Tell me your honest to god experiences with your newborn

[Mitsufishi]

I am going through hell for the third time around with a newborn.

Everyone says 'sleep when they skeep'. But how? Mine would never sleep, in bed, on me, maybe in a buggy or sling if in constant motion. They all went on to be horrific sleepers so 'this too' did not pass.

My mother says 'all newborns are like that, people who say otherwise are lying'. So it's just me who can't cope then?

Honestly tell me, what was your experience with a newborn. Because I have friends who seem to have had it easy and have seen evidence of it. My mother insists people are lying to show off. But I don't think there's such a fashion for that any more and that actually if anything people often tend to make things sound worse than they are these days rather than the other way around. In any case I've seen friends newborns and babies that effortlessly doze off and wonder a thousand times over what I'm doing wrong.

I've parented all 3 DDs the same yet:

DD1 ok ish, woke the requisite 4 hourly, nightmare to get into thr cot but slept through from 5ish months.

DD2 my trial by fire. 45 minutes sleep at a time MAX and that had to be while held until 8 months then moved to 2 hourly. Now at 2 she still wakes at night.

DD3 is 10 weeks and sleeps She's wonderful!

Mine was a nightmare sleeper never easy going. I used to put her in her vibrating bouncer chair to knock her out or put her in the bathroom in her pushchair with the fan on or put her in front of the washing machine. Shes always fought sleep my mother was the only one who could get her to go to sleep by swaddling and rocking. I thought all babys were like this until I seen my friends baby be picked up and he just fell asleep on her while we were talking I was amazed and envious. I used to be in tears and hand her over to family etc just so I could sleep. Shes now 3 and is still very willfull it takes herr ages to get to sleep but then thank god shes down for the night. You have my sympathy

DS was hell for the first week. He was bf, only there wasn't any milk and he was slowly starving. He would only sleep on a person in the night (in the day he slept well) and DH and I took it in shifts to sit up with him on our chests. After a week I gave in and bought bottles. He then woke every three or four hours till he was 8 weeks when we started dream feeding at 11pm. He would sleep till 7am or thereabouts. At 3 months he slept through and was still having naps throughout the day. He was still having an afternoon nap age 3! He's now a brilliant sleeper age 6 and almost never woke in the night. I think it's purely down to the baby. They are just born that way. Friends have had very different experiences and they weren't doing anything different.

I hope you get some sleep soon. It's just rotten.

All 9 of the cousins, including my 5 children did not sleep through the night until they were about 3 (breastfed to age 1 - 2 but that's not really relevant) and even at 3 - 4 often woke at night.
How did I cope? Went back to work at 2 weeks full time and expressed milk at work - to have blissful 10 hours a day totally child free, earning a lot of money in work in a place where they treat you like some kind of superior God on the whole. It works and it's well worth it. Go forth and emulate this strategy. Men do it - they have the sense to do it.

I was that baby that slept through from 6 weeks of age. My mum said if all babies were like I was she'd have had ten children . My younger brother was an awful sleeper though, he didn't sleep through the night until he was five and slept in her bed until he was ten .

My first DC was a feckin' awful newborn. He screamed practically all day long, I was losing my bloody mind. I'd end up lounging around in bed most of the day in and out of sleep just to try and actually get some sleep. I was expecting he'd wake every 3-4 hours, have a feed, change and cuddle then sleep again before he was born. He had other ideas and wouldn't go back to sleep. It was endless and I was hallucinating and fell asleep in the bath at one point. From about four months though he became the biggest sleeper ever, he would sleep for twelve hours straight at night, have a feed and then sleep for a further four hours and then have a nap during the day too! He's been a good sleeper ever since.

Second DC was a very good sleeper. Newborn days were how you expect them to be and from about 2 months old she started sleeping through.

Third DC was totally different because she co slept and EBF so all I had to do was roll over, latch her on and we'd both go back to sleep. Blissful.

Regardless of sleep the newborn days are hard. It's just an endless routine of feed, nappy, scream, cuddle, sleep, bath, nappy, wind. Very monotonous. You have my sympathies . It does end though at least, there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

I tried sleep when they sleep with a 3week old and nearly went insane. Adults are not supposed to wake every 15mins, its worse than not sleeping at all. So dh and I did shifts (even though i was bf - many wakes didn't need bf).
By 2/3 months ds would sleep for an hour per nap so i could sleep when he did.
At night dh covered 8pm-midnight, i did midnight to 6am and then dh did 6-8am. it was survivable.

