To ask for reassurance that dh and I won't die of sleep deprivation with newborn ds....

[Wigglewoo]

Or at least any tips for coping with it?

Ds is 9 days old. He is formula fed and feeds every 2 hours, day and night. Sometimes he might go three hours but yesterday he woke every hour for about 5 hours having an oz and going back to sleep again!

We have a dd aged 9 (so big age gap- this is dh's first baby, dd is mine from previous relationship). So I have forgotten what is "normal" - although I suspect this is- and dh is new to all this. So most of the time we are sitting there in a babyfog shrugging at each other without a bloody clue what we are doing.

Ds seems to have wind. So we burp him. So nothing comes up. Not even sure if we're burping him properly! He falls asleep in our arms, we realised if we swaddled him we have more chance of being able to put him down to sleep but often he wakes up. Yesterday he was sick twice after we put him down- I'm guessing trapped wind maybe. Dh changed ds and the moses basket soaked with sick at 3am. Nice. :) ds then had a bottle and went down till 6am- longest sleep yesterday.

We just feel so clueless about everything. And so fucking tired :( I'm lucky that dh is on leave for the next 2 weeks but he is suffering with a urine infection and I am recovering from my caesarean for placenta previa (which was undiagnosed until they opened me up!!!another story!)

We are just so so knackered and not sure what we are doing with burping, feeding, sleeping arrangements - ds is in with us as per the reccomendations but he's so noisy (not upset noisy but just fidgets in his sleep, coos etc non stop random grunts - he's asleep but we're not!!!)Dh thinks thismeans he's waking p and nearly got up to him at 2am last night but I said maybe wait as he's still asleep and he went till 3ish..

Just to be clear, of course I'm not expecting a tiny baby to sleep through or any thing silly like that.... Just wondering how others cope with a newborns sleep patterns. Neither dh or I can sleep during the day, just can't. And struggling to instantly sleep when ds goes down to get the full 2 hour block!! Dh is particularly struggling. I am a bit better at it.

It wasn't so long ago we were both sleeping all night and its been like a bomb going off having ds although he is absolutely lovely :)

We are also finding even though we are taking turns with night feeds that as ds is in our room the other person is being woken up anyway! So might as well be doing all of it!!

We do take turns one of us doing the first feed of the night downstairs so the other gets a head start and as dh was up cleaning sick at 3am I have taken ds downstairs with me this morning to give him a lie in....

Any ideas re winding / sleeping / surviving appreciated!!!!!!

Just chipping in with some burping techniques. DS was an absolute pig to burp (he's nearly six months now so we don't really need to do it any more) but I found the following ways really helpful:

1. lying him down on his back and gently massaging his tummy for 2-3 minutes in a circular motion, often, if the burp wasn't too 'stuck' it would pop right out when I sat him back up.

2. lying him across my lap with his tummy over one thigh and his arms draped over the other, then rubbing his back, he would either burp in this position after a few minutes or would burp when sat back up.

3. this one is more for when he's getting better at supporting his head but stand with your feet shoulder width apart, hold DS facing outwards with his bottom against your stomach, lean a little of his weight across his tummy and against your forearm, gently bounce on the balls of your feet. The burp will eventually come out.

4. sitting him up on your knee, gently tip him backwards, hold him there for a few seconds, then gently sit him upright. Gently tip him forwards, hold him there for a few seconds, then gently sit him upright, repeat ad burpeum.

Finally, sometimes, the piggies just won't come out. All you can do is sit there and rub/pat their backs and wait. For what it's worth, my DM insists all of the above are just things to do to keep the poor bugger trying to burp the baby entertained until the wind dislodges itself naturally!

A paedeatrician gave me this winding tip:
instead of the usual, and ineffectual, rubbing and patting on the back, hold the baby facing you, and rub your hand firmly and slowly up his left side .
Apparently the large intestine runs along there, and you can get the deeper wind up.
It worked well for my ds, who was very wakey and windy.

I know its already been mentioned but DH sleeping in separate room helped. If I was in another room I still woke if baby woke, being away from grunting/wriggling noises didn't help me. But if DH was in another room he got a good sleep!

What is the point in that? I hear you ask!!

In the day, I got him to take baby out of the house for 2 hours so I could properly nap as I couldn't nap in day even if baby was sleeping. Also then he felt so grateful and less tired he was much more help.

Also getting another relative to take baby for a short while so you can nap in day?

Maria littlewaveylines your 11 months old never slept more than 3 hours?! that sounds grim! Do you know why? What could you do about it? that really doesn't sound right, no one should be having to cope with such sleep deprivation...

