AIBU to expect a bit more sleep?

[celeryeater]

Its a long one I'm afraid but any help would be appreciated!
Im a ftm Dd is 8 weeks old and ebf. We are also cosleeping. Dp has had enough of the lack of sleep and sleeps all night on the sofa downstairs. She was diagnosed as having reflux and we were given infant gaviscon but it made her constipated so we had to stop. She does seem to have gotten slightly better although last night is a bad example. Lately she has had terrible gas though.
I made a log of how our night was last night - please tell me what I'm doing wrong!

9.30 feed and I go to bed
11.50 dp brings dd to me in bed and fed
12.20 falls asleep in my arms on the boob but when I lay her down shes wide awake and wriggling
12.24 farting and dribbling milk on bed
12.34 dd still awake and wriggling
12.40 shove boob in mouth laying down to chill her out. Wish I had a dummy
12.47 dd chilled. Will try sleeping again
12.52 dd wakes up grizzling. Shove boob in mouth laying down to calm her
{2 HOURS SLEEP - ISH. IF I FELL ASLEEP STRAIGHT AWAY WHICH I DIDN'T}
3 wakes up wriggling and hungry
3.30 dd hurting nipple and not really eating anymore so I take her off and burp her. No burps. I go to the toilet
3.36 dd doing all the farts. decide to change fat wet nappy. Dd sicks up a lot of the milk she just had
3.43 offer other boob too in the hopes that the more she eats she might sleep a bit longer. Health visitors suggestion
3.54 falls asleep at the boob. Burp her - can't get anything other than a tiny burp up. Burp her on my chest and she instantly falls asleep. I am roasting alive so decide to open the window a crack. 3.57 Obviously dd wakes up when I lay her down so put her back on my chest to relax and burp a bit more
4.02 try to lay her down she starts smiling wriggling and farting. Also sounds like she occasionally sicks and swallows it again
,4.10 dd wide awake on bed farting wriggling smiling drooling out milk. I wish I had a dummy
4.15 dd starts to get grizzly and annoyed about something so I pick her up for a cuddle and she pukes hot milk all over me.
4.16 dd seems a lot more chilled and like she might fall asleep in my arms
4.20 dd reanimates annoyed about something. Lay her down and is grizzling and wriggling. Going to try putting boob in her mouth laying down
4.24 she starts taking a proper feed
4.30 wishing I could sleep like this but have to be in an awkward position to get boob in her mouth. I feel a bit sick. Birds are noisy outside
4.34 think dd has fallen asleep. I'm going to try moving in to more comfortable position
{2 HOURS SLEEP?}
6.40 dd wakes up wriggling eventually crying so feed her
6.54 dd finished so burp her but don't get much up
7.04 lay her down and all the wriggles
7.07 wriggles farts and crys so pick her back up on my chest, she struggles to get comfy... Eventually chills out in a really awkward position
7.13 dd can't get comfy on me so lay her down anyway and go for a wee and get some more water
7.17 dd crying by the time i get back so I pick her up to put her on boob and she throws up hot milk all over me then latches on
7.30 dd comes off boob and starts wriggling try burping her and can't get anything up so lay her on my chest to burp and hopefully relax her. She is asleep as I write this
7.37 dp comes upstairs

Some of my friends babies are sleeping 4+ hours in a stretch at night now but I don't have anything else to compare to. Is this normal?

[Mouikey]

I'm just about to embark on this journey, so can't give words of encouragement as I have no idea!! However, have you looked at a cocoonababy or sleepyhead which might help with the reflux (probably not the farts though!!!!).

Hopefully tonight will be better - big hugs xx

[5minutestobed]

Definitely sounds like she has reflux, can you try and keep her upright for a while after feeds? My only thought is you are putting her down quite quickly after she has fallen asleep. I've found with my DSs that I need to wait until they are in a deep enough sleep before Ican put them down and they stay asleep. Also, get a dummy!
Saying that I'm not doing that much better but I think your night sounds pretty normal for a reflux baby anyway sorry!
My ds is 8 weeks too our night roughly went
9-10.30 wouldn't settle to sleep
10.30- fell asleep on my chest
11ish, down in cot slept for two hours
1-2.30, feed, put up on my chest and wind/let the milk go down, attempt to out down but he wouldn't settle, second attempt worked
4am awake again, same routine as last time.
5.30 put down and he slept until 7.20.

[celeryeater]

Thanks for the replies,
I was keeping her upright for 20 minutes after each feed but it still wouldn't always work laying her down. My health visitor said if she doesn't burp within about 10 minutes lay her down anyway because if she's going to be sick she'll be sick. I admit I probably could be a bit more patient but when I am struggling to keep my eyes open it's difficult!
Hoping it's something she grows out of soon!

[PissPotPourri]

When they fall asleep on your boob they haven't been winded. Waking up as soon as you put them down is classic of this, as is dribbling milk. Get infacol as you seem to struggle getting a burp, or lift her to wind her as soon as she starts wriggling.

[Wait4nothing]

Have you tried infacol (or gripe water)? It seems to help dd burp. Given before every feed. It's about £2.50 at boots.

[celeryeater]

I will definitely be getting some infacol to try now - thanks.

[DropYourSword]

You have my sympathy. My little one is now 11 weeks. We have had reflux, colic, poor feeding, tongue and lip tie. Our nights were even worse than this if you can believe it. I wad totally exhausted and felt literally on the brink of breakdown. I couldn't imagine things ever improving and I didn't know how the hell I was supposed to go on. I can only say that very slowly things do get easier. We are on a medication called losec which seems to have helped, and all of a sudden he has started having slightly longer stretches of sleep. He has better nights and then back to nights of literally no sleep at all, but it does get better.

