Me and DD had a rough start and the early weeks are a blur, no chance of being one of those "had a routine first day back from the hospital" people; the goal was we all got some sleep – and still is. So I feel like I've sleepwalked into bad habits.
She's now 10 weeks and what I thought was a phase at 7 weeks is just getting worse: catnaps. Worse still, I bounce her or feed her to sleep for all of them because I'm knackered. But then she wakes after 20 minutes, though I can sometimes resettle and resettle if she's in the sling (sometimes not), but I'm bouncing 7 times a day or more. She hates the pram. She's exhausted and overtired and by bedtime (she doesn't conk out til 8-9pm) she's a screaming mess, in between tiny tiny catnaps and feeds, so how do I even go about starting a bedtime routine and undoing the bouncing? Or is this totally normal?
I don't have a nap routine and daren't even attempt crib naps because the overtiredness is so hard to undo if a nap fails. Should I be doing dark room/swaddle/white noise/dummy, pop her in the basket and wait for this magical thing to happen? I don't think she's that kind of baby.
At bedtime she has a final feed but doesn't necessarily fall asleep; her dad rocks her. We're planning to (try to) gradually change this to swaying, then holding, then holding in crib, etc, in search of the mythical drowsy-but-awake. And attempt to introduce a routine, in-between shouting bouts.
I'll confess some NCT mums have terrified me with dire warnings of the four-month sleep regression and the rod for my own back that I've not taught her to self settle yet... please tell me self settling is a developmental thing and she'll get there in the end even if it's at 2 or 3, that I won't die from sleep deprivation (I'll just feel like it), that it's all worth it, that she's not totally damaged by my cocking up her sleep, that every other mother of a newborn is frantically bouncing them all day, that screaming baby is normal and it's just the hormones that make it go right through me. (It's not colic, she doesn't scream on end.) Does it get better when they need fewer daytime sleeps?
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Am I doing this all wrong?
32 replies
burritofan · 02/07/2019 18:11
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