DD is exactly the same. AT TWENTY TWO MONTHS

Darn it. Posted before I gave any useful advice. See.....sleep deprivation

Ok. Alternate nights, one decent nights sleep will make a world of good. If you are truly sleep deprived then sleep during the day. Change milks, can take 10-14 days to really see a change. Raise head of the cot.

DS is 32 days old. Last Friday I was a broken woman & wondering how much longer I could cope for; in the last couple of days things have dramatically improved. Just remember it could transform that quickly for you too. Things which helped:

• DS got day & night sorted out. Sorry, this doesn't really help as children do this at different ages (DD didn't do it until at least 9 weeks) but it means he feeds every 2 hours during the day but between 3 & 4 hours at night. Just getting that extra few moments in each block at night is amazing!

• DP moved into the spare room. I'm bf so obviously have to do every feed but, like one of the other posters, it means I just get on with it rather than resent DP. It also means DP is well rested in the morning so I expect him to do everything & he realises that's the case! Obviously there's not much he can do during the week when he's at work, but just knowing he's going to bring me a cuppa in the morning, will bath DD when he gets home & then cook supper & has no expectations of me to achieve anything during the day helps enormously

• DS is a puker so I do a load as soon as I get up and,usually, another straight after lunch. Nothing is ironed or put away but at least it is clean & dry

• we are only eating ready meals.

• cake

• chocolate

• more cake

• more chocolate

I've just read your OP to DH and he says you sound exactly how we were and I have to agree :)
I remember asking DH to bring me a banana and some milk and getting a banana in a glass and no milk as poor DH was so sleep deprived once he'd put the banana in the glass he couldn't work out where to put the milk.
This too shall pass and in a couple of years you'll be passing on your experiences on a thread very like this. Congrats and good luck x

Oh yeah chocolate. The reason I am the same weight I was one week post partum here at almost a year. Chocolate is my sleep substitute and IT WORKS

littlewaveylines yes there is, but we also started DD on Gaviscon on Wednesday night after being told for two years she didn't have any form of reflux. We have (hangs head in shame) been forced to medicate her with a seditive in a trial to get her sleeping because she is so tired all. The. Time. That was done after a neurologist said her development was impaired by poor sleep.

It looks like for us it's silent reflux. She still wakes but without screaming, just settles in bed with us.

Awwww your poor DD.

I also saw Drs early on as DD was a sicky baby was told by actually 2 separate doctors that it wasn't reflux. She wasn't upset by being sick though, and doesn't wake upset - just wants a quick feed then she's back to sleep again, no fuss. (Especially as we cosleep..)

You poor thing, its horrible.

Burping techniques that worked for us were to lay baby down for about 10 seconds, then sit baby bolt upright and pat their back. Usually brought up huge burps from both DDs. And even when they have burped keep rubbing tummies and patting backs as there is usually some more in there.

With the nights, unfortunately DH was back at work with both DCs from day 3/4 so they all fell to me. To cope I would have everything I needed right by the bedside- nappies, wipes, cloths, changes of clothes (for both of us!) and I would make up the bottles in advance in batches for the nights - I used to keep them next to the bed not in the fridge (highly not recommended though!)

Hope it works out for you..

Definitely rota and sleep separately. We were reluctant to do this, but it made a lot of difference. You will feel so much better and will be back to cuddledom before long. If you are as tired as we were, you will fall asleep instantly with v little time for cuddles anyway!

Use cartons of formula at night. Bit more expensive but v quick!

It takes a while for little ones to get used to bringing up wind. We tried everything but after about a month DD suddenly just managed to burp on her own (I'd just pat her on the back) and it was fine from then on.

Oh I just remembered - we discovered an excellent way of burping DD - hold her under her armpits supporting the head at the back with fingers. Let her dangle her legs and sway her from side to side. Let the head tilt back slightly and a burp will appear if there's one in there! Magic

It if gets to the point where you think you'd try everything (like I did after having DS2), then try switching milk(DC like aptamil best), try switching bottles(Dr Brown was amazing with DS1 who instantly stopped all screaminig after 2 dr brown bottle feeds), erm.. maybe put him in a cot (more comfortable, DS2 hated his moses basket), perhaps if you could bear it - in his own room when he's a bit older of course. We did all that at 3 weeks with DS2 as we found DH's snoring, me tossing & turning were waking baby up every 5 seconds. You're already trying infacol so hopefully that has helped with the wind... bless...

