To think the nights are never going to get better?

[pinkhyena]

I might feel this way because I am so tired right now (it's 3am and ds has just fallen asleep after waking up at about midnight, I'm on my iPhone btw waiting for him to be in a deep enough sleep to put in his cot). Anyway, ds is 7 weeks old and is still really erratic with his sleep pattens night and day. Everytime he looks like he's getting some sort of routine he changes it! I know he's still little and all babies are different but my friends babies all started to get into a sleep patten and waking less at night by now (this is what they claim at least). Everyone says to me 'it'll get better' I want to know when! I dread night time it's making me miserable, what's worse is that normally after I've fed him (formula fed) I can't get back to sleep for ages meaning I'm even more tired than I should be. Any words of comfort would be greatly appreciated, apologies if this doesn't make sense.
X

Just to add to this, remember that sleeping 'through the night' is actually a 5 or 6 hour stretch. Very, very few 7 week olds sleep 12 hours straight, their little stomachs can't take it. So your friends are stretching the truth.

My DD was a rubbish sleeper despite everyone saying, 'oh she's such a big baby she'll be sleeping through the night it no time'. We did sort it so these are my tips, for what it's worth:

1. sleep begets sleep. the more your DS sleeps the better. So...

2. let him sleep any way he wants. They don't code (essentially remember things) until they are over 12 weeks old, so if he sleeps on you at this age, it's no big deal. You can sort it out later down the line when you are both less tired.

3. DD was a hungry baby. I got my knickers in such a twist trying to make her 'last' 3 hours. She wanted to feed every 1.5-2 hours. This did not make her a snacker, though I imagine if you feed every 40 mins it might eventually cause a problem.

4. Is DS in pain after a feed? DD did not have reflux (which is agonising for babies, check symptoms online) but she was very windy. A minute spent burping is never a minute wasted. Spend at least 10 mins burping, make sure it's all out. Of everything we did, proper burping made the MOST difference to DD's sleeping patterns - people underestimate how important it is.

5. go and see a cranial osteopath. I know a lot of people think they are charlatans but DD was markedly better - happier, sleeping better - after each time we saw one.

6. Post on the Babywhisperer forums www.babywhispererforums.com/. the people on there are AMAZING. As long as you like the BW book of course!

Finally, DD was the worst sleeper of my NCT group. She was AWFUL but she DID get better. At around 11 weeks something clicked and it just got better and better from then.

Hope you managed to get some sleep! I couldn't believe how exhausting the early weeks were. It does get better. You will sleep again until the teeth arrive.

One thing that helped us was a slumber bear that played womb noises
www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=slumber+bear&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=4541206256&ref=pd_sl_6gylc14bcw_b

Doesn't guarantee 8 hours sleep but often helped her settle.

it doesn't help that the date that people say it gets easier by always seems to be in the future - first 2 weeks, then 6 weeks, then 8 weeks, then 12 weeks, then 4 months, then 6 months, then a year etc...

i tell you what, i'm sure my ds gets far more sleep now at 5 months than he did at 7 weeks. at that stage he never seemed to be asleep for more than 9-10 hours in 24, but now he sleeps for a good couple of hours in the day and 12 hours (broken up by 2-3 feeds) at night. so don't worry, it's not set in stone forever.

i wouldn't worry too much yet about having to make sure he's in a deep sleep before you put him down. at gthis stage you need to do whatvere you have to do to make sure both of you have enough sleep. plenty of time later on to start getting him to self settle. but of course opinions vary on this!

good luck - i promise it will get easier.

It will get better pink and I think most of us go through what you're experiencing. Ignore what others say about their babies - mostly they're lying (or so I've always thought). DS used to be very cranky with wind through the night for the first few months or so, but he settled in the end and found his own routine. You're certainly not doing anything wrong.

Yes it will get better.