[randomsabreuse]

Is she colicky? Or super explosive nappies?

[celeryeater]

Actually the nappies have slowed down in the last couple of weeks, she used to do about 4 dirty nappies a day and now it's one or two big ones and she does seem to strain to get it out. It's not hard the poo that comes though so health visitor said that's normal and don't worry about it. Wet nappies are pretty much constant.
Maybe I should take her to the doctors if the infacol doesn't help.

[BillSykesDog]

Would you get more sleep if you got her a Moses basket or even one of those 3 sided cots which fits to the bed? The wriggling seems to keep you awake and that would minimise disturbance.

[MoMandaS]

Sounds like she could be suffering from Transient Lactase Deficiency as well. Colief is the answer to that but a bit of a pain to administer if ebf. For burping her, try sitting her on your knee and gently rotating her from the waist. Then put her high on your shoulder and do firm strokes up the left side of her back. Repeat.

[celeryeater]

The wind also started when I was on antibiotics for mastitis so thought it was that but I've been off it a week now and still she has the farty bum

[superking]

Sounds just like the nights I had with my refluxy DS1. You can get more effective reflux meds than gaviscon so maybe take another trip back to your GP. I also co slept with my DS and found he slept much better on his side. I used to position my arm so he couldn't roll onto his front, hard to explain but you could experiment. I should add that I was comfortable doing this because I don't really move around in my sleep - when co sleeping I always wake in exactly the same position I went to sleep in. If you move a lot in your sleep it might not be advisable.

The real difference came once he could roll himself onto his front which he invariably did and slept so much better.

Hang in there, it is rough. I have 6 week old DS2 now, he has been doing the fabled 4hr+ stints since about 3 weeks old and it has made me realise how much of a difference there is between a refluxy and non-refluxy baby.

[celeryeater]

I have got a cot for the side of the bed but it doesn't help with settling her. I started cosleeping because having her next to me helped in the early days but now I think she probably could settle alone if it wasn't for the wind. Something else to try I suppose. Then maybe dp might come back to the bed too.

[celeryeater]

Superking she does prefer being on her side but I always try to roll her back onto her side before she falls asleep because reading the stuff about SIDS and infant sleep scared me so much! Looking forward to when she can roll herself and it's not such an issue.

[Paintedhandprints]

Ds1 was like this. He's 2.3yo now. Ds2 is 3mo. I think he's the same but we've tackled it differently. We gave him a dummy because both were/are very much comfort suckers. Ds2 gets woken and winded if he falls asleep feeding. Ds1 I fed to sleep because it was easier, but actually you will get more sleep if you wind them properly for every feed.
Ds2 I put to sleep on his side if he is very unsettled. Wedged so he can't flip onto his front. His moses basket is next to my bed so I dont have to get up and can adjust him easily, replace dummy, etc.
Try raising one end of the cot.
Infacol or colief.
Diet. Try eliminating foods that give you wind.

[Paintedhandprints]

Ds2 wakes only 1-2 times in the night generally. Such a difference! Ds1 didn't sleep through til 18mo.

[celeryeater]

So it sounds like i should try infacol, wedging her on her side to sleep, trying longer to burp her, getting a dummy...
I did try cutting out dairy from my diet but doesn't seem to make any difference. I also avoid broccoli now because that seemed to make her windy in the early days. Could it be msg? Me and dp eat a lot of Asian food and sauces, noodles etc..

[cookielove]

Infacol worked for my lo, but it is something that needs to build up in their system so done panic if it doesn't happen straight away. Also ds burped well if I held him on my thighs and circurlated his upper body! Not sure if that makes sense

[MiddleClassProblem]

Infacol, if you use a co sleeping crib you can get a wedge pillow that goes under the mattress so her body it's at a slight angle.

Mine would only sleep on me but found in a co sleeper she had a safe space (and I had more!) and I could hold her feet to help her sleep. From 6 months she was in her own room and self settled from around 4 months x

[LastOneDancing]

If you've had antibiotics her natural gut flora may be messed up.
I got probiotic suppliment capsules from Holland & Barrett, opened one up and gave D'S a tiny bit of the powder on the end of my little finger. The stinky farts stopped and nappies went back to normal in 24h.

Might be worth a try? Although if it is colic or reflux it's unlikely to help. Hope you get some sleep soon!

[ppeatfruit]

Check your intake of wheat, (even brown wholewheat) she might be intolerant.

[ppeatfruit]

You can buy rice noodles, pasta and rye bread which are easier on the digestion.

[5minutestobed]

Sorry I should have said try different meds for the reflux. I was also going to suggest cows milk intolerance bur you have mentioned you tried cutting out dairy. How long did you cut it out for, I think it takes about two weeks to leave their system. Hope you find something that helps soon. Can your DH get up with baby in the morning and let you have a bit of extra sleep?

[Mytummyisnotatrampoline]

You may find infacol is effective in making them burp, but actually makes the reflux worse as it's quite acidic.
DS had horrific reflux. I didn't get more than 45m sleep at a go for the first 10 weeks (when he was finally diagnosed and heavily medicated). I'm afraid it's going to probably be a tough road until they're a bit more mobile. I don't miss the days of spending 30m trying to wind DS, only for him to be awake minutes later.
Baby gaviscon is renowned for causing constipation. We tried this and it was a horrible experience. I'm not advocating medicating unless it's necessary, but ranitidine and then omeprazol (sp) were the only things that actually worked for us.