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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To just want to cry

84 replies

StarlitTrees · 09/02/2017 05:23

Why do everyone else have perfect newborns? What trick am I missing here??

My son is 10 weeks now and still only taking 2-3oz overnight every 2-3 hours. I try to get him to take more but he just won't!
Infact tonight, he's been up every 1.5h!!

I know things could be a million times worse, and it's still 'early days'. But I just get frustrated when people boast how well their newborns sleep!
My friend told me tonight that her baby who's 2 or 3 weeks younger sleeps from 10-5.30 every night!
This is my second baby and I know my first didn't do that either.

Im just so tired. Luckily my husband gets up for one of the feeds else I'd he dead on my feet!

Doesn't help that weve lived in a plague house since he was born. Winter baby plus 3 year old just starting nursery is not a good combination. The kids and i have had constant coughs and colds for weeks now.

Sorry for the moan. I know it gets better so I just need to suck it up. It won't last forever. I just wish that little gems like 'sleep when the baby sleeps' were still relevant!

So AIBU to just hate everyone's perfect newborns just a little and to be sitting here crying.

OP posts:
Brown76 · 09/02/2017 11:42

I have no tricks. My child slept 10-5 at 3 months....and then started waking every two hours from 4 months to 7 months. I dont remember doing anything different and still have no idea why it stopped.

Badgerboop · 09/02/2017 11:50

I've been up every night for the past 5 nights with my 16 month old. He wakes every hour or so crying as he's teething. I'm so exhausted I could just break down. You are not alone FlowersCakeBrew

ambereeree · 09/02/2017 11:57

Awww my dd was like that. It gets better. Some babies just like to eat every couple of hours.

bigarse1 · 09/02/2017 12:10

don't know if this will make u feel better or worse but I have 3 and a half year old twins who have never gone longer than two hours! this is due to long term illness so not the norm at all but everyone who had babies at the same time are sleeping through. people who had babies 3 years after me are sleeping through lol!!!

zippy30 · 09/02/2017 13:59

You have my sympathies - I'm in the same boat with a 10-week old who's up 3x a night minimum.... Just exhausting. It really affects your mood doesn't it? I feel like I'm in a bubble all day & only semi-functioning... This is my third child & I also have a 3 year old & 5 year old, so there's no 'sleeping when the baby sleeps'.
I feel guilty because I'm wishing these early weeks away & ticking each one off with a sigh of relief. Not how I imagined I'd be with my 3rd & final baby!
Just wanted to say that I feel your pain - sleep deprivation is torture & it's ok to vent... we're only human & we need sleep!! Try to block out other people's 'sleeping through' tales as much as possible - just not worth thinking about that. Xx

ApproachingATunnel · 09/02/2017 14:10

My DS was waking up every 2-3 hours at that age too. So did my DD. My strategy was always 'go with the flow' so i just muddled through it, decamped in spare bedroom with both, co-slept on worst nights and accepted that's how thing were. DH helped occassionally but not much as i breastfed both. I got used to sleeping little. It gets better, i dont think many babies sleep through at that age.
You are doing things right, it's a difficult phase but it will come toan end!

sillygoof · 09/02/2017 14:21

Could you/do you co sleep? At least that way if the baby is awake you're lying down and resting.

Maybe baby massage to help them relax?

Sorry I haven't any suggestions other than that, and you probably get them all the time - it seems to be genuinely pot luck. Hang in there, it will get better... with my first I used to literally chant 'it's just a phase' over and over, when she wouldn't sleep/eat/was teething etc.

foxessocks · 09/02/2017 14:25

ewock your post made me smile as I'm so familiar with that feeling! My dh can't do much because I'm breastfeeding but when he does wake up he always asks me if he can get me anything and I always snap at him. In the end I told him (during the day when I was being normal!) that it was just annoying me and I instead of asking me anything just please leave a flask of coffee on the bedside table when he goes to work (he leaves very early) Grin

QuiteLikely5 · 09/02/2017 14:36

Change his teat? Those darn things can be hard for a newby to get to grips with! Especially if the hole is teeny

Underparmummy · 09/02/2017 14:51

Oh its so hard isn't it. My dc2 was an awful sleeper and I felt guilty for how crap I was with dc1 when I was so sleep deprived.

