DD cries when put down-advice?

kleigh926

Everything I read says you can't spoil a newborn- when they are crying, pick them up. They need to know they can trust you as their caregiver. But what am I supposed to do when DD cries almost every time she is put down? Someone can't be holding her 24/7. I could deal with it during the day, but nights have been terrible. I dread getting up for feedings because I'm pretty much always up for an hour and a half plus trying to get her to go back to sleep. A couple times, I have tried just letting her cry for a few minutes, but I always feel mean just letting her lay there and scream so I usually pick her back up. It's like a vicious cycle. Any advice on what I should do? Let her CIO, or keep picking her back up/trying to rock her to sleep since she's so young?

Kyleedawn08

we made sure to soothe our ds from his pnp from the beginning at night and not pick him up unless he needed something. i also fed him, at the time i was ebf, and hovered over it so he would eat himself to sleep. he was comfortable on his own at night in a couple days. don't let baby cio yet, way too young & won't help anything because they can't self soothe at that age. 

irishprincess135

I had the same problem when DD was first home, and still kind of now. And your right you can't spoil her right now but it's hard to let them cry (I'm still not able to let her cry very long and she's almost 3 months). What I found helpful is putting a towel or blanket in the dryer and get it warm then lay her on it, she'll feel like she is still snuggled up with you. Hope that is helpful and it will get better! Promise!

AppleJacks81

Ugh! You sound the same as me! I basically slept with her on my chest the first two weeks because she hated being put down, and I was recovering from my csection and it was just easier that way. I need to follow my own advice more, but just keep trying to get her used to the crib. I started with naps last week. I also put my nightshirt under her so she could smell me...who knows if it helped. So far I can get her to take a 1.5 hour nap in the crib, and one or two stretches during the night. Then I get so tired from the 1.5 hour feeding and rocking sessions we end up cosleeping half the night too. If it makes you feel any better we did the same thing with DS the first time around and eventually he slept great in the crib. I remember it took about six weeks, but it will happen!

FairyDuster003

She is WAY too young to let her cry it out. Remember, her entire existence she's been snuggled up against you all warm and cozy. She still needs this feeling. Touch to an infant is just as important as eating. Its difficult to adjust but you need to get used to holding her all the time for the next few weeks. She'll gain independence a lot sooner if she feels safe and secure in her surroundings. Leaving her to cry only stresses her out. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOILING A NEWBORN. No matter how much you hold her or don't hold her, she will cry to be held all the same

 That being said, when you want to get her to sleep at night, try a swaddle (i love my swaddle-me blanket), very dark room, and very loud white noise. Make sure she's been fed, burped, and changed then rock/bounce her to sleep. Heat a water bottle up and place it in her crib/RnP/bassinet and remove it before you put her down to warm it up.

Get a moby or a stretchy wrap, wear her around the house and get used to it, mama!

ArmyWife114

FairyDuster003:

She is WAY too young to let her cry it out. Remember, her entire existence she's been snuggled up against you all warm and cozy. She still needs this feeling. Touch to an infant is just as important as eating. Its difficult to adjust but you need to get used to holding her all the time for the next few weeks. She'll gain independence a lot sooner if she feels safe and secure in her surroundings. Leaving her to cry only stresses her out. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOILING A NEWBORN. No matter how much you hold her or don't hold her, she will cry to be held all the same

 That being said, when you want to get her to sleep at night, try a swaddle (i love my swaddle-me blanket), very dark room, and very loud white noise. Make sure she's been fed, burped, and changed then rock/bounce her to sleep. Heat a water bottle up and place it in her crib/RnP/bassinet and remove it before you put her down to warm it up.

Get a moby or a stretchy wrap, wear her around the house and get used to it. mama!

All of this, except we taught DS to put himself to sleep (we DID NOT do CIO), we just put him in his crib awake, and after a week or two, he learned to fall asleep on his own.  If newborns' needs are satisfied, they'll get bored in a dark room and fall asleep.   

candr09

ArmyWife114:

FairyDuster003:

She is WAY too young to let her cry it out. Remember, her entire existence she's been snuggled up against you all warm and cozy. She still needs this feeling. Touch to an infant is just as important as eating. Its difficult to adjust but you need to get used to holding her all the time for the next few weeks. She'll gain independence a lot sooner if she feels safe and secure in her surroundings. Leaving her to cry only stresses her out. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOILING A NEWBORN. No matter how much you hold her or don't hold her, she will cry to be held all the same

 That being said, when you want to get her to sleep at night, try a swaddle (i love my swaddle-me blanket), very dark room, and very loud white noise. Make sure she's been fed, burped, and changed then rock/bounce her to sleep. Heat a water bottle up and place it in her crib/RnP/bassinet and remove it before you put her down to warm it up.

