Sleepless Nights Support Thread

[Reedy]

For those of you ladies who are married, does your OH get up at night to help with the baby any? I'm just wondering if it's typical to be the only one taking care of the baby (for me both night and during the day time) even if the FOB is there?

I am incredibly Lucky, my DH is brilliant x He works shifts & has 2-3 days off a week so when he's at work I get up with Finley through the night even when I'm at work because DH works 12 hours while I only work 5 & then when DH is off he gets up with Finley in the night & in the morning. When he's on his days off he also has Finley while I'm at work. He does his fair share of nappy changes, milk feeds, solids, baths & bedtimes. I am one lucky girl

 

[Second Chance]

Raydynn us doing wonerfully he usually only wake up 1 time and eats 4 oz and right back to sleep he goes... I also found 4 oz two hours before and 6 oz at bedtime and he's good for the night!

 

[Seity]

For those of you ladies who are married, does your OH get up at night to help with the baby any? I'm just wondering if it's typical to be the only one taking care of the baby (for me both night and during the day time) even if the FOB is there?

My OH doesn't get up at night, but there's nothing for him to do. I breastfeed Gabriel and he always goes back to sleep when he's done eating. But I don't have him during the day because I work full time. My OH has him during the day. There's only been 3 times that he's not gone right back to sleep after eating and after 1-2 hours my OH took him into the other room, so I could get a little more sleep before work.

 

[Sarah10]

What a great idea to start this thread!
Jayden is one month today, and doesn't sleep.. hardly ever, he sleeps for half a hour, then is awake.. then sleeps for another half hour.. you get me

He feeds every 2 hours, by the time i have got him to sleep.. i've just managed to drop off then he's awake!

A girl has just had her baby a few days ago, her baby sleeps through, only waking once for a feed, then back to sleep.

I can't see how he will ever get into a proper sleeping pattern, i try to keep him awake between around 7-10pm so he will be tired by then and might sleep abit, but sometimes if he's asleep its impossible to wake him up, even changing his nappy won't properly wake him

I know it's still only early days, but he has about 12 bottles of 4oz in 24hours, the tin says 6 feeds in 24hours of 4oz for his age
There isn't any pattern in his sleeping habits either.

Have you tried offering more than 4oz each feed. Kacey was on more than that at that age? Kacey was like that when she was born. Feeding 2 hourly, taking an hour to settle. Then within a week at 6 weeks old she changed and started to sleep longer. Have you started a roughish bedtime routine. Kacey responded well to this even at an early age. All we did was bath bottle bed. But it did help.

We put Jayden on 5oz yesterday, and he's still feeding every 2 hours, but saying that he draines them each time, i'm wondering if we should move him onto 6? x

 

[littleblonde]

What a great idea to start this thread!
Jayden is one month today, and doesn't sleep.. hardly ever, he sleeps for half a hour, then is awake.. then sleeps for another half hour.. you get me

He feeds every 2 hours, by the time i have got him to sleep.. i've just managed to drop off then he's awake!

A girl has just had her baby a few days ago, her baby sleeps through, only waking once for a feed, then back to sleep.

I can't see how he will ever get into a proper sleeping pattern, i try to keep him awake between around 7-10pm so he will be tired by then and might sleep abit, but sometimes if he's asleep its impossible to wake him up, even changing his nappy won't properly wake him

I know it's still only early days, but he has about 12 bottles of 4oz in 24hours, the tin says 6 feeds in 24hours of 4oz for his age
There isn't any pattern in his sleeping habits either.

Have you tried offering more than 4oz each feed. Kacey was on more than that at that age? Kacey was like that when she was born. Feeding 2 hourly, taking an hour to settle. Then within a week at 6 weeks old she changed and started to sleep longer. Have you started a roughish bedtime routine. Kacey responded well to this even at an early age. All we did was bath bottle bed. But it did help.

We put Jayden on 5oz yesterday, and he's still feeding every 2 hours, but saying that he draines them each time, i'm wondering if we should move him onto 6? x

yes try 6. He will either leave some if its to much or he will be sick. So you no then. Kacey only overfed once. Give it a few days to get the hang of it. He could still be feeding 2hourly out of habit. Does he no the difference when night time is yet?

 

[fi123]

Anyones lo grunt and thrash about during the night? If so is there anything I can do to make it better.

My lo will sleep well until about an hour before he wakes for his middle of the night feed, then he will thrash about and grunt until he wakes up. Once he is fed he will go back down for about an hour and then this will start again, usually around 5am

I tried putting him in his own room but could still hear him. I am wondering if he is worse as he is hitting his arms off the moses baskets sides. Do you think putting him in his cot would help?