Really sorry to hear you're going through such a difficult newborn phase. I hope it all gets better soon and you can enjoy him soon. We didn't have a great time at all with DS2. To make it worse, DS1 woke up a dozen times too when DS2 was born,and they woke up at different times so basically we didn't sleep for 3 months after DS2 was born. We finally decided (DH made me actually as he could see I was at 'dying' point) so we let him cry for a couple of nights, (not as bad as it sounds - just that we didn't just give in to a bottle of milk/breast every time he cried), We patted his back, winded him and comforted him, you know all common sense stuff, and spaced feed to every 4 hours rather than giving in every 1 hour, yes, every sodding hour he was demanding for his feed for 12 weeks. We were sleep deprived, delirious, depressed etc from waking up every hour every night, and DESPERATE. Anyhow, I said to DH after the second night if he cried again, I would feed him every hour as I couldn't bear him crying, but the 3rd night he just never woke up and slept for 12 hours!!! We on the other hand kept waking up out of habit for days after that. Not many people agree with letting a 3 month old cry like at all as they need their milk blah-de-blah, you may not either when your DS turns 3 months, in which case, just don't do it and ignore this paragraph! :)

Congratulations, btw!

DS2 is 6 weeks. I feel your pain.
Here is what we do:

• we sleep in separate bedrooms so at least one of us gets some sleep. I don't like it but DH takes over at the week end and he is not too tired for work. Hopefully this won't last too long.
• sleep with earplugs. You can still hear your LO when he wants feeding but you won't hear his little noises.

Good luck, it is tough.

Poor you, it is so tough. Your baby might be a bit young to start this but my dd fed every two hours and I was advised to try to start extending it by fifteen minutes a week because we were so shattered.

You must try to sleep in the day, it helps so much, what about just trying a little snooze!!! Also, it shouldn't last forever, and yes, accept help from anyone!

The grunting you mention reminds me of my son when he was born - he actually had acid reflux, which would cause him to grunt and groan and fidget while asleep. We had to lift his cot from the back so he slept at an angle and the doctor prescribed infant gaviscon which helped too. Babies shouldnt really do big sicks like that. If he ever does it during the day, look out for if it's projectile. If it is, then he probably has reflux. I think there's a helpful thread for parents with refluxy babies somewhere.

This sounds just like my DD, who had reflux, so it might be worth investigating if this is a possiblity. The sickness, grunting in the sleep and feeding small amounts are all common. Once we got her started on medication (Gaviscon and Ranitidine) at 6 weeks she slept much better, going through most of the night by 8 weeks (compared to being up every 1-2 hours before!). The only way I knew for sure that it was reflux that was bothering her was the big improvement she showed after the medication (there was some improvement after the Infant Gaviscon, big improvement on Ranitidine). You do need to find a supportive GP though - some seem completely clueless about reflux while others are very helpful. I've heard from many parents who were told by GPs that their babies didn't have reflux only to work out several months down the line that they did.
Hope the situation improves for you.

I went back to work full time at ten weeks, so not a 'new' baby but a baby that slept for about 4 hours a night. Their were times when i cried due to pure exhaustion, and slept on the bus. I empathise with you, i really do.

It does gets better, i promise!

Gracegrape - 22 months we think DD has had reflux without medication

congratulations!

here's what helped me cope...

first, tell yourself it's not for long. in a few months (!) you'll be getting a bit more sleep, will have recovered more from the birth - it's not going to last forever. this got me through very difficult nights.....

read this once - and I stuck to it. "why stand when you can sit? why sit when you can lie down?" even get your feet up when feeding DS.

grab any chance you can to rest. if family around, don't feel guilty - just get to bed.

I breastfed which meant that DH got off scot free. hurrumph. this did give me the chance to tell him I would sleep in the avos at weekends etc.

ignore all housework, cooking etc as much as possible just to survive the next few weeks.

try to keep DS upright after feeds to stop the wind! apparently fennel tea helps too - according to my MIL who said my DH was very windy!

I second LittleWaveyLines, we did exactly this; DP in the spare room and being in charge of just about everything apart from nights in the beginning worked really well for us. DD and I co-slept and BFd. It also stopped us getting in to any disagreements around whether to sleep train or not when DD got a bit older, as I know I couldn't bear to do it and was quite happy with the arrangement, and as he was getting the sleep he needed he didn't suggest anything like that. Good luck with everything, it will all be well soon enough.

When people used to say to me 'its not for long' it'd make me want to cry more, especially when they said 'couple of months, she'll be fine' I'd think Months, Months?...