It gets better.

In hindsight I wish I had taken every offer of help going (and asked for some more!) and been a bit kinder to myself.

thundernlightning · 09/02/2017 15:17

OP, I just finished writing an article about baby sleep and it turns we (in the Anglosphere) often equate the amount of sleep our babies get with our fitness as parents, so we're really invested in having them sleep through the night. It turns out that most people exaggerate the amount of sleep they and their babies are getting (at least, according to numbers obtained in the US!) Sure, some babies do sleep incredibly well, but some people may be miscalculating or outright fibbing. Take heart.

WaryMary · 09/02/2017 15:35

What does your baby think of baths?

I was you a few weeks ago, my baby was feeding every 2 hours ( taking an hour to finish a bottle! ) I was getting maybe 20-25 mins every 2 hours and then had to be up all day with my toddler.

I noticed a massive improvement when I started a routine, so now every night I bathe the baby, 20 minutes and he's wiped out, sleeps for ages after!

The bath made him so sleepy he'd missed his next 2 hour feed and started doing 4 hours then.

It's shit isn't it, I ended up going on anti depressants as the lack of sleep was turning me into a wreck. fwel free to moan it can be bloody awful x

BabySnores · 09/02/2017 15:58

Yanbu you are good to rant and allowed to have bad days not matter how amazingly lucky it is to be a mum.

I know how amazingly lucky I am. My lo is my rainbow baby who we didn't think we'd get. Doesn't change and make difficult days easy, it doesn't make my painfull surgical birth any easier nor pregnancy and less of a struggle.

My lo had bad colic. Only colief worked. Baby massage is nice for promoting good sleep. You are doing a great job, don't beat yourself up or compare yourself or your lo to others.

MrsD28 · 09/02/2017 19:39

My 8 month old is up every two hours (and usually screaming at the moment). He once (ONCE!) slept for 9 hours when he was about 4 months, and has managed 4 hours two or three times - aside from that, he has not slept for more than 2.5 hours since he was born. I am currently averaging three to four hours of sleep a night, in one hour chunks Sad. At least this is my first, so I don't know any different! The sleep deprivation is brutal though - I ache all over from tiredness.

Outnumb3red · 09/02/2017 20:29

My 8mo was a great sleeper as a newborn, not so much now. Can be up 2-3 times a night now. I'm back at work next week. Hoping he'll be too exhausted with nursery to wake up. He also used to go down like a dream when new, again not so much now 😫

MumFullofDreams · 10/02/2017 02:02

Is there really any need to come on a post like this and talk about it though? What possible help can that be for a Mum who has had no sleep for weeks? Drives me mad.

MumFullofDreams · 10/02/2017 02:05

My six month old has been terrible for sleeping since the four month regression. I hate reached my limit with it and was at the point of desperation. Then last week I tried the 'Baby Sleep Sounds' app and it has worked miracles. I wish I'd tried it sooner. Stay strong, this lack of sleep thing is bloody horrible. Take help where you can, I sometimes sleep for a couple of hours while partner takes care of baby in the evenings x

AnnieAnoniMouse · 10/02/2017 02:24

I never bloody well sleep anyway, maybe I should just bounce between you all cuddling & feeding & playing with all these scrummy babies & you can sleep. Win/win.

They don't seem terribly scrummy when they're yours & keeping you awake for the hundredth night in a row, but when you're only borrowing them, you dont mind them being awake.

PyongyangKipperbang · 10/02/2017 03:14

When DS2 was 4 weeks old he slept through from 11 til 7...... smug mummy, yes? No.

Sadly he didnt tell his older sister that this was how it would be. She was 14 months old before she realised that its possible to sleep longer than 2 hours at a stretch. They are a year apart age-wise so he slept through a full month before she did despite being a year younger, and I suspect that she finally only slept through when I was so tired I slept through her waking up!