Also please tell me they grow out of this as it is seriously reducing the amount of sleep we a getting. He is two months old.

thanks

 

[littleblonde]

would he let you swaddle him that may help with thrashing. I think kacey went through this stage to. Didnt last us long. Hopefully someone else will help more

 

[daisydoo]

Anyones lo grunt and thrash about during the night? If so is there anything I can do to make it better.

My lo will sleep well until about an hour before he wakes for his middle of the night feed, then he will thrash about and grunt until he wakes up. Once he is fed he will go back down for about an hour and then this will start again, usually around 5am

I tried putting him in his own room but could still hear him. I am wondering if he is worse as he is hitting his arms off the moses baskets sides. Do you think putting him in his cot would help?

Also please tell me they grow out of this as it is seriously reducing the amount of sleep we a getting. He is two months old.

thanks

Hi Hun

Id definately put him in his cot - Oliver was the same (and still is!) and i think he was about 8 weeks when we put him in a cot in our room - if you're worried about him being out of your room too early and dont have space for a cot a little tip is Ikeas cheapy one (think its £30?) is great nice and compact and an ideal transition between moses and big cot

hope you get better sleep with this hun

Id also recommend either swaddlng (although Oliver would never tollerate that) or a sleeping bag

Good luck hun let us know how you get on xxxx

 

[daisydoo]

How are we all doing?

Well thanks god its the weekend when I can get some help from DH we have had the week from hell with his sleeping.

Im hoping its a 9 month growth spurt but he has been worse than ever and ive been averaging 3 hours sleep a night He's been screaming which isnt like him he normally just moans and whinges and night before last he drank 16oz just between midnight and 5am so this is whats making me think its a growth spurt??

interstingly, each time ive managed to settle him its been with the help of a teddy/blanky thing. before now we've had to keep anything that could stimulate him at all out of his cot as it would just keep him awake shouting at it but for the first time ever he seems to have been soothed by it - obviously im going to use this to my full advantage!

Also- last night we got bit longer out of him before our first wake up call - id given him a bowl of porridge at 6 so going to try that again tonight and think ill make it up on a carton of sma hungry.

Hows everyone else getting on?

xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

[Reedy]

Sorry to hear your having a bit of a bad time of it lately Lisa x Finley is the same with the screaming
Although the past 3 nights he's been really good, only waking a few times & either settling himself or me going in popping his dummy in & he goes straight back to sleep x
he's been a lot happier in the day too x
Got our next Cranial Osteopathy Appt on monday too so hoping that helps x

 

[Kelz22]

Im sooooo shattered at its only 10.26am!!!I really cant focus.I dont know how you ladys do it lol.xxx

 

[hpjagged]

Don't know where to moan so in here will do.
I'm at my wits end.
LO is 11 weeks we have a routine that kind of just happened so I'm going with it.
She's up around 7:30 then has 4 naps ranging from 45 mins to 2 hours.
We have a bath time routine, bath around 6, boob then falls asleep on me around 7.
She's exclusively breastfed feed on demand which I've been told to stop doing and to feed her every 3hours in the day and I'm also thinking of introducing a bottle of formula.
She doesn't take to kind to dummies, but were working on her taking the bottle.

We co-sleep, now the problem is for the last few weeks when she moans I put the boob in...... problem now is that I'm a human dummy!
The last two weeks I have been woken up every half hour/ 45 mins the longest was 3 hours. She never used to be like this, she was going 4/5hours.... that I was fine with!
Last night and today was the first time I am denying her to suckle. I feed her, when she's done I take her off and that's the hardest part. She just screams and screams so I do some thing to distract her and get her to fall asleep another way.

But I know as soon as I put her down she's gonna wake up and expect the boob which I need to resist giving to her but then the only way she's gonna fall asleep is on me and we will end up with her on me like last night. I guess I could try the Pick up put down method.
I'm just totally lost.
I don't know where to begin.
I'm so emotionally drained.

I just needed to vent.

 

[bekkie]

hp: sounds like a growth spurt, who advised you to stop feeding on demand? 2 months seems really young to be stopping it - my understanding is that on-demand feeding is whats best thing for them.. we fed on demand until 6 months, and then started working on a schedule. Now... my son still doesn't sleep through the night, (I'm normally up with him at least 2-3x a night, on a good night) even with 3-4 huge meals of solids and breastmilk throughout the day.... so I don't believe that the amount he eats has anything to do with how he sleeps.

