could try swaddling her and giving her a pacifier. This may help to keep her more settled and lengthen her sleep a bit.

I have 6 week old twins and this is happening as well. But remember it's also a growth spurt time as well and it'll get better very soon....

give it some time, this is very typical of such a young baby

Welcome to motherhood! That is completely normal! They eat every 2-3 hours. My 6 month still wakes 2-3 times a night. Learn to survive on little sleep. My first child didn't sleep thru the night till 2 1/2 yrs...seriously.

That's not an unusual schedule for a 7 week old. My youngest nursed every 1 1/2 hours, including at night. 6-8 weeks is also a prime age for fussiness. It should get better; you can't really do much about their schedule until approx. 4 months. In the meantime, I suggest napping when she naps if you can and check out the book "Sleepless in America" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. She'll have some pointers for turning your baby into a good sleeper once you get past these first few months. Good luck, I know it's exhausting--I had two colicky babies who didn't sleep.

This is completely normal. At this age your baby will eat and sleep according to what their bodies tell them. Be patient and things will turn around.

my boys did the same thing at that age too. except they woke up opposite each other so for 2 months i would get up with one baby and feed and put back to bed then just get into bed and about asleep and the other one would get up! after that i started waking them up together! you should be nearing the end of this stage though and before you know it your baby will be sleeping 4-5 hours or maybe more.

i've always heard that once babies hit the 10 pound mark that they start sleeping a little longer at a time.

good luck!

Unfortunately, no. Your baby is only 7 weeks old, and this sort of waking is completely normal. There isn't really a way to get her to sleep more yet, as she is not developmentally ready. I know it's hard, but hang in there, it will get better.

In the meantime, you could read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," by Marc Weissbluth, for things you can do once she is four months old, to help her sleep better.