I went to stay with my Step-Mum for a while when DD was about 2.5 months. I was BF on demand & still in the very floaty world of doing everything on demand (I had few other demands in my life at the time - I was very lucky). I'm not for any of these 'by the book' routines but she gently suggested I started a bedtime routine which hadn't even occurred to me. So we tried that & little by little things changed. DD still work every 4 hours for the next 15 months or so though, but once she got passed being a newborn I'd just put her in bed with me & she would feed while I slept & slept I did.

frenchlime your post describes us to a T!!! my dd is 7 weeks today, won't sleep for any real kength of time in the day unless we go out in car or pushchair, and wakes twice a night for (breast)feeds - unless I feed lying down.....then she just feeds on and off all night! around 3-4am though she is wide awake - smiling and cooing in a way that she reserves just for this time of night!

we have a bedtime routine too, which helps settle her to sleep for a few hours (on me) though. incidentally, if I do put her down after her bath and feed, she'll only sleep on her tummy. She screams within minutes, however deeply asleep she may have been, if I put her on her back.

My DS never napped in the day, unless I was driving us in the car.
He didn't sleep well at night for months, and had only started sleeping the whole night in his own bed (sometimes) in the last few weeks.

He is now 2.5yo.

But it is getting better.

He had his first sleepover at Granny's house recently. He had a lovely time, and I slept.

Good Luck, it will improve, tiny bit by tiny bit, and then you will miss the dark, warm cuddles in the night.

MamaVoo, why would they be lying?

You do realise some babies are very good sleepers, dont you?

You do realise its not all that uncommon for them to sleep 20 hours out of 24 in the early days? That there are sleepy newborns and not so sleepy newborns?

If it makes you feel better to say they are lying, then fine, go ahead and delude yourself, but these babies do exist. Its no slight on anyone's parenting, its luck of the draw, but they are not a figment of people's imagination!

I am gobsmacked that people might have asked me how long my babies slept for and then assumed I was lying when I told them. How odd.

just to add it's swings and roundabouts isn't it.

Though DD slept in largely 4 (maximum 5) hour bursts until over 2yo, she slept solidly & would wake for nothing - so I never had to tip toe around her, or worry about noise waking her(even really loud noises)- she always slept right on though bless her.

Mum's with babies who sleep in the early months a lot really are not lying.

And its not a competition and you shouldn't care - its not a good start for you, your baby etc. The number of overly competitive mums that exist already, you're better off not joining that club - exhausting in itself !

6 months and still up 3+ times a night.

i just sit and enjoy the special mummy and baby moments that these times are, but yes, very very tired, some days i refuse to drive, just in case.

but it will get better, and you will forget how tired you feel now, i dont remember the night feeds from my other (now teenaged)children, but they definately happenend

Woodlands you're so right, I got to 6 weeks expecting a bit of change and it always seems to be in the future that there'll be a marked difference.

With my friends its not competitiveness because most of their babies are all a bit older than mine its more that I worry he's maybe behind in his development or something, that maybe he's not doing what he should be for his age but reading your replies (thank you btw) I don't think this is the case.

MrsTumbles this is what we do too though I normally go to bed a bit later because I help DH get him ready for bed though he gives him his last bottle and puts him down in his cot. Last night was different though because I got up pretty much all times before and after midnight but DH was ill with a stomach bug so while I was feeding DS he was throwing up. Think I can let him off. Fingers crossed for a better night for all of us!
x

yanbu he is 7 weeks old, you quite likely have years more 'night work' ahead of you

took 2 years for mine. but i was demand breastfeeding.

It does get better honestly. DS is 14 weeks and is just starting to be happy sleeping in his basket rather than on me.

Tatty, it's all very well saying put them down awake but for some babies this just doesn't work, it doesn't for DS and believe me I have tried. You have been very lucky with your sleepers :)

why, oh why did I read this thread? 30 weeks pregnant with DC3, DDs are 3 and 2. Still, I have paid my dues with non-sleepers and DC3 is going to sleep; can't possibly not

It does get better - it must do, at some point I conceived again...

