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.

Hi op, I'm one of those lucky ones.. At least I have been so far, finger crossed it lasts!

My baby is 2 months and is breastfed on demand, from birth was feeding every 3 hours and sleeping in between. At 2 weeks she got more alert and started spending more time awake in the day but was content staring, listening to me talk/sing and as she's got older now babbles away at her teddies.

She can go for a 5-6 hour sleep at night which is great but occaisionally wakes once for a feed and goes straight back to sleep.

She very rarely cries. When she does it doesn't last for long and she is quick to soothe. She sleeps straight away in the car. All in all she's great.

I've done my best to encourage night time sleeping but I've never left her to cry (I don't think I'd have the strength to) or followed a strict routine. I hate to give myself no credit for this but yes, it has been down to luck! Some babies sleep, others don't.

On the other hand, I hardly slept in the last trimester and the days leading up to, and first few days following her birth I had no sleep at all and I was hallucinating!

All 3 of mine slept really well.A friend had a baby (1 of 3) who would never sleep for more than 20 minutes, and my older brother was very unsettled (my mum thought it was due to milk intolerance).
I did the same with all 3 of mine - Fed ,change, burped (gripe water at night), then swaddled and put in their crib/rocking chair or pram, with a dummy. I did this right from birth really. I did have to rock them to sleep sometimes, but the best thing I found was to put the tumble dryer on and put them next to it, it got them off to a deep sleep (the noise from the dryer always makes me feel sleepy as well).
Hope things improve for you soon OP .

My First was sooooo easy, she slept 7-7 really early on, ate anything and was happy to just play on her play mat whilst i had a cup of tea.

I got pg with DS when DD was 9 months and thought it would be easy again - My second was a completely different baby, he screamed 24/7 even though he didnt have any reason to (had him at the doctors so much), didnt sleep for more than 4 hours at a time until he was 16 months and was up at 3.50am EVERY day for 4 months. Thankfully, at 19 months he is a dream and much easier to handle than DD who is now 3.

I wouldnt have another baby if you paid me, id happily have a house full of toddlers instead.

"It is my belief that, rather than a baby's 'personality' dictating whether a baby eats and sleeps well, it is the mother's."

That is the funniest thing I have read for a long time.

I have a family member like that. Followed a strict routine with her first. Dolled out advice to anyone who would listen. It was all about her parenting.

Then she had her second, and all hell broke loose.

It is not about you, it is not about your baby. It is about both of you. If you love routines, slept well as a baby, etc, etc, genetically you might stand a decent chance of a compatible baby. But if you don't get a compatible baby, forcing it into a strict routine will either be miserable for both of you or an utter failure.

When routines work well they are great. When they go badly they are a recipe for despair and misery. That's why everyone has to find their own path.

But personally I would discount any book that says to minimise eye contact and interaction during feeds (not aware that GF does this, except possibly at night, which is different. Wasn't the not looking a Truby King idiocy?)

My DS was difficult. He would not sleep unless he was held.

We tried everything. Every method/book/advice and stuck to it for weeks to try and get a routine.

Nothing worked. At bedtime I gave a feed (BF) he would nod off and then I'd have to keep him in my arms until he was fully asleep and gently place him in his cot. If he woke up at any point the whole routine would start again.

If he woke up in the night - which was usual 2 or 3 times - same again.

In the end the only thing that worked was the sound of the hair dryer.

My DH and I slept for nearly a year with the recorded sound of the hair dryer in the room!

It took until he started school to get to sleep properly - until then bedtimes took 2 hours and at least an hour mid night wake up.

Fast forward to now at 11 and he can sleep for England .

Upshot is I feel for you. It was awful and worst was everyone assuming we were doing something wrong and all the "helpful" suggestions.

Sorry you're having a hard time. My first Ds was a nightmare sleeper. As it turn out I think it was wind caused by a milk allergy we didn't discover until he was 7 months as I was breat feeding. At 4 months I had to have my mother stay as I couldn't deal with it any more.
No car sleeping, just screaming when over tired. Hideous.

