Asleep NOT asleep

My baby is three weeks old now and well i was just wondering if anyone had any advice on how to settle her and keep her asleep

Basically she falls asleep either after a feed or in my arms or rocking her in her hammock and then about 5-10mins later she's wide awake again, this seems to go on for hours, during the day and night?

disco

funlvn has beat me to it - try a sling, maybe a wrap or pouch since she is probably still quite little? My DD spend six weeks practically living in hers, as it allowed her to rest and me to get things done.

In fact she is in it as we speak as she is a bit out of sorts today, I just wish it wasn't so humid!

Have a look at www.slingbabies.co.nz if you want some more information on slings and babywearing.

It didn't have a direct effect on my DD2's night sleeping, she was still happy to go in her own bed from about 8pm onwards.

Aw hugs, that's tiring Disco! Bethany was the same, just loved people in general - esp mummy. Getting a sling when she was a month or so old was the best thing ever - my quick napper started sleeping for up to 2hrs at a time on me. And I had hands free to do things too :)

The other thing that helped was borrowing my sis in law's pram, I'd transfer her into it once she was asleep enough, then if she stirred at all I'd rock it back and forth (esp over the bump betw our lino and carpet) and that also helped. I quickly mastered the technique of rocking the pram with my foot while chopping veges for dinner etc... you do whatever you can I guess!!

At night if she was having a really bad night, or just feeding constantly, I'd put her in bed with us. Often feed lying down and we'd both fall asleep, I was just so exhausted it was all I could do. It was scary initially and though I didn't get much sleep myself making sure she was safe, at least I was resting and lying down - and Bethany definitely slept better for it. It's not something I made a habit of, but on those nights where nothing else worked, it sure made a diff to my sanity!!

Big hugs, hope you find some tips that help x

When she wakes up, does she cry? or does she just wake up and lie there? If she is happy to lie there then I would just leave her, as she might settle herself back to sleep, but if she wakes up quite upset, then Id go with wearing her in the sling
Thats what I did with my kiddies at that age.

thanks everyone for the advice. Will be learning the art of sling wearing this week. Unfortunately I got mastitis yesterday so have been working on getting that sorted out. Went to plunket family center today to check the breastfeeding was going properly, all good there and she gave us some great tips and we got to watch the "happiest baby on the block", we tried some of the techniques out since we got home and well probably too soon to tell, but she was off to sleep in less than five mins twice today and woke up once or twice but i rocked her back to sleep in mins.

I've done some reading on the baby wearing and I think i will try that anyway when I want to get stuff done around the house and they seem to learn watching.

So will see how the week goes but fingers crossed tonight wasn't a one off.

disco:)

I remember those days. Seems so long ago (DS is 4mths now)
I ended up swaddling DS, rocking him to sleep and continuing to hold him for ages. He'd go to wake up after 5/10min and I'd start the rocking and sssshhing and get him back to sleep, then keep holding.
Sometimes I felt like a big softie, and shouldn't I toughen-up and get him to self-settle (for whatever that means) then I thought - he's only this age once, and as long as I can set it up so the remote/good book is in arms reach it's not so bad.

Disco wrote: anyway i was wondering if sleeping times and lenghts jumping around is the norm?

Yup! Babies are clever like that

right am starting to get this now :)

comes with no manual, means no manual :)

disco

so I've heard :)

just put the white noise cd on for the first time and she was out in seconds! be interesting to see if it's a one off!

disco