To ask how much sleep you had when your babies were tiny?

[missmargot]

I have to start by saying that I am probably BU a little as my baby isn't a big crier (so far) and I know others have it worse than me.... But I am exhausted.

DS is six weeks old and mixed fed. I am averaging five hours sleep a night, broken into two stints. Last night I slept from 10:30 until 1:30 then from 3:00 until 5:30. DS and I went back to bed at 6:30 but only dozed. I struggle to nap during the day as I am doing a few freelance hours every day plus helping DH with our business, which isn't ideal but unfortunately essential at the moment.

I was managing ok but this last week I feel exhausted in a way I didn't know was possible and six weeks of limited sleep has finally caught up on me.

Is five hours at night normal/good/bad? Any tips on how to stay sane?

...but then didn't tend to ever sleep very much in the day.

That sounds very normal to me, quite good actually, as often 6 week old babies wake hourly in my experience! All I can say is that you will get used to it, and you'll adjust to a state of exhaustion you didn't know was possible before, but it will start to feel manageable. I would also try to go to bed a bit earlier if you can, nearer 9 than 10.

DD was waking to feed every 2 hours at that age. Now at nearly 4mo she's going for up to 4/5 hours between feeds but is much harder to settle in between (last night she was up at 8.30 briefly, then 11.30 for 30 mins, 3am for 1.5 hours and then finally went back to sleep until 8am). Sympathies OP, it's knackering having a tiny baby. On the other hand yours might turn a corner soon - DS was sleeping 7-7 by 12 weeks.

I used to go to bed about 7.30 or 8 every couple of days which helped. Also made myself have 30-40 minutes with my feet up during the day, sometimes I would nod of for 10 mins I found that just falling asleep even for a tiny amount really made me feel refreshed.

DD is four months. She grazes all night, usually waking once an hour at the moment, but will do this for as long as I am in bed. We co-sleep, as this is the only way I have been able to save my sanity. It's hell.

With dd2 I got 5-6 hours broken sleep for 9 months.

Dd1 starting sleeping from 10 weeks.

Can go either way!

Thanks everyone, it's reassuring to hear that it is normal or even good. I knew I wouldn't get much sleep with a small baby but I hadn't realised how tough it would be.

DS is in a bedside cot , I've tried feeding him from there but he struggled to latch. We mix feed so at night I breastfeed and then offer a formula top up which he sometimes takes and sometimes leaves (mixed feeding came about after a long struggle with breastfeeding, a poorly boy with congenital pneumonia and threat of further hospitalisation if he didn't gain weight- he is now doing brilliantly).

I will try going to bed earlier and getting a few hours before his 10:30 feed. Frustratingly the early evening is the time when he is the most lovely at the moment, lots of smiles and cuteness but sleep needs priority I guess.

Just spoke to DH and he is cancelling a meeting this afternoon and coming home so I can sleep for a few hours whilst he takes care of work and baby. I am so excited it's pathetic

I breastfed both my DC, the 1st for 9 months, the 2nd for 7 months. They were like chalk & cheese.
DC 1 still doesn't sleep through the night, often getting up for a drink or the loo or just to lie in bed & read. He's stopped getting properly up at 5am now, thank goodness. He's nearly 16 BTW, year's that is, not months!
My youngest slept through from being about 4 months old. He's ready to get up at about 8.30/9am on a non-school day. Bliss!
I do remember when DC1 was young thinking, "I can't get up again tonight." He cried & I did.
I used to berate myself thinking about what I was doing wrong. In hindsight, I don't think anything. Both my Mum & I are light sleepers, always have been.
It's difficult when they don't sleep through, but it will pass

Don't know why the machine has auto-corrected years to year's. Arrrrgghhh!

Hardly any until DS was 2. He 'slept through' i.e. 5 hours straight a grand total of 3 times until a week before his 2nd birthday

He's 3 now, he is slowly getting better

Can your DH give your DS a formula feed at 10.30? That way you can go to sleep early and sleep through until the 1.30 breastfeed? I remember sloping off to bed at 8pm quite a few nights! Worth it for the extra shut eye.

We had 7 weeks of wonderful sleep while DTs were in NICU/SCBU...

Once they came home 11.30-2.30 and then around 3.30-7 so it was doable as I would go to bed at 9.30 and sleep until 2.30 and DH gave them a feed at 11.

One of the best things about being in hospital was that they came home in a pretty well established feeding routine.

However, now they are 2.6 my sleep has gone to pot - I still wake up to give their night feed which has been dropped since forever and it takes me an age to get back to sleep. It's like its been programmed into me.

