My baby won't sleep on her back...

[Bonita]

In fact, my sweet cuddly little baby isn't very interested in sleeping anywhere except on me...I love snuggling with my baby, but I also worry because I want to be able to put her down at night when I should be sleeping in my own bed instead of the recliner.

We put her down on her back in her bassinet, and she starts crying and fussing within 30 seconds it seems.  I've tried leaving her there and just putting my hand on her to see if that might calm her down, but it doesn't.  I've tried swaddling her, but she hates having her arms swaddled and works and works to get them out...I tried swaddling with her arms out, but she doesn't seem to care much for that either.  I tried putting her in the swing because it's more upright, but it's the same story there.

She seems to sleep well in her car seat whenever we've put her in there, but I haven't tried putting her in there at night and don't know if I should let her sleep in there either?  

Ugh!  Would love any advice/ideas to try...I'm obviously new to this whole baby thing

[rightawaynow]

How old is she?

[Bonita]

Nov 28, 2014 23:18:49 GMT -5 rightawaynow said:

How old is she?

Oh sorry about that....She's only 8 days old

[Sloane]

At one week? Let her sleep on you - there's tons of sleep transitions to go through and none of them you need to worry about yet. Get a Rock N Play so she's in a similar position she is in the carseat and put her down when you can for the night, and if you can't, so be it. I slept in a recliner with both my kids on me until my c-section was healed enough to sit up and get them out of the Rock N' Play.

ETA: and they both still got held for naps and nighttime sleep on and off for ages, it's really normal. 

[dizzydee]

My guy was the same way, except he would sleep when he was breastfeeding. So I worked really hard at feeding him laying down and that worked good. But at 4 weeks I gave up and let him sleep on his stomach. He slept in a PNP next to the bed and in the beginning I checked on him constantly. It worked really well for us and we both got much more sleep.

[Bonita]

Okay, this is making me feel a bit better. When we went to the pediatrician this past week she said "make sure baby is sleeping on her back, no sleeping on you!" a few times and I was kind of worried I was doing something wrong...because sleeping on her back at this point is just not happening :-P

[dizzydee]

Oh at 1 week he was still sleeping on me and feeding constantly. I banked on the RNP and he hated it, he was a stomach sleeper from the get go. At this point, if she likes her carseat just stick her in there, so you can get a little sleep. Make sure you but a blanket under her, covering the straps, or strap her in.

[rightawaynow]

My son would only sleep on my chest the first two weeks. I got a rock and play sleeper and it changed my life. He would, asleep in that until he was 5 months old.

[CurlyQ284]

My DS slept on my chest for the first 3 months. I nodded and smiled at the pedi when they asked me if he was sleeping on his back. You don't know my lyfe. I'm in the trenches doc!

[Sloane]

Nov 28, 2014 23:27:41 GMT -5 Bonita said:

Okay, this is making me feel a bit better. When we went to the pediatrician this past week she said "make sure baby is sleeping on her back, no sleeping on you!" a few times and I was kind of worried I was doing something wrong...because sleeping on her back at this point is just not happening :-P

I'm telling you this because no one told me, I was so concerned with doing everything "right" that I had no idea others were going through the same thing. It's perfectly okay to do what you need to do for both of you to sleep and survive right now. I promise you with all eventually find your way into the best arrangements for your family and it will be okay. In the meantime, read up on safe ways to do this and understand that it's totally normal for a human that just came from a warm environment and is still all curled up to not want to sleep by themselves on their backs.

[Deleted]

Nov 28, 2014 23:23:48 GMT -5 @smace said:

Both babies slept on me for a good two months.

Trade months for years and this is my answer. Lol.

(Kidding. Well - sort of. My dd fell asleep in my arms tonight.)

[Bonita]

Nov 28, 2014 23:47:10 GMT -5 RexManningDay said:

I agree about the swaddling- when she was that tiny, H was adamant that she didn't like her hands constrained like that. Dude, she doesn't KNOW those are her hands. She just knows they fling out and wake her up or bonk her in the face from time to time. And it was true- she fought the swaddle. But she still sleeps much longer stretches of we keep her arms in.

I'm not much further ahead of you so I won't offer any sage advice, but I've been reassured so many times that for now, we just need to do whatever works. For us, the chest sleeping lasted literally about two weeks (now she is not very snugly) so I say try to enjoy it as long as you're able to sleep too.