When mine were tiny - from about 2 weeks - they slept on DP between about 9pm and midnight. I would jump in the shower, jump into bed and have the only baby-free sleep of the day. Bliss. When they woke between 12 and 1 looking for a feed he would bring them up to me and they would be glued to me for the next 20 - 21 hours of the day. I can't remember how this stopped. I do clearly remember, when dd2 was 1 week old, spending 7 hours between midnight and 7am trying to put her in the basket: rocking her to sleep, putting her down, getting into bed, and her crying to be picked up 5 minutes later. It didn't work and so I gave up after that: they did both sleep in the cot eventually but I can't remember how or when I got them in there

I worked in SCBU before having my babies, I think DS had the potential to be non-sleeping, but I put him down no more 2 hours after he woke. This helps spread the feeds out (to more like 21/2-3 hours during the day).and allowed him to learn to self settle. He had a bedtime (with bath massage and dim lights)routine from 5 days of age. Also made sure we went out morning and afternoon everyday so he knew the difference between night and day. He was ebf and slept 7 hours at 2.5 months.

Should have said DD was my "easy" baby and needed none of that. She came out (9 days late) knowing how to empty a breast in 5 mins and put herself to sleep for long periods.

My first slept 4 hours a stretch at night right from the beginning so I'm finding it really difficult with DD2. She might sleep 2 or 3 hours for the first part of the night but right now is waking every hour for a feed (she's 6 weeks old). She'll only sleep on me, or beside me in my bed, at night, and mostly just on me during the day.

It is really hard some days, so you certainly have my sympathy.

I was the smug mum who knew I'd done it all right and you'd all done it wrong. I'd read the books and my babies routine and sleep pattern reflected that THEN I had baby no 2. It's a year of my life I never want to look back on. That sounds awful, but honestly it was so hard, and draining. I hated baby groups because everyone else's babies were apparently sleeping and I felt a failure for struggling so much. Babies really do come as individuals - the easy ones are easy, the hard ones aren't.

Both mine did 5 hours after about 6 to 8 weeks then just extended and extended. I found my kids quite manageable babies and toddlers.

I am struggling a little ith my eldests 'middle years which are supposed to be the easiest - after preschool but before teens?? wtf not fot me.

My eldest sleeps great but our friends DD wakes up 2 or 3 times a night and wakes them up each time too....

They really are all different - and this is ok we are supposed to be.

My babies were jaundiced and sleepy and hard to feed. DH and I were terrified, and their distress at being woken (which wasn't easy) to eat was hard. My first was ill constantly for the first two months with minor things, then again at four months with a major thing, and that also contributed to the dopey sleepy thing. My second was also very ill at four months.

After that, apart from a phase of screaming the house down between 8pm and 11pm, it got much much easier.

But if you'd asked me if they were sleeping, I wouldn't have told you all that, I'd just have said 'Yes'. And you'd have gone away probably thinking I was smug. No point in scaring people with tales of you crouched over the Moses basket muttering 'Please wake up by yourself, please wake up by yourself'.

DS1 wouldn't sleep in his crib until he was 3 weeks and fed 2 hourly for ages. Even when he turned one he was still waking during the night. He would have two 20 minute naps a day as a baby. He also hated me putting him down. He did have reflux and a dairy allergy though and I wonder now if that was a cause of a lot of his sleep problems.

DS2 feeds two hourly but sleeps really well otherwise. We can put him down in his crib or bouncy chair. He's a much more chilled out baby. I actually get hot cups of tea this time round! It's strange how different they can be.

My DS is 2.5 - newborn he was OK - fed every 3 hours, slept inbetween, then tended to sleep through for 10 hours from 4 months or so. Then at 1 he started to have some serious catching up growth spurts and was hungry all the time no matter how much I fed him during the day.

He still wakes up in the night now once/twice for milk/yoghurt/weetabix (depending on active growth spurt or not) and if he doesn't do that he's awake between 4.30 and 5am. I prefer he wakes up at 2am - and least I get to go back to bed for a bit and he doens't wake up until 6.30, but at 4.30am he's full of energy and I'm knackered thinking how on earth will I stay awake at work today?!

