| Q: | My 7-week daughter really struggles to sleep for long periods during the day. She has to be rocked to sleep, and if you then put her down she wakes up after 5 minutes, crying and the process starts all over again. Even if she has a "good" sleep, either in the arms, in the pram or in her cot, it rarely lasts longer then 40 minutes, usually is more along the 20 - 30 minute mark. She then starts getting niggly in the late afternoon and from about 6 until 9pm we struggle to pacify her and get her to sleep. She is happy in the bath water but ends up screaming by the time I dress her afterwards and cries on and off until about 9pm. she is demand breastfed and even with that it is rare that she goes 3 hours between feeds. She feeds more 2 - 2 1/2 hourly. Once she is down at night, however, she will sleep 5, 6 or 7 hours until her next feed and then go straight to sleep for another 4 or 5 hours until the early morning feed at 5 or 6 am. She sleeps in the bed with us. |
| A: | It is important that you limit the amount of time your baby spends awake between sleeps during the day. Sensory overload, Overstimulation and overtiredness are the main reasons why babies find it difficult to shut down and go to sleep. After an hour of awake time, swaddle her firmly, encourage some non-nutritive sucking such as a dummy, and place her in her bed. It is OK to gently rock her until she is calm and settled, but not asleep. If she is unsettled in her bed, stroke her back firmly, and encourage her to suck on a dummy or her fingers. Check Baby Sense out to learn about how to recognize her signals, which will indicate to you that she is ready for a sleep. If you wait until she is niggling before you try to get her to sleep, it is too late. This may be a good time to start getting your little one into a routine, and to stretch the period of time between feeds to 4 hourly. Do this by offering her some cooled boiled water to sip on until it is time to feed. You can start by stretching her to 3 hours, and then move it slowly to 4 hours. Remember, there will be times, where she will need to sleep, but not necessarily to feed, so don’t think that she always needs to have a feed in order to sleep. Short sleeps of 40 minutes are quite OK, so don’t worry. |