Sleeplessinsnot · 10/02/2017 04:07

🙌🏼 I hear you re the nursery germ brigade.. our 6 week old has had two colds and croup since he arrived and yet mercifully sleeps 9-3 and then 3-7 😍 Our 17 month old however, wakes every two hours and has done his whole life.. our four year old has also taken to waking every single night at some point and staying awake for at least an hour which makes her an absolute chuffin joy the following day Confused - i choose Gin 😉... stay strong momma x

neversleepagain · 10/02/2017 08:03

I wasn't boasting, was was genuinely so happy and relived that I told everyone!

I have twins who were born prematurely so needed feeding every 3 hours. The first 10 weeks were utter hell. Two very small, sleepy babies, one with terrible reflux that was hospitalised because of it and the other with colic so she screamed from 8pm to midnight everyday for 10 weeks! Pure utter hell which still makes me sweat with nerves when I think about it 4.5 years later! At night I was getting up to feed them, they took ages to feed because they were so small. By the time I had fed, winded and changed one it was time to do the other. I would have to settle the fed twin by patting her back and shushing her while trying to feed the other twin with one hand. This cycle would be every 45 minutes. I felt like I was being tortured. Plus I has emergency gall bladder surgery with two A&E trips on morphine, a badly infected c section wound that required a few trips to the GP with anti biotics and a massive cyst on my wound that needed cutting and draining. Dtd2 needed a 3 night stay in hospital because of really bad reflux. And all this before they were 10 weeks old!

I ended up with raging depression that took over 2 years to get improve.

However, twin 1 slept 10pm-7am from 11 weeks and twin 2 did the same from 14 weeks. They have been amazing sleepers and still are at 4.5. So when I told everyone I wasn't being smug, it literally saved me from going insane.

MurphyDog5 · 10/02/2017 08:08

DD is 7 months & still wakes for 2 night feeds! I convinced myself that once she started on solids she'd sleep though but no. So exhausted That this week I've been contemplating giving up breastfeeding in the hope that formula would help her sleep though. Knowing my luck though, it won't & I'll have just given myself an extra expense & made more work for myself!

JugglingMuggle · 10/02/2017 08:24

I've had one of each. I remember how miserable I was with my first - who just wouldn't sleep at night and only snacked at every feed. So YANBU to be miserable. I've been there, and been so sick of hearing about how brilliantly other babies slept I wanted to hide away. I did seek advice and we got sorted out with feeding- and so sleeping followed on. So with my second I was very aware and was careful not to let them snack. I followed a very strict routine. Turns out that's what my babies wanted. Mine just loved routine! Second child was such a happy baby and fed well and slept well by 11 weeks. But I never got complacent as I know how bad it can be. Both my kids love their beds now.

haywhenthesunshines · 10/02/2017 08:30

The longest my 9 month old has gone is 3 hours around 16 weeks...but is normally awake every hour or less night in night out. EBF bottle refuser and co-sleep.Sleep deprivation should not be under estimated.its absolutely horrendous. I really hope it improves for you soon Flowers

Grinandbearingit · 10/02/2017 10:06

It's cruel really, you're reaching out to another Mum for support and she slaps you down with her 'oh mine sleeps through the night'! You question your mothering skills, your feeding skills, your routine skills etc! Please other Mum, just be supportive and tell a white lie, say yours can be a nightmare too...why should you lie you ask, think of it as your good deed for the day!! My DD2 is 14 months and has never slept for longer than 2-3 hours, it's hellish! But I cope, you just do, and you tell yourself, this will not last forever! My DS1 has slept through the night since he was 11 months and still does thank god, he's 4! Read this article below, it brings it home about how they're not little for long, it's all about the sleep theif baby! We're all in this together, you're doing great, they'll sleep one day and so will you! Xxx

stolensleep.com/2015/09/06/why-i-am-glad-my-baby-did-not-sleep/