My 9 week old still sleeps most of the day. He stays awake for anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours then wants to nurse and sleep. If he does fall asleep when I go to lay him down he will wake up within 20 minutes. Anyone else have a baby not on a nap/feeding schedule? He sleeps about a 3-5 hour stretch at night most nights. Oh and he always nurses to sleep, refuses a bottle and will only sometimes take a pacifier if he is already 90% asleep... Any help or advice?
Re: Baby sleep/ nursing/ bottle HELP
i dont have any much advice for you, other than reassurance that not all babies are great nappers. Some need a couple long naps and others need a lot of short ones. The one thing I've seen is doing an abbreviated version of your bedtime routine to let them know it's nap time
As for bottles, just keep trying and don't force it. Make sure someone other than you is trying to give it and baby is calm when it's offered. They don't have to take a full feed the first few times, just a little snack to get used to it. My routine in the morning is nurse, pump, then top her off nursing before her nap. To get her used to the bottle, H has been giving about an ounce to her on the weekend after I pump in the morning instead of me nursing her again. The magic bottle combo for us has been a Lansinoh Momma nipple on a Dr. Brown's wide neck bottle.
In the end, most babies will "get it" when they need to. DD1 was a struggle to trial with the bottle and only took 1 full feed before I went back to work (same schedule as you, except full time), and she did just fine once I actually went back.
ETA: from about 4pm to bedtime, she nurses about every hour, naps 15 minute increments, if at all, and fusses a bunch.
ETA: I am just starting the BabyWise sleep training which really emphasizes the eat-wake-sleep pattern for the daytime so LO doesn't need to nurse to sleep. Not sure how you feel about that. My DD has always kind of naturally been awake during the day (getting her to nap every cycle is the hard part) so I can't speak to how difficult it is to get a baby who nurses to sleep to learn how to self-soothe