Oh, and DD1 went down on her own easily from a very young age (didn't STAY asleep though!), did exactly the same with DD2 - have only recently cracked her going to sleep without massive intervention and she's 2.5

Yes it will get better, honestly. Keep telling yourself that.

You say he's still erratic - this is the norm at this age. I used to dread the nights, so long and lonely, then too anxious to get back to sleep. See if he'll have a longer sleep in the day in his pram. Put him on the bed next to you and see if he'll sleep when he's near you. Try a dummy (lifesaver for some babies).

My dd2 slept through at about 2 weeks, I couldn't believe my luck. Then at 6 months old she stopped sleeping and didn't resume until she was about 14 months.

Dd didn't do five hours in a row until 10 weeks old. She then got slowly better until at 14/15 weeks she did 8 hours in a go overnight. She did that for three nights in a row and then went rubbish again for a bit before settling down again.
I am rubbish at sleeping and take ages to fall asleep and that was a real killer on top of them waking.
Ego - I agree on the driving. Even now if we have a bad night I don't like to drive the next day unless I really have to.
HV and MIL told me about the magic 6 week mark and when it didn't happen I completely fell apart. My mum who had told me 10-12 weeks from the very beginning was right. I think it's actually quite widely acknowledged that 3 months is the real turning point and 6 week people are just very lucky!
Hand on in there, it does happen.

It will get better, it really will, but you need to stop trying to put a time frame on it. The constant expectation of thinking "he's 8 weeks, he's 12 weeks, he's 20 weeks (or whatever) and he's not sleeping through yet, what do I do?" means you're putting yourself under unnecessary pressure.

Babies aren't generally designed to sleep for huge lengths of time; they need feeding little and often and it can take many months for them to 'learn' to settle back to sleep. This is largely a developmental process, much like walking and talking, and as with those things babies do them all at different times and there's not a huge amount you can do to influence it.

Obviously a vague night time routine helps, as does consistency in how you deal with sleeping and waking, but IME they're all different even if you treat them the same. My DD1 slept through the bulk of the night from about 10-12 weeks if I recall (she was bf on demand), DD2 doesn't count as she was tube fed and has SN so I had to set the alarm to feed her, and DD3 didn't sleep a full night until she was 2! That was despite me treating them all the same in terms of routine, waking etc.

Roll with it, do what you need to do to get through the days and nights, share the load (do you have a DP to do some of the night feeds?) and remember it won't last forever.

hi there, I totally sympathise, but it DOES get better.

My dd is 21 mths now and still doesn't have much of a routine, and much as would have liked some predictability in my life, I learned to accept whatever happened and just 'go with the flow' a bit more. I have accepted that my dd isn't a very 'routine' baby (apparently I wasn't either). Some babies are, some aren't. Either that or people lie!!! But comparing your baby with others (esp when you're so tired) is a form of masochism, don't do it!

I also found it hard to sleep when she slept, as she would only sleep for a short time. For me personally, just a lie down with my eyes closed can make me feel a bit more human.

Just sleep whenever you can and try and work out some time when you get a lie-in or early night, draw on all your support - Mum, friends or DH - this bit is very important.

And try your best not to think about how tired you are, as dwelling on it, makes you feel a hundred times worse.

Just in case you were thinking about doing anything silly, like housework, obviously - DON'T!

I heard that as babies get older, their nervous system develops and so does their sleep (i.e. gets longer and deeper). I found this to be true with my dd.

Hope that you get some rest very soon.

Pinkhyena, we've all said how crap it was and empathised, many have said it gets better but wouldn't it be great if on Xmas Eve you got your first and best ever Xmas present - 5-6 hours of solid sleep. Let's all join for a bit m'net wish for the OP.

Merry Xmas and,

PS: you are a lovely mummy and deserve a peaceful, unbroken kip for an hour or six .

I agree with not putting a time frame on it, I also don't look at the clock when I get woken up, I find it keeps me more relaxed about it.