To think it'll get easier as she gets older?

[sarahb083]

DD is ten weeks old and I'm finding the sleep deprivation and overall adjustment really difficult. She breastfeeds every three hours and won't take a bottle. She's also very hard to get to sleep. We had a particularly bad night last night and I'm so exhausted. If you have children, did you find that it got easier after the newborn period? When exactly?!

I find it gets harder in some ways - as kids get older there’s more behaviour management, school problems, friends, play dates and all that. However, with my kids, they slept well after the toddler years, and that break in the evening/at night made dealing with everything else so much easier.

Is she your first baby? Trust me you are doing great (even if it doesn't feel like it). Treat yourself kindly and do what you need to do to make each day/week easier.

I have two dc. DC 1 as it turns out was just an unsettled baby - I didn't know this at the time, and thought it was me or that having a baby was just so much harder than I thought. I won't lie, it took until 8 months before I felt settled. However, dc2 was a totally different baby, calm and settled from day 1 and slept. Each baby is different but it does get better...always. at some point this will be a distant memory. It is hard, but it is just a stage and you got this!

@Liverbird77

If you have a vecro baby, planned co sleeping is much safer than falling asleep whilst holding baby because they won't settle elsewhere.

Neither of mine have countenanced sleeping in a cot of any sort really and that's not from lack of trying! I would have been delighted if they would have settled in a cot, thrilled!

@Babyboomtastic I could have written your post but my babies got worse at sleeping not better (well two or them, my first was ok, it's all relative! ) and that coupled with the moving and tantruming of a bigger baby meant it was a million times more difficult than when they were tiny and couldn't move etc.. I was way more wreaked as a parent of a toddler than a newborn.
I totally get though that if your baby starts to sleep through at 6 months its does get easier for you but personally I didn't find it remotely helpful when ppl told me "it would get easier by x months" as it just didn't until they were older and I just felt like a total failure for not being able to get them to sleep....
I know that sounds like a bad thing to say to someone who is struggling but what I found a lot more helpful was advice on how to cope IF they don't magically get easier, my dh and I would do shifts outside of breastfeeding etc.

Op there will be way better nights and as they get older you can read them better and they can be distracted but you'll get phases where it goes a bit backwards and they teeth or get sick etc. But older babies usually nap for hours a day so that will be great and you an catch up! My youngest is 4 and only started sleeping through at 3 but was way easier to settle and plays happily all day with his siblings etc so it is finally way easier.

Once it gets easier you might end up having other dcs and the fun begins all over again though!
At this age and assuming you have no other kids make sure to rest during the day especially as your baby is non mobile, putting feet up and chill as much as you can as rest can help with the lack of sleep. Best of luck to you

[quote Liverbird77]@MaryShelley1818 the Lullaby Trust gives information - but it's not safe information.
I'll continue putting my children to sleep alone, on their backs, in empty cribs. Cribs are one foot away from furniture and three feet away from windows. Pacifiers reduce the risk of SIDS.
This post is for the benefit of any lurkers - the so called Safe Sleep Seven is nonsense.
Adult mattresses are not safe for children under two.[/quote]
I would hope any lurkers will follow the official guidance and not be swayed by a random person on the Internet. As others have pointed out far rather carry out safe cosleeping than fall asleep on a chair or sofa due to exhaustion.

There's a lot of evidence that breastfeeding and co-sleeping (when done safely) protects against sids as the mother's breathing helps regulate the babies. In fact formula fed from birth babies are at an increased risk of sid also.

@Liverbird77 countries with the highest rates of bedsharing have the lowest rates of SIDS, that isn't a coincidence. I'm sure if the OP did decide to entertain that, she is fully capable of researching actual scientific evidence 🙂

Breastfeeding every 3 hours is quite good going. Mine is 9 weeks and takes a couple of ounces of a bottle every 2 hours. I couldnt breastfeed.

When mine predictably started sleeping through the night things became a lot easier, around the 14 month mark. It honestly did feel like mostly a slog up until that point and the best advice I can give is get a baby carrier and just spend as much time as you can outdoors, coffee in hand, seeing friends if you can. It absolutely gets easier once you yourself start getting more decent sleep. It is a hard season of your life right now, but you’ll get through it.

@Sooverthis1

Yes!

My worst sleeper still managed 2-3 hour stretches when a newborn, but from 6-12m, We'd get maybe 2, 2 hour stints, followed by waking every 15-45m for the rest of the night. And trying to balance that with work and an older child was HARD.

