To be utterly fed up of advice?

[Mississippilessly]

DS is 18 weeks. He only has decent naps on the sling or car seat. He doesn't sleep well at night.
I feel like I'm doing it all wrong. I've people around me but none that can really truly help out.

I am sick to my back teeth of advice. People telling me to CIO, or put him on solids, or follow Gina fucking Ford. I've no idea what I'm doing and I'm so so profoundly exhausted. It doesn't feel like it will ever get better. But I'm so ground down by the advice. As well as people telling me I 'look tired' no fucking shit Sherlock.
Sorry. As you were.
To make me feel better - care to share any bad advice you were given!?

I’m going through sleep torture too.. DC2 is 9 months old. He’s ebf and wakes up every 2 hours 😭 I’m so tired, I feel like crying often. I’ve started thinking that it would be nice to have an operation (nothing very major, just tonsils or appendix removed), so that I can rest in hospital on my own!!! I think that may just be sleep deprived crazy thinking though.

It will pass. DC1 is now 3.5 years old. He woke up every 2-3 hours until 15 months old. I stopped ebf then and he started eating more food. Since then he’s slept 6:30pm-7:30am amazingly well. I sometimes miss him overnight haha.

It’s really tough, but try to enjoy some of the nighttime cuddles.

P.s. I wasted £300 on a sleep consultant first time round. I couldn’t do CIO or CC, so it was a big waste of money!

The best answer to unwelcome advice is “that’s interesting...I’ll think about that [never]”. That was my stock reply for MIL during wedding planning 😆

I reckon most people lie about how well their baby sleeps.

Sleep when the baby sleeps.
My baby only slept on boob, being held or being pushed in the pram.
That phrase had me wanting to tear people limb from limb.

Health visitor: put baby down when she's tired but happy
Me: she's never tired but happy.
Health visitor: put her down when sleepy but not crying
Me: she screams when she's tired. She screams when I put her down.
Health visitor: the advice is to put your baby down when tired but awake.
Me: that advice doesn't work for my baby.
Health visitor: she should be sleeping for five hours at a stretch
Me: she isn't. Goodbye.

Non sleeping babies suck.

My ds has undiagnosed CMPA. At his worst, I got about a total of 3 hours broken sleep.

Me and dh constantly bickered with each other and was a total wreck.

In desperation, I put ds in his baby swim at night. I turned it on, switched on the white noise, and I actually got sleep!!! I still got woken up but I got a good block at a time.

I know I wasn’t supposed to let ds sleep on the swing but I was desperate

When my baby is napping on me during the day if I hear someone tell me ‘you need to get that baby off of you’ I just want to punch them.

Had*

You are about 10 steps ahead of me, when I was at your stage. You know the advice is shit. I didn't. You probably even know its their way of justifying their own parenting choices. I didn't. I did everything wrong. And my 3yr old still Co sleeps. And look! I'd prefer if everyone went to sleep in their own beds and stayed there till morning.
That's not how it works in my house. BUT. my kid knows he can always come for a hug, night or day if he needs it.
The most stressed I ever was as a parent was when I was trying to make my kid do smt he wasn't ready to do. Keep on ignoring! You are doing great.

Tell people to feck off.you will feel better.
I had an insufferable fucking woman who made some comment Every time she saw my dd2 from babyhood on. I actually shouted " fucking shut up" at her across a road once. I promise you that is not my usual stance. She just gave me the rage.

Oh and she also told me that "if only I read a little more (head tilt) that dd2 (dyslexic) would soon "catch up".

My GD is 20 weeks and nowhere ready to sleep all night. She was better at 8 weeks but that seems a lifetime away. My DD is like you, so tired so tonight I am keeping the baby all night so she can sleep. She was almost asleep when mum and dad FaceTimed to see if she was ok and woke her up but I gave her more milk and she self settled. She loves the feeling of a fleece blanket on her face and can settle with that. Is there anything your baby likes the feel of?
I’m hoping this could be the night she sleeps all night. Fingers crossed.

That’s so lovely that you’re helping your DD, @deste. Wow, I’d love a night of sleeping all by myself for a whole night.

Hope your DGD sleeps well for you

people are just really really really annoying

a recommendation - NB NOT advice - Calpol plug in vaporiser. Really knocked mine out for hours when he was tiny (us too, as he was in our room) Also Shaun the sleepy sheep white noise plush toy. They are always my two tips - when asked - to pregnant friends

deste that's lovely, though not sure what telling me that was supposed to achieve given I have said I dont really have any one around me.
Glad your DD does though.

So at 2.30 - in desperation- DH took him for s drive. They came back at 7 and he had slept the whole time.

Argh.

Yep. People are shit. I have a 3 month old. The absolute worst in unsolicited advice has been friends with veeery slightly older babies. And you think cos it's all so recent for them they might be right. Have to keep reminding myself babies are little people, not robots. There is no magic formula.