Get a moby or a stretchy wrap, wear her around the house and get used to it. mama!

All of this, except we taught DS to put himself to sleep (we DID NOT do CIO), we just put him in his crib awake, and after a week or two, he learned to fall asleep on his own.  If newborns' needs are satisfied, they'll get bored in a dark room and fall asleep.   

All of this. We put DS down awake and let him fall asleep on his own. If he falls asleep on us and then we try to put him down he wakes up. I swaddle him in his crib and don't pick him up once he is swaddled. He falls asleep pretty well on his own. Sometimes we have to go in to put his paci back in once or twice, but that's it.
GL

Rosebean

You could also try putting her down once you have swaddled her and then waiting for a deep sleep. DS hate not being held too, but we have a pretty regimented night time routine that he can rely on that allows me to put him down once he is out. I let him sleep once a day on my chest for some cuddle time, but otherwise he goes down in his crib at night . 

kleigh926

I would like DD to learn to fall asleep on her own; I do put her in the bassinet awake. She's fine for about 2 minutes, and then she starts to cry. Sometimes what we do is just pick her up long enough for her to calm down, then put her back down again. I guess I just don't want to be the mom who has a 1 year old who still won't STTN or fall asleep on her own because she's used to being held all the time. I do have a Baby K'tan wrap but only used it for the first time yesterday. I had been hesitant to use it because DD still is not up to the 8 pound weight minimum, but what I've heard is that it should still be okay to use it with caution.

FairyDuster003

LalaMama81:

kleigh926:

I would like DD to learn to fall asleep on her own; I do put her in the bassinet awake. She's fine for about 2 minutes, and then she starts to cry. Sometimes what we do is just pick her up long enough for her to calm down, then put her back down again. I guess I just don't want to be the mom who has a 1 year old who still won't STTN or fall asleep on her own because she's used to being held all the time. I do have a Baby K'tan wrap but only used it for the first time yesterday. I had been hesitant to use it because DD still is not up to the 8 pound weight minimum, but what I've heard is that it should still be okay to use it with caution.

She's 2 weeks old. You do not need to worry that she might not STTN in a year b/c of what you are doing now. Relax, try to enjoy your tiny baby who wants you and only you all the time.  Some babies don't STTN until past a year regardless of what you do. It's a developmental milestone, not something you force. A 2 week old doesn't need to put herself to sleep. Really, I promise. Don't lay her down until she's nursed really well and is totally passed out. 

I didn't have a k'tan so I'm not sure exactly, but I had a moby and I probably would have used it if DD had been a few oz short - she was born at closer to 9lbs so I didn't have to worry.  

Exactly! It doesn't matter what you do, she'll either STTN or not. Honestly, STTN is not something you should be worried about. She will wake up for various reasons for years to come. You can't control this. Like pp said, enjoy your newborn. She needs your touch and warmth to feel safe.

And I HIGHLY suggest you get a moby wrap, especially since she won't stay asleep when you lay her down. She can sleep snuggled up against you and be well rested and happy. This does not have any impact on her future sleeping habits. The more safe and secure she feels in the world, the better.

sbevmc09

FairyDuster003:

She is WAY too young to let her cry it out. Remember, her entire existence she's been snuggled up against you all warm and cozy. She still needs this feeling. Touch to an infant is just as important as eating. Its difficult to adjust but you need to get used to holding her all the time for the next few weeks. She'll gain independence a lot sooner if she feels safe and secure in her surroundings. Leaving her to cry only stresses her out. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SPOILING A NEWBORN. No matter how much you hold her or don't hold her, she will cry to be held all the same

 That being said, when you want to get her to sleep at night, try a swaddle (i love my swaddle-me blanket), very dark room, and very loud white noise. Make sure she's been fed, burped, and changed then rock/bounce her to sleep. Heat a water bottle up and place it in her crib/RnP/bassinet and remove it before you put her down to warm it up.

Get a moby or a stretchy wrap, wear her around the house and get used to it, mama!

I totally agree with this.  It's just a phase (and a normal one at that) just do what you need to do to get through it.  I would definitely encourage you to babywear so that you don't feel like you have to be trapped sitting down and holding her all day. 