I continue to try to swaddle her because it worked at the hospital once, but ever since then she seems to lay there and squirm and squirm then she'll start to cry until she can get her arms out :-P  

At this point I still enjoy the chest sleeping, so I'll let it continue...I was mostly afraid it was unsafe, and I was doing something wrong

[badgergrl]

I would try a rock n play. Both my kids slept in that great at night, swaddled with a sound machine.

[cbwm1]

Oh sweet Jesus at only 8 days old, you're doing nothing wrong.

We traded off sleeping with Will on us for 6 weeks. Then we watched the Happiest Baby on the Block video and used the 5 Ss, and our lives changed. He did sleep in our bed for 10 months after that (lol), but he now is quite the sleeper in his own bed.

For real though - Happiest Baby is SO worth every penny. It teaches you how to swaddle appropriately and how to get them to calm down so they don't fight the swaddle and sleep longer stretches.

[spwspw]

It's all about survival for the first couple months, let her sleep wherever she will so you can get some rest too.

[eav2c]

The rock n play.

It saved our sanity!

[anaps28]

Coming in to say my 7 week old gets SO angry when I swaddle him. I tried religiously in the beginning thinking it would help getting him to sleep on his back...Yeah no...and I still can't get him to sleep in his crib so he's in the Rock N Play.
Whatever works!

[flamingeaux]

Nov 28, 2014 23:36:07 GMT -5 Sloane said:

Nov 28, 2014 23:27:41 GMT -5 Bonita said:

Okay, this is making me feel a bit better. When we went to the pediatrician this past week she said "make sure baby is sleeping on her back, no sleeping on you!" a few times and I was kind of worried I was doing something wrong...because sleeping on her back at this point is just not happening :-P

I'm telling you this because no one told me, I was so concerned with doing everything "right" that I had no idea others were going through the same thing. It's perfectly okay to do what you need to do for both of you to sleep and survive right now. I promise you with all eventually find your way into the best arrangements for your family and it will be okay. In the meantime, read up on safe ways to do this and understand that it's totally normal for a human that just came from a warm environment and is still all curled up to not want to sleep by themselves on their backs.

I'm going to cling to this....

[liverandonions]

A nurse taught me to swaddle in with her arms up by her face but still in and she liked that. I can try to video it on a doll if you want me to.

[Bonita]

Nov 29, 2014 2:13:01 GMT -5 liverandonions said:

A nurse taught me to swaddle in with her arms up by her face but still in and she liked that. I can try to video it on a doll if you want me to.

Yes please! This is how the one nurse at the hospital did it too but I was never able to repeat it and we didn't see her after the one time she did it.

[Deleted]

Do you have a.RnP? Try that & don't stress about baby cuddles. It's totally fine to hold your baby all you want right now.

[thebreakfastclub]

I could never get a swaddle tight enough with regular blankets. We used Halo brand swaddle sacks with velcro and they work great. Target sells them in store. White noise and the pacifier also helped - I am still using them at almost 2.

[alzi]

Why is there no picture!!! Congratulations!

We did combo of on us and rock n play for a while.

[studytime45]

Did you do a birth story/picture post??

Congratulations Bonita!!!! I'm so happy and excited for you and your family.

[revolution]

She was just in your belly for a long time. Sleeping alone is a new world to her.

My DS was like this. And then we figured it he would sleep in his car seat. So he slept in his car seat for 5 months. And for a good part of that the car seat was beside my bed. We had to stop that when he started rolling over.

He had a cold at a few months old. The pedi mentioned having him sleep upright. I busted out laughing. And told her her slept in his car seat. She just smiled and patted my should and said that it was fine. The important thing at that age was we were all getting sleep. It didn't matter where or how.

[underwaterrhymes]

At 8 days old we still had lots of sleeping on us, but these were all awesome:

- Rock 'n' Play
- These swaddlers:

www.amazon.com/Summer-Infant-SwaddleMe-Adjustable-Sports/dp/B003JHYDIQ

- This book and related videos on YouTube

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0553381466/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1417266363&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40

- this CD (which elevated puddleofgrace to goddess level for me
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00000IKGP

- time

[underwaterrhymes]

puddleofgrace, I've included it in 4 different baby gifts for others. It's so, so great.

[Kristinmo]

Another tip- use a heating pad. It's a huge transition from your warm arms to a cold bed. I would put the heating pad on low in the bassinet when I started to nurse to sleep and then pull it out right before I laid them down.

It was the only good advice my MIL has ever given me.

[rupertpenny]

Another vote for the summer infant swaddlemes. Those were the only swaddle we used with success.

[karinothing]

Ds slept on me for like the first two months. It is very common and i promise you many mom's do it. Hang in there it gets better