I have one friend I really wanted to by my mat leave pal. But she spends 90% of her time trying to follow some deranged routine from Gina Ford and being upset because her baby doesn't nap. I have gone down the "my baby does not like sleep unless she is tired. Why make her miserable trying to force it when she's not tired?" Route and the judgement from this pal is awful. Yes I am up at 1am with my baby. No I'm not going to leave her crying until I'm crying too.

As a PP has done, I've just started lying.

Feel free to bop me for this advice, but I'd say try and find friends with a similar outlook and similar babies who you can comisserste with. Mush is quite good.im in a judgement and unsolicited advice free zone whatsapp group that has been a lifesaver.

You can’t win, OP. My health visitor stopped in her tracks and told me in a very suspicious way “you look so well!” I said I was blessed DD slept through the night and she told me I should wake her up to feed her. I didn’t!

You just can’t win.

I hope you manage to get some rest today.

OP I recognise your anger and frustration at people. I'm barely talking to my, best, friend thanks to her stupid condescending advice. Fills me with rage thinking about it. My MIL was also full of quite frankly, crazy, advice.

After eight weeks of no sleep I completely broke down and was a mess. I'm not giving you advice but I will say I took DD to a cranial osteopath in a fit of desperation. I cried all the way there and all the way during the session. She was no better after that. He said she needed at least three sessions, so having committed myself and having no other avenues I went back. She has slept since the second. We still have bad nights, she is a baby, but it's like a different child. It worked for me, it won't work for everyone, but for DD it did. Nothing else came even close. Like your baby she would sleep in the car. That's fine if your able to drive the bloody car.

I remember this- the sleep deprivation is horrendous. I think a lot is developmental. My baby just loved to be awake and woulldn't nap at all. Didn't sleep much either and woke up several times at night and often very difficult to get back to sleep.
I remember MIL coming round wen baby was about weeks, his eyes were just dropping off. she came in my living room from the kitchen as she was leaving shouted really loudly (purposely to wake baby up so she could have her goodbye cuddle) I said ssssh and she continued talking very loudly and then I said can you be quiet please as baby was about to go off. By then it was too late- baby had woken and then she said 'He'll sleep when he's ready!' I was like... Coming from a woman who had one baby and lived with her parents who did a significant amount of child care. My baby was a shitty sleeper up to 8 months and then it just happened for us. We did a few things which may have helped (teddy comforter in cot, comfy mattress etc) but I think he just slept when he was ready. I was lucky it was 8 months. Very lucky

Should say 8 weeks

I know the whole point of this post is about not wanting advice 🙈 but just very quickly if he sleeps well in the car have you tried a mama roo? Horrendously expensive but my daughter slept amazingly in their for her naps.

*there

People are a pain I have an autistic and adhd child and have been told just smack him that will sort out his behaviour (hhmm he has autism and ends up physical pain due to certain noises, smells and tastes) but apparently that doesn’t matter. I have also had you needed to be stricter, everyone is a bit autistic aren’t they, just force him to do x or y, he isn’t that autistic because he can’t talk (Hhmm wonder why the school have given him constant one to one support then an has a team of medical staff supporting him).

I have learned to just shrug it off and occasionally snap at them by pointing out if they dealt with half of what I did they clearly wouldn’t cope or they would shut up.

My DS1 was a terrible sleeper. We tried everything. I had Gina Ford, he screamed the house down night after night, the No Cry Sleep Solution, which DH renamed the No Sleep Cry Solution, so you can guess how well that went! In the end, Id breastfeed him to sleep, put him in his cot, stick him back on when he woke up and just put him in his buggy to sleep and go out places during the day. He slept whenever and wherever. By the time he was one, I was ready to poke the eyes out of the next person who told me I was making a rod for my own back! He's 10 now and still a very light sleeper. He goes to sleep at 8 and wakes up at 5. I'd be a squillionnaire if I had £1 for everyone who has told me to put him to bed later if I want him to wake up later. Luckily, he now reads a book or goes downstairs, makes himself a snack and watches TV until a decent hour! His brother has been a great sleeper since he was born. Go figure. People just need to STFU but they dont!

Hope it's not the sort of unsolicited advice you're peeved off by (!) but your lo sounds very similar to my dd who had a CMPA and reflux that wasn't treated properly. Hope you can get it sorted out, it's so hard getting no sleep and knowing your lo is in discomfort.

Mississipp sorry i didn’t mean to upset you I was only sympathising with you because DD is like you and exhausted. She is also going back to work in five weeks time and getting desperate. BTW her baby has an intolerance to milk and has been on an alternative milk since she was 6 weeks old and the screaming through the night did stop. I hope you get help soon.