DS was in hospital for the first few weeks but I was up every two hours expressing so didn't benefit from the extra sleep opportunity.

If DH gives him a formula feed and I skip a breastfeed will that cause any issues with supply? I had a really painful blocked milk duct last week and I'm not keen to repeat it.

I think ive met two people in my life who said their baby slep through really really young,the rest saidthey were up every few hours.My ds woke up nearly on the dot every two hours wanting feeding so if you can imagine by time id done his bottle,fed him and got him back to sleep and fell asleep myself before long he was up again!!!

Doesn't sound bad for six weeks, just know that it gets better from there! My dd2 is now 12 weeks. Around two months she started having a five or sometimes six hour stretch, now we sometimes even get eight hours! Its amazing the difference between five hours cobbled together and five hours straight. I do do everything in the book, not sure what's working so do it all. She is swaddled( strongly recommend the woombie), i have an app on my phone playing white noise and i give her gripe water before bed and keep her upright for at least half an hour before putting her in her cot. If i try and scrimp on the winding time she inevitably puked in her cot and we are back to square one!

i would also say make sure you aren't jumping to her to quickly and actually waking her up. They do make quite a lot of noise in their sleep and will sometimes let out a phantom cry but not actually be awake. I remember with dd1 being so knackered that i would hear her, think ill just close my eyes for five more seconds, and then discover it was an hour or so later!

Ds4 is 6weeks old now. He is brsastfed and we feed at around 12, 2-3 ish and 5-6 ish when we tend to get up. Luckily he can latch on finewith me lying on my side and we cosleep ( not for everyone I know). That means we go to bed at 10 and then I wake up for about 10mins at each feed time overnight. Just long enough to check what time it is.... sniff test for bum ( only change if poo or leaking) and then latch him on and quick feed. I then go back to sleep asap. The aim in is minimise time light is on and avoid getting out of bed if possible. Still tiring but at least im getting some sleep-napping during daynot an option for me unfortunately

Sorry, seen you have a boy- should have said him not her!

Oh and i don't turn the lights on at all unless there is a poo, have quite a bright nightlight and that is sufficient for feeding or wet nappy change

That sounds pretty normal for me as well for the first year :( It improved after they turned one and finally slept through around 2.

Be kind to yourself

mine slept similar at six weeks... By ten weeks she'd gone down to up every hour minimum. By 20 weeks it was up every two hours minimum. Now at six months she'll wake every three hours before midnight... After midnight is awful, although the other night she slept a surprising four hours on a row which is the most she's ever slept... Until now her record time was three hours.
If it helps... I've come to accept she's just not a sleeper. It helps me anyway.
Try to rest when you can and make sure dh pulls his weight

All of my children have a tendency to stop breathing when asleep, so we have always had to take it in turns to sleep when they sleep, one of us always had to watch the whole time they were asleep, so that when they stopped, we had a chance to restart them, (alarms are rubbish)

We both work long hours and are self employed so we just use to do two hour shifts. So we both got just under four hours a night, but split into two.

Unless there was an incident then it was all hands on deck, we had a lot of incidents.

Don't worry it such a short time they are babies it will be over before you know it, it just feels like forever when you are in the middle of it all.

Sounds about the same as we had at 6 weeks. I breastfeed, but what saved me was DH doing the nights at the weekend with bottles of expressed milk. I'd still wake up with exploding boobs but would pump and go back to sleep with none of the worry or responsibility. DH and I slept separately until something clicked at 11 weeks and DD started to do consistent 5/6 hour stretches, which meant only one night feed.

Feeding in the dark didn't work for me - I needed the light to change her, to see that she was latched on properly and at least the light of the phone to read MN and keep myself awake. Going to bed early also didn't work - being woken up got me down more than staying awake, so I preferred to stay up until her last feed at 11/12 and have two wake-ups rather than bed at 9 and 3 wake-ups.

She's now 5 months and often doesn't wake in the night. I hope the worst is nearly over for you.

That sounds fabulous at 6 weeks. DS didn't start sleeping through (730-530) until 11 months. Even now he still wakes @ 530am most days so I always go to bed at 10pm.

I had 3 under 5 years old at one point and for about 6 months I would have about 4 hours a night split into 1 1/2 hours, 1 1/2 hours and another separate hour. I could barely string a sentence together and when people talked to me it sounded all echoy. Horrendous.

I survived but it was very very hard.

10 minutes!
Well it felt that way.
Dc never sleeps more than 2 hours at a time.