What gets you through the night?

[Cbell]

I can't be the only person sitting and preparing for another night of horrendous sleep.

My DS is 4 weeks old and gives me about five broken hours sleep a night. Nothing consistently sooths him, he is plagued by wind which wakes him up. Just generally miserable at night.

The thought that will sustain me tonight is that it's Friday tomorrow and a three day weekend.

So who else will be up with me tonight?

[TelephoneTree]

Oh poor you - that sounds miserable and familiar! In hindsight, having discovered a few things about our kids later on - are you breast or formula feeding? If breast and you can afford it, I would strongly recommend getting him tested for food intolerances. If you can't, I would take dairy out of your diet and then possibly sugar and wheat too. If formula, then definitely try a different one / see the GP to recommend a non dairy / hypoallergenic one.

[TelephoneTree]

plus consider taking him to see a cranial osteopath.

[Cbell]

Thanks for the advice. I'd been putting his behaviour down to NB anxt.

[thornrose]

He's 4 weeks old, isn't unbroken sleep the norm?

[thornrose]

Sorry meant broken sleep!

[TurnOffTheTv]

It will pass. So they tell me. I'm on my first wake up of the night. There will be at least two more, she's 18 months.

[kittencuddles]

5 weeks ago he was in your womb and now he has to do all these new things, including sleeping away from you. Give him love and cuddles, this too shall pass!!

[Grumpla]

One thing I found enormously helpful was that my DH got up with the DC in the morning and I had an hour in bed.

It helped me stop that slightly obsessive cataloging of each minute I'd been asleep / awake and the hour of sleep enabled me to function. Instead of thinking "I've had 49 minutes of sleep and in 2 hours I have to get up..." I would console myself "only 2 hours until I can sleep for a whole hour!"

Even if that hour was 5am-6am on the days he had to go to work early it was still important to me.

I also sometimes slept in the spare room between night feeds / expressing sessions (I had massive problems with BF) so that I wouldn't be kept awake by the snuffles. So an hour or so of deeper sleep in the middle of the night.

Ensuring I got a few bits of sleep here and there was fairly crucial for my mental health.

[ratbagcatbag]

iPad, on mumsnet or playing 2p online bingo

My dd is now 24 weeks and does one get up, it's so so hard to remember the early days, the do go quick even if they don't feel like it. :)

[poocatcherchampion]

the best piece of advice I had was stop looking at the clock when you get up in the nighy . blurry is good. don't catalogue every minute of sleep. then you can just decide if you feel horrific or not quite so horrific each day.

[Bananapickle]

If it is wind that is causing the problem have you tried settling him on his side? Helped my DD when she was small. Hope it improves soon.

[Forgetfulmog]

5 hours broken sleep? Sorry op, but that (until very recently) was a pretty good night for me

I know how debilitating it can be though, especially for new mums as its such a shock & you're desperate to sleep, but can't.

Wind in newborns is extremely common & does get easier as they get bigger. Try bringing his knees up to his chest as that can help ease it. Tummy massage is also good.

This too shall pass.

Oh & btw, chocolate helps for you, not your baby

[KatyN]

I used to have a little treat each time I woke up. Meant I didn't loose my baby weight for ages but it got me through.

I also made sure I had time for a half hour/hour nap each day.

try and find some friends who are in a different time zone and text them!!!

k

[minipie]

my tips for dealing with wind:

• get LO checked for tongue tie, especially if it seems like LO has a poor latch/comes on and off a lot while feeding/etc
  
• try to keep LO upright as much as poss after feeds, obviously this is easier in the day than at night. a sling may help
  
• lie LO on side (left side is best) propped with a rolled towel
  
• if all else fails, LO will probably sleep well on their tummy, on your chest (NB the SIDS guidelines are against sleeping on tummy in a cot - sleeping on you is not the same risk). I found that I actually got more sleep this way (propped with lots of pillows) than by trying to put dd in her crib.
  

and agree with grumpla about getting DH to do a shift even if it's short.

[Jackanory1978]

I ate cadburys creme eggs & got addicted to Deal Or No Deal (it's repeated at about 5am)! Seriously it gets better. My ds just would not sleep at that age, no physical reason he was just a typical newborn who wanted mummy constantly. I remember one delightful night when I didn't actually get into bed until 7am!!

Now he's 19 wks and sleeps (in his cot, another battle!) much better. Last night slept:
20:00-23:00
00:00-02:50
03:30-06:15 quite often he sleeps till 6:30/7

It started getting better at about 14 wks (regressed when I switched him from his Moses basket to his cot) so hang on in there!

[purrpurr]

Recommending poo's suggestion - don't catalogue your sleep, and if you can't nap when the baby does don't fret. I wasted a lot of time chasing sleep but I never managed to nap in the day.

Tonight with my 13.5 week old DD will be like this:

6pm onwards: Futile attempts to feed The Baby Wot Lives on Oxygen
Depending on when she will finally take a bit of milk, then:
8pm-ish: Asleep, normally on one of us. If me, I will leave her til floppy then put down to sleep in travel cot in living room (beanpole baby far too long for Moses basket), if DH will enthusiastically put down as soon as she closes her eyes and thus will do put-down-pick-up repeatedly until he loses patience...
10pm: go upstairs and place DD in crib
10.01pm: DD will flail, perhaps headbutt the crib bars, cry in shock, then decide ooh, milk o'clock!
10:45pm: hopefully asleep
1:45am: DD will be doing her 'I'm a banana!' impression and will get stuck so I will wake up to cries (this is new) then hurtle about trying to make up a bottle before she hits nuclear
2:30am: back to sleep, unless its all come back up in which case impromptu wash, change, pat down of bedding etc (she's awfully good, aims her vom down the side of the bed)
5:15am: cries and cries and oooh mummy hi mummy big gummy smile waaaah where's mummy waaaaaah ooh hi mummy smile...
5:25: DD will be asleep on me and I will be on Mumsnet...

[PeriodMath]

He's still so little OP. I think this is just par for the course. Ignore the braggers who tell you their 4 wk old sleeps through the night - perhaps they do exist but these babies are very rare.

It WILL get better. Is it your first? Just take every opportunity you can during the day to close your eyes. And I totally agree with the poster who said her DH was in charge in the morning. Mine did the same - used to take DS after I had fed him around 7am and just move him around in his bouncy chair from bathroom to kitchen to watch him getting ready for work.

It was the most treasured 90 mins of my day.

Does your baby have a decent sleep in the afternoon? Don't try to keep him awake in order that he sleeps better at night. It doesn't work. Good naps lead to good sleep.

It can be very tough. But I have learned that "it's a phase" is not a cliche - it's true. Things change all the time.

[Weissbier]

purrpurr

[Weissbier]

Also I totally agree about the DH early shift - will make you feel human again