Kelz: I know the feeling - days like today I feel like I'll never get it together

Reedy: good luck on monday!

Last night was another horrible night... my husband ended up getting up at 4 am because I had been up 3x over the hour and ended up losing my sanity again... (slammed bedroom door, raised my voice at LO... I feel like a horrible wife and mother.) OH said that he's going to make LO cry it out tonight... so somehow I have to make sure that he doesn't wake up when LO does... because I don't want to have to do that... but he'll be 8 months on Sunday and I've pretty much lost all hope that I'll ever sleep more than 2-3 hours at a time ever again. Had a friend with a younger baby tell me that her daughter has been sleeping through since 8 weeks... thankfully it was over facebook so I could just sit at my computer and cry because I must be doing something wrong

 

[Reedy]

Bekki x your not a horrible mummy or wife at all its just when we are surviving on such little sleep over a very long period of time we are bound to snap now & again its totally normal so please dont worry x
I know what you mean about people telling you how their LOs sleep through, I just want to slap them lol but thats the bitterness you get with a LO who has never slept x

HP - Really sorry I cant help as I didnt BF but I'm sure the BF girls on here will give you great advice x

Hope Tonight is good for us all

 

[bekkie]

Thanks Reedy I've bought a book (helping baby sleep - the science and practice of gentle bedtime parenting) so i'm going to give it a read and see if it can give me any insight and hopefully help to bring a bit of harmony back to the household.

Yeah, definitely bitter lol - it's the "oh she sleeps so well, she's such a good baby" .... are you implying I have a bad baby? I know they aren't... but it feels like it lol

 

[Reedy]

Thanks Reedy I've bought a book (helping baby sleep - the science and practice of gentle bedtime parenting) so i'm going to give it a read and see if it can give me any insight and hopefully help to bring a bit of harmony back to the household.

Yeah, definitely bitter lol - it's the "oh she sleeps so well, she's such a good baby" .... are you implying I have a bad baby? I know they aren't... but it feels like it lol

Yeah I know what you mean x
Hope the books helps x If it does let me know so I can give it a go too x

 

[bekkie]

I've made it through about half-way (couldn't sleep last night, even when LO was, I was too worked up) and while the book hasn't given any real suggestions on how to improve his sleep yet, it has given me a great deal of insight and information and helped me sort of understand why he isn't sleeping. The second half of the book has some suggestions so I'm probably going to polish it off tonight. I really like the way the book is written and it has helped validate the reasons why I don't want to try CIO. I'll let you know how it goes

 

[Reedy]

Bekki - Sounds like its going well x I might have to have a look for it & give it a read x

Bought Finley a new sleepbag today as his others are too small & he always sleeps better in those because I think he gets cold (we've had the heating on through the night for about 2 months x

Hope everyone is ok x

 

[bekkie]

finished the book off - it really is a great read, I highly suggest reading it. Coincidentally, Bobby has "slept through" the past 2 nights (from 9:30 - 5:30 2 nights ago, and 11:30 - 6:30 last night) - He's been drooling a ton so I figured a tooth or 2 were popping through, so I've given him some pain meds before night time and that seems to be doing the trick. We'll see how well it keeps up, if he goes back to waking up throughout the night again I'm going to try 'scheduled awakenings'.

How did Finleys Cranial Osteopathy appointment go? Bobby loves his sleepbag too, hope it helps Finley sleep better!

 

[Reedy]

finished the book off - it really is a great read, I highly suggest reading it. Coincidentally, Bobby has "slept through" the past 2 nights (from 9:30 - 5:30 2 nights ago, and 11:30 - 6:30 last night) - He's been drooling a ton so I figured a tooth or 2 were popping through, so I've given him some pain meds before night time and that seems to be doing the trick. We'll see how well it keeps up, if he goes back to waking up throughout the night again I'm going to try 'scheduled awakenings'.

How did Finleys Cranial Osteopathy appointment go? Bobby loves his sleepbag too, hope it helps Finley sleep better!

The book sounds like its doing the trick x How much was it & where did you get it from? Teetching is awful isnt it, I think Finley is teething too although no sign of any teeth yet x

His appt went ok although tbh i dont really think its working because he hasnt slept any better since having it done, which is sad because I really thought it might work
He slept until 2am last night then went back to sleep for 45minutes & then was awake again & just wouldnt settle at all so dh got him in with us & he slept till 6.45am x He survived all day on 30 minutes sleep ( a 10 min one in the morning & a 20 minute on about 12.45pm) I honestly dont know how he does it.