I swear by Gina ford. The routine helped with his wind as demand feeding was making it worse. I couldn't let him CIO. I used baby whisperer PUPD. The way I see it is books are like friend with 1000 babies. Some great advice but you'll still pick and choose what works for you.
On a plus, thanks to this Ds1 went on to have LONG ( 3 hour) day time naps till he was 4 and slept, and still does, 7 til 7.
Ds 2 slept like a log from day one, any time any where. Eating however..

Hope you find what works for you xx

well once we had established a routine of rboob one feed, left at the next and bottle at the third... he chewed them so badly I had to give each side a break of twelve hours and he had settled to feeding every four hours... and settled after feeds with not a lot of wind and crying... I really did wonder if something was really wrong with this baby as he slept so much and fed so little. took a while to work out this was regulation text book baby and it was dc1 who was on the more difficult end... feeding up to 20 times a day, not winding easily, having difficulty sleeping... frankly giving her a bottle and her feeding 13 times a day (mixed feeds) felt like such an improvement. oh and she slept on me an awful lot.

Both my children were horrendous newborns. Refluxy, whingy, never slept, always cried, lost weight on breast milk. It took me many months of undiagnosed post natal and depression and feeling like a shit mother before I bonded with them. My DS has just gone 6 months and from the day he started solids he has been a delight. 3 months gets a little easier, 6 months much easier. I looked at DS only last week and realised for the first time how much I adored him.

Newborns are odd creatures if you ask me. Hugs to you. I know what hell it can be. X

Oh and I paid for a wonderful nanny for 1 morning a week so I could catch up on my sleep whilst she looked after my newborn and 2 year old. She's still with me now and the children adore her as do I !

After DD, I didn't believe that some babies just slept. She fought every nap, skipping them completely if she could, even when she was tiny. This was from day one, she never had the sleepy newborn phase. Every night sleep was simply her passing out from exhaustion, usually around 2am.

Then DS came along and he just slept. Slept all the time, anywhere and was generally totally chilled out. People still say, "Oh she was your first, you knew what you were doing with [DS name],"... Umm no. We didn't do anything different, we didn't prevent DD from sleeping and then suddenly figure it out with DS, they are just different. For some reason people like to view 'babies' as non-distinct little lumps, but that is not true, they're just tiny people.

Hats off to you OP for doing it three times.

Some babies are naturally good sleepers and some babies are naturally bad sleepers.

All babies are different and there isn't a 'one size fits all' approach, but the vast majority of babies can be, to some extent, 'trained' to sleep. You can't make a bad sleeper a good sleeper but you can, almost always, improve the sleeping habits of a bad sleeper.

A baby of 6 months+ that is waking every hour or so is not 'normal'. There is either a serious medical problem or it's something that can be improved with sleep training.

I think there is a fine line between using the 'it's nothing you did'/'it's their personality' line as a comfort and making people believe that they're powerless to change the situation/there is no help. You don't have to just put up with years of sleep deprivation, there are things that will help. Sometimes you need someone outside of the family/a professional to find the solution because you're just too close to it.

Mine was a good sleeper, but there were still some times that oof - I try not to think about. She still is (age three), thankfully.

In our NCT group, though there was a wide range. And while I don't think too much parents personalities caused the sleep problems as babies definitely each have their own personalities and when it comes to sleep in the first part of life you get what you're born with, I will say that some parents attitudes exacerbate problems. If you've gone into childbirth with really fixed ideas about how motherhood will be, a child whose personality is running counter to those ideas can cause you a lot of problems. Certainly among people I've known, the firmer they held on to "it'll be like this!" The worse they had it.

This only gets made worse when people tell you how you're wrong anyway (and they'll tell you that whatever you decide to do, and not just about sleep.)

Despite lots of experience with other people's kids when I got pregnant, when I gave birth I felt really clueless about what it was going to be like. With other people's kids their parents had made decisions and I had followed them. Not here! And I do feel like the cluelessness/willingness to roll with the punches I was dealt made our lives so much easier than many other parents in NCT and other friends who had babies around the same time. Clueless seemed to reap great benefits.

This is (mostly) such a refreshing thread. Makes me feel so much better!

