The baby sleep problem
We have a 4 1/2 week old baby girl who is having sleep issues.
Daytime: she is having self-settling problems - will sleep for 30 - 35 mins at a time and won't settle herself when she wakes. She also needs a lot of attention to get her to sleep initially - holding, rocking, ssshhhhing, patting on the back, etc - doing this repeatedly for anything up to an hour before she will go to sleep for the short time that she does. (Her sleep is often quite light and there is a lot of grunting and stirring.) By the time all this has happened it is 2 hours since her last feed and she won't resettle easily and I often end up feeding her again and starting the feed, play, sleep routine all over again. She is well wrapped.
She used to sleep well in the day then we went away for a few days and things were unsettled so she was napping and snacking during this time away and has carried on with it at home for a week now.
Consequently I feel as if I am spending my whole day trying to get her to sleep or worrying that she is going to wake up any minute (which invariably she does). Quite stressful.
Evening: she will often spend a good 3 hours or more crying inconsolably in the evenings. We are trying to have a regular routine to the evening - bath around 6pm then feed and settle in her bedroom - but she won't settle at all. She is obviously very tired but will cry constantly. Last night she didn't sleep from 4.30pm until 11.30pm. She spent the majority of that time crying - not just grizzling, but really crying. There was nothing wrong as far as we could work out. I fed her repeatedly (knowing that she could be going through a growth spurt about this stage). I wonder is she is having a bit of reflux as she often shows symptoms of this, however this is not all the time.
Nightime: I will give her the last feed around 10.30 - 11.00pm (which I wake her up for if she has gone to sleep but she sometimes has only been asleep for a short time and I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not.) Then she normally settles really well to sleep (although last night she needed a bit of settling) and will sleep through until about 3 am, then settles again nicely until about 6 or 7am. The fact that she can sleep well at night and not need any settling or feeding from me like she does in the daytime makes me wonder why she can't manage to do this in the day.
Another question: I realise that swaddling is important and I am doing this. However it is fairly hot these days and she is a reasonably hot baby - she doesn't need as many layers as others - and she often seems to overheat when swaddled. I am using a muslin wrap when it is hot, but this even seems too much sometimes (and also doesn't wrap as firmly as some of the other cotton wraps I use). Any advice?