Sleep Help - 1 month old

Ollie sleeps well through the night time. He wakes at about 1am and 5am for feeds, and then up about 8am.

However, during the day it's a nightmare. He just won't sleep! I get him drifted off, put him down and then ten minutes later he is awake again. This cycles on and on all day, which is very difficult as I have a toddler too.

I am swaddling him, shushing him, rocking him and bouncing him in his hammock, there's white noise and block out blinds in his room.... but nothing keeps him asleep. I have tried walking him around and letting him sleep in my arms, but said toddler is so noisy that doesn't work either. I have read and tried tips from the Sleep Store.

He's clearly tired, all red around the eyes, but fights sleep totally. He doesn't want to feed any more regularly, and gets very upset if I offer, so don't think it is a growth spurt.

It's very difficult to manage, and the worse he sleeps the worse he feeds.

What am I doing wrong? Is this a stage babies go through or do I have a tricky one?

Any ideas/experiences/help would be hugely appreciated!

will he sleep in a wrap/sling? Tom spent most of his first 6 weeks asleep in the moby wrap- Ella's noise didn't seem to bother them at all as long as he was nice and close to me.

Does he appear to have an upset stomach or anything like that which is stopping him sleeping?

Do they have those Plunket Family Centres in Welly? Lots of girls rave about them for help with this sort of thing.

My second was a total screamer and i had a 21 mo at the same time so honey i can totally empathise with your situation. Time helped us tbh, little else. Some days some things would work other days other things. I tried to get at least one good sleep a day just to keep us on an even keel. Actually side sleeping in a sleep wedge helped at about this time i think. That and white noise and bum patting. J would also sleep in frontpack so i went for lots of long walks.

Can you try putting him to sleep somewhere else? Bassinette? Cot? Pushchair? Ben was in the hammock and then his sleeps started getting shorter and shorter, down to about 10mins. Can't remember how old he was, couple month max. Anyway one day I decided to try putting him in the cot for his naps and his sleeps suddenly got longer. Maybe for some reason he has gone off the hammock??

Also you could try a carrier such as a Manduca or Ergo instead of the hammock

Good luck

Oh and most importantly, you are doing nothing wrong!! Babies just like to drive us mad!

My wee girl was exactly the same

How long are you keeping him up? the family centre told me 45 to 50 mins and be consistent, do the same thing everytime

Does he swallow alot? I didnt notice til they told me, but she had heartburn, losec fixed it
but also wind drops helped before that

are you using a dummy? My babe is really sucky and would only fall asleep with a boob in her mouth, but a dummy fixed that, but it took a while for her to take it

just a few ideas that worked for me, It hard with a noisy toddler around

Best of luck x

I am getting him resettled within the hour.

I can't understand it. He settles fine during the night but JUST WON'T SLEEP during the day.

It's utterly doing my head in. I feel like crying!

With DS1 I had a similar issue - hard to get to sleep and would only sleep for max 30 mins during the day. And he was snuffly.
I cut dairy out of my diet and that helped so much, he stopped being snuffly, and his tummy seemed better and was much more contented. It took about a week before I noticed a big improvement. Maybe something to try?

maybe you could try putting him down still awake?   wrap him up and put him down and walk away.

Yeah, my first response would be wind - it's a pretty classic reason for waking after 10 minutes. Doesn't mean I have a brilliant solution for fixing it though sorry

What kind of sling have you got? I'm finding Ben sleeps really well in the Moby and it keeps me handsfree for doing other things.

Big hugs - Dan was a hopeless sleeper and Ben's not the flashest in the afternoon. I feel your pain.