It's controversial on here but get gina fords book, follow it and they will sleep.. Both my babies did exactly what she said they would. I had no clue with the first baby having never held one so it was a godsend for me . ( don't want a gf debate / my babies slept for 12 hours from 12 weeks ) .

OP - are you still reading? How are you doing? I had a rough night with no 3 and feeling your pain today

I also had a rough evening with no.3 last night.

My DH and I are not getting on at all either. He is resentful that he is left looking after the two boys (he's not), despite the fact that he is asleep at night so is untouched (sleepwise) by this new baby.

OP, hope you are OK.

Is anyone else having DH problems with their third newborn as well?! With all three of mine we have had the tiresome arguments about who is more tired/doing more.

pistol the bizarre vehemence with which you want to criticise everyone else rather than proving the superiority of your parenting skills suggests that the person most insecure about their choices is in fact you.

My DD is now 3 and a half months. She was so poorly in hospital with Strep B it was hard to tell what kind of sleeper she was going to be those first two weeks as she slept the sleep of a very sick baby that broke my heart. Once we got her home it was blissful for all of us not to be surrounded by the noise of monitors and alarms. And aside from a bit of fussing she slept pretty well, from 10-4 and loads of sleep during the day too.

She is my first so I think that makes it a lot easier. It must be so hard with your second or third. And right now, she's not sleeping so well so it can get worse

I had one that slept and one that didn't. I did the same things with both. So I don't think there is much you can do and it really isn't anything you can control.

I'm still here penguin

Decided to go with the flow and chuck out any efforts of routine, not creating 'bad habits' etc and my god life is easier. I am so much happier. Newborn has some naps in buggy but mostly on me or in sling. Sometimes put her in her bad when she's fallen asleep on me. Feeding her whenever she fancies. And you know what, she is sleeping a five to six hour stretch at night in her own bed. My others who I desperately tried to get onto a routine slept in thirty minute spurts at night and didn't sleep through until some rigorous and torturous CC at nine months or something.

pistol seriously this isn't the thread for you. Well done on Gina Ford and everything but I tried that with my first (and I mean really really tried) and it just didn't work. I had terrible PND and I partly blame it on that. Feeling like a failure that I couldn't achieve a routine. When babies are a bit older and you can leave ten to cry it can work I suppose but sometimes it means putting yourself through hell. When you have a bunch of children you have to put your mental health first. It's all about survival. How could I take my kids out for the day (like we did 9-5 on Friday when it was lovely and sunny) and play mad games and have a picnic and travel on the train and visit lots of places and people if I was busy focusing on trying to force a routine? Id rather have fun with my kids. And don't say it will make it easier to have fun with your kids
In the long term because that is just a load of
Bollocks.

Mitsufishi, it's so good to hear this update :) Your day on Friday sounds just lovely btw - not to mention all of that helpful vitamin D you must have got. Wish you all the best.

Blimey. Lots of viciousness. Outraged, your post was excellent, thank you for talking sense. No-one should have to put up with an otherwise healthy baby refusing to sleep. It's a complete nonsense when people say it is 'normal'; it isn't. It is the stuff of breakdowns.

Mitsufishi, the arrogance of telling someone: 'This thread isn't for you'! I came here to tell the OP that her life needn't be like this and offered her some reading material to help her practice sleep training methods. What did you come here for, other than to tell us what a lovely day you had on Friday by wearing your baby?

My first three children had big age gaps, and were dreadful sleepers if put down.

Then my last two were quite close together, and also near in age to child three, above.

Suddenly I was having the experience for the first time ever of a hungry nappy wearing toddler and a clingy new baby.

After a couple of months I found that if I had spent much of the morning feeding the baby and then needed to get the toddler lunch, the baby had to be put down, wail or not. He was not the only 'baby' in the house needing attention. I put him in his pram and cultivated an attitude of "I'll get back to you in a minute!".

What I discovered is that those last two babies were the best sleepers I had. Out of 5 children.

I had accidentally taught them to settle themselves, and that they didn't always need to be held in order to sleep.

Greenrememberedhills, precisely.