Hi everybody, Melissa from CloudMom.com answering a question today from a viewer Stephanie,
she's written in.
She has a two month old baby, having trouble getting the baby to sleep.
So I'm gonna answer her question.
Here's what Stephanie says, "Melissa help, laugh out loud, I'm having an extremely difficult
time with my two month old getting him on any type of routine or schedule."
She's pretty consistently been nursing every three hours during the day.
She explains its his last feeding that's taking place at around 10:30, 11 at night.
He's then waking up at four in the morning and after that he's waking up at around 6:30
or seven in the morning when Stephanie is trying to sooth him, get him to go back to
sleep with a pacifier which isn't working because the pacie keeps falling out so they're
both awake.
And Stephanie then describes that during the day the baby really doesn't wanna go down
in the crib.
She tries putting him down, he'll sometimes go down for 15 to 20 minutes.
He likes to be held, he likes to be in the sling -- smart baby -- and its hard for her
because she has also a three year old child.
So anyway, then she talks a little bit about crying it out.
She tried to let the baby cry it out and that's not working for her.
Which I actually agree with because a two month old baby is young for that.
So anyway, Stephanie here's what my gut tells me listening to your situation and I hope
that its helpful for you.
First of all, this is a very young baby.
Two months is very young, and babies just getting used to being out in the world, and
all the differences and it sounds like a lot of things are really going well.
It sounds like your on a really good consistent feeding schedule during the day which is terrific.
It sounds also like between the last feeding and the four AM feeding your getting a pretty
nice long stint.
The baby's going five, five and a half hours between feedings which is really great.
This is key sleep time for you Stephanie.
You have to make sure that when your doing that last feeding your ready for bed and once
that baby's done, boom your in bed and your getting rest so that you get a nice long stint
before the four AM feeding.
After the four AM feeding you describe that the baby is back up and again already at 6:30,
seven in the morning which sounds exhausting -- I agree, I've been there -- and your wondering
what's happening with that.
My question is what's going on at the four AM feeding?
This is a really hard thing to do as a new mom because your so exhausted but what paid
off for me the most was to just sit there, even if it was the middle of the night.
Maybe get...
Have a nice cup of warm milk before or whatever, try to get myself a little bit energetic and
just sit there and feed the baby and make sure the baby was full and burped and awake.
Because when I didn't do that they were back up and awake within two hours.
So take a careful look at the four AM feeding and see what's going on.
6:30, seven in the morning, you say you're trying to give him a pacie, keeps falling
out, you have to keep putting it back in.
It's not working for either of you, so I would say forget that.
If your baby won't settle down it's gonna be so tiring but just get up and feed him
again.
At that point, try to swaddle him.
Once he's awake and full and burped try to give him a tight arms-in swaddle and put him
back in the crib.
I hope this is helpful.
During the day...
Okay, sometimes I found with my babies that I would miss the window on their naps.
If there was a point in time where they became drowsy and they were ready to go to sleep
and if I caught it right then and I gave them a tight swaddle and put them in the crib,
they really would go down for a nice nap.
So try putting your baby down a little earlier even and what I relied upon a lot was the
bouncy seat.
I would feed my baby, burp him, spin, it would take like a whole hour, hour and half sometimes.
But then I would put him in the bouncy seat for a bit and once he was looking drowsy,
I would do the tight swaddle and put him down in the crib.
That is what worked the best for me.
I would turn the lights off.
I would try to have him by himself in a room.
No distractions to get that good nap in.
So I don't know what your napping situation is like, but try to aim for some of those
things and hang in there.
You have a very young baby.
Sounds like he's doing beautifully eating so frequently and I wanna hear how it's going.
Please follow-up with us on Cloud Mom.
You can tweet me on Twitter.
You can put a comment on my site, let me know how it's going.
I really, really appreciate your coming to me with your questions about your beautiful
baby and I hope that I can be helpful and thank you so much for watching my videos and
I look forward to seeing you guys back here again on CloudMom.com.