PP also has great ideas to make her feel cozy without you needing to hold her.  DS was similar to what you are describing and white noise was key for him.  Also, we put him to sleep in his swing for the first few months (movement was important to him as well).  So, he'd fall asleep in our arms, then we'd put him down in his swing with white noise going and that would be what kept him asleep.  He outgrew it and eventually had no problem being put down in a crib (even while awake, but drowsy).  It's something they have to grow into IME.  For some babies it happens right away, others need more time.  

Helen_C

As someone who recently went through the same problem (baby boy is 11 weeks today), have to reiterate others' advice to just hang in there and not let your newborn cry it out.  At two weeks they are just too young to adequately self soothe.  The first few weeks were brutal from total sleep deprivation as I'm sure you're feeling but it will get better.  Every time I would get frustrated or feel like I had a baby with issues I would remind myself that baby is completely new to the world & every experience, smell, sound is all new.  They are totally helpless without you right now.  

When it got really hard, I found that a tight swaddle, swing and womb sound machine helped.  Or when it was really bad we would put the little one on our chest and let him fall asleep with the warmth of skin to skin contact (think being next to the heartbeat also helped).  Good luck & hang in there.  I heard that many times & still hear it when I tell people about the problems I have with an 11 week old.   

m i l l y

E loves to be held and will cry when we go to put him down. What we have been trying and is helping is that instead of putting him on his back, we sit him down and after a little bit lay him down. 

MrsBigTime

Hang in there mama - it does get easier! She's still so little and really just needs you to be close to her as much as possible.  

I had a friend tell me once that her kid did not like to cuddle. Only if he was sick would he let her hold and snuggle him. That made me so sad for her and I so did not want a non-cuddly baby! So, from that day on I started to pray for a cuddly baby. Do you know what I got? A sweet baby girl who wants to cuddle her mama ALL.THE.TIME! 

It was definitely worse in the beginning, but even now she prefers being held by me over anything else and her ability to be somewhere other than my arms seems to be maxed out at 20 minutes. We did find that LO would lay nicely in her Boppy Newborn Lounger thing for a little while, so out of desperation, we put that into our bed and let her sleep on it (it clearly says "not for sleeping" but we did so anyways). That worked and I was able to get a few hours of sleep at a time. 

We eventually weaned her off the Boppy Lounger into her co-sleeper with the nursing Boppy tucked around her body (bent so that one arm was against her back, her feet were in the "U" and the other arm was near her belly). She'll now sleep without either, if she's really tired. That being said, I still bring her to bed with me after her first waking most nights (not because she's crying necessarily, but she'll wiggle so much she'll wake herself up and I just want to sleep not convince her to go back to sleep).

Do you have her in your room so you don't have to trek to the nursery so many times a night?

Do you swaddle? If not, I'd highly suggest starting. I double swaddle with an A&A blanket and then a SwaddleMe.

What about a pacifier? I didn't introduce one until LO and I had breastfeeding down, but good gracious DD loves that thing! She will often only fall asleep when sat down if she has it.  

To top everything off, you're still freshly post partum and going through a bunch of hormonal changes and sleep deprivation makes everything worse! Are you napping during the day? I didn't feel like I could/should/needed to nap, but I remember one particularly hard day when DH practically forced me upstairs and I slept for three hours while he held DD. It was glorious and I was so much more able to handle life. 

So again, hang in there! Things get easier. Take care of yourself and snuggle that girl, whose just trying to tell you that she loves her most perfect mama the most! 

 

spinsoffresonance

DD cried hysterically every time I put her down too. Even if I waited for her to be deep in sleep she would wake up screaming within seconds of being put in her cosleeper. So we did hold her 24/7 for about the first 2 weeks. DH and I took turns at night. I slept from 8pm to 1am while he held the baby (still waking up to nurse every 2 hours), then he slept from 1am to 6am while I held her.  Then around 2 weeks, we figured out that we could put her down in the bed snuggled up right against me and she would sleep like that for hours. So I started bed sharing with DD and DH went to sleep in the guestroom. At first she had to be touching me constantly but every night I would try to get her to sleep a little bit farther away from me. At 10 weeks I was able to move her into her cosleeper.

When I was pregnant I never thought I would ever bed share with DD, I was kind of against it. Once baby is here, however, you have to do what you have to do just to survive!

sthomas1222

My NP said to use a hot water bottle or a heating pad to warm the bassinet while feeding her. Then take it out and put her in the nice warm bed. I personally am too lazy to do all that so I went ahead and started bed-sharing after doing my research and finding guidelines to do it safely. But it's not for everyone. But I definitely understand, DD is the same though she's getting better about being put down. Definitely swaddle and get a good carrier for during the day!