One the flip side all this growing means he's finally hit the 50th centile for height which I tend to remind myself of when I'm almost crying from not getting enough sleep.

I was terrified my baby would scream all night before I had DD1 but it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as expected. She wanted to be held all the time until she was couple of weeks old, but then we kept putting her in the moses basket as much as we could to get her used to it/not letting her sleep on us. By about 3 months she was sleeping 7 hours a night I think. But then I did cry it out to achieve this and in my experience it absolutely worked. But I'm expecting my second so what worked with her, may not work for this one! I think many are lying when they say their babies are good, it's a bit like when you say you're fine when people ask how you are even if it's your worst day ever. Think it's the British stiff upper lip thing.

As a newborn, my dd slept in the day and was awake most of the night. She didn't cry much, but we spent most of the time taking it in turns having her sleep on our chests through the night just to save our sanity. We bought a cocoonababy at around 4 weeks old which was a godsend. It was expensive but worth it as she then slept 4 hours at a time in it. Unfortunately when she turned 4 months she woke every hour until she turned 8 months! That was tougher than the newborn stage.

The amount of people who used to say 'sleep when they sleep' was so annoying. It's like they think you don't have anything to do in the day! I always struggled to nap through the day anyway.

Pretty sure I have one of those 'dream' babies...he's always slept fine. We've followed the SMA guidelines to the letter. So every four hours at first. My husband would do the 11 o'clock and I'd do the 3 o'clock...waking our son up both times!

Now he's eight weeks we've dropped the 3 o'clock. Sleeps from 11 to 6 - when husband's alarm goes off...waking all three people in the room!

He does sleep during the day but I've never tracked it...not sure it totals the (apparently) 16 hours as recommended on a baby site I've just read!

But seriously, I am sleeping far, far better now than when I was heavily pregnant. Maybe things will change when he is in his own room...god I hope not!

ds was a magical, mythical, peaceful sleeping baby who was, for the most part, really easy to look after. I slept when he did, he laid on the floor and happily gurgled as I got on with the housework, he was chilled out and happy in the pram when out & about and didn't mind going to other people.

Dr, on the other hand, was a nightmare. She had reflux and constantly sicked-up, she screamed most of the time, she wanted to be held and carried everywhere but then would squirm and writhe around to get out of my arms, she hated being left alone or being looked after by anyone other than me. Her only saving grace was that she slept through, 12 hrs, from about 4 weeks. Honestly, that was the only thing that kept me sane. It was so difficult that Dh and I have decided never to have any more children and he has recently had the snip.

2yrs later, ds is a moody and stroppy 3y old and dd is a cheery, happy and delightful little girl whose smile lights up any room.

dd on the other hand...

DD slept all the time, she was barely awake when she was first born. I got loads of sleep. Then when she was awake more, it was easy to put her down in her bed after she fell asleep in my arms. She slept more at night than during the day.

So she's been an easy baby. Now she sleeps about 6-7 hours at a time at night at 5 months old.

Not all babies are awake. We got lucky. Which is why we're only having 1, I don't think we'll get that lucky again

DS slept brilliantly and was really easy to settle and quite happy left in his moses basket from day one whilst i cooked/ate/did the housework, he rarely cried and fed well. I don't think DD slept more than 2 hours at a time until she was 6 months old, she screamed every time i put her down and had real trouble getting her to feed. Had DD been my first she would have been an only child.

Now they are older DD is relatively well behaved and DS is a handful.

All three dc's haven't 'slept' just literally wouldn't be put down without screaming. All three have hated the rocker, pram and car
With dc3 I thought I'm not having that again, but yep he's exactly the same. He's now 20mths and still like this, constantly on my hip from the minute he gets up. Maybe I'm just a terrible mother though?
Dc1&2 didn't sleep through until they were three.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only harassed mother in the playground

Dd slept right through from birth, took naps till she left reception. She would sit happily in her rocker while I got on with things, very chilled baby. She learnt to talk very early, there is no off switch and it is relentless from wake up to bed time. Its exhausting. She's seven and a half and the talking is now interspersed with attitude and sulks. But she was an easy baby!

DD1: terrible daytime sleeper, good night time sleeper from the beginning. Slept through at 13 weeks.

DD2: slept for hours during the day, awful at night for the first six months.

You have my sympathies - try and enjoy the snuggles