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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.