I think its better to be realistic about how it changes, so that you can better prepare for it. So you can sit down together as a couple and work out how to make sure that you get enough rest. If its thought to last a short period, then you're more likely to push through, and end up even more exhausted.

The only reason I didn't go insane with sleep deprivation (even last night I'd only slept 90m by 4am partially because of my toddler) is because of how my husband and I work together to make sure that neither of us is broken tired.

Its interesting that virtually everyone says their first baby is hard, but their second was so much easier. It could be that they are, or it could be that after having a toddler, a baby seems easier in comparison, wheras for your first you've got nothing to compare it to.

None of it is linear. The challenges change so quickly. Their intense physical needs start to decrease, and their emotional needs increase etc.

Hang in there, @sarahb083! It's at one of the very hardest points right now in terms of sheer physical exhaustion.

In some ways the baby stage is emotionally the easiest because you can keep them safe (not true in their teens, god help us). But the baby stage is also against the Geneva convention in terms of sleep deprivation and and physical demands.

It will be better. You will get through. I believe in you.

Yes it absolutely will. I promise.

Won't be long until she's sitting and laughing and can play with some toys etc.

Much easier then. Hang on in there. X

Honestly it will ease at around 12 weeks, it’s still hard but things get easier and you adjust to your new life. First Newborns are really hard, the more babies you have the easier it gets and the more time passes the easier it gets.

2 children and I always found it got easier 10 weeks, 6 months, 1 year then 2.5-3 years.

Hang in their and don’t let your guard down for the 4 month sleep regression 🙈

I will tentatively say ds is very easy at the moment (16 weeks.)

He wakes once in the night to be fed but while even two weeks ago it took me a good hour to get him back in his crib I can now have him fed and tucked back in in 40 minutes

During the day he naps - not always for as long as he ‘should’ but regularly, he feeds well, he’s a delight.

And I found his newborn days AWFUL!

Good luck

@Sooverthis1 according to a 2016 report by the AAP, made up of 67,000 pediatricians, bed sharing increases the risk of SIDS by 400 per cent.
ABC plus pacifier showed a forty per cent reduction.
ABC plus ROOM sharing a fifty per cent reduction.
ABC plus breastfeeding a forty per cent reduction.
This is not cumulative.
(Source: AAP technical report on SIDS and other baby related deaths 2016).
On the topic of bed- sharing, for anyone not convinced, there are lots of death scene re-enactments, done with permission and support of bereaved parents, whose babies suffocated whilst bed sharing.
Dangers include: suffocating on parent's body or clothes, entrapment between bed and wall, entrapment between bed and bed frame, parental overlay on baby.
You can also look at photos of the depression caused by a 10 pound weight on an adult mattress compared to a cot mattress. Adult mattresses are not safe. Source: Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The actual picture used to illustrate the so-called safe sleep seven is FULL of unsafe practice..the one where the child is holding a comforter, there are pillows above the mum and baby, that ridiculous "c"position, whereby the woman could still roll into the child (and there have been many examples of this). Indeed, the use of the so called "cuddle curl" has been discredited by a Japanese study (one of the countries I guess was being alluded to previously,) Source: Tokutate et al 2018.
The "biologically normal" argument is also complete bullshit. We've evolved beyond many things other animals do because we have the benefit of scientific research and data behind us.

My original post was for the benefit of the op, who, I am quite sure is more than capable of analysing evidence for themselves.
It can be bloody hard work to cope with a young baby who hasn't yet developed a circadian rhythm and is up all hours.
There is never, ever a reason to compromise a baby's safety. Share the load if possible. Place the baby to sleep on their back in an empty crib every time. Every time. No matter how tired you are, no matter how much the baby would "prefer" to sleep elsewhere. It's not worth the risk. Talk to loss parents if you aren't sure.

OP, it will get better soon. It is such a hard, exhausting time but it will get better.

“There is never, ever a reason to compromise a baby's safety. Share the load if possible. Place the baby to sleep on their back in an empty crib every time. Every time. No matter how tired you are, no matter how much the baby would "prefer" to sleep elsewhere. It's not worth the risk.”

I chose not to compromise my baby’s safety by never, ever, risking falling asleep with them whilst sitting up. No matter how tired I was. So so dangerous. So I coslept and followed guidelines for minimising the risks in that respect. Because the risks associated with falling asleep whilst holding a baby sitting up in bed or on a sofa are much, much worse. I’m sorry you can’t understand that because what you are saying is dangerous.

OP - this is a distraction I’m sorry, and it gets easier. How and when for your own baby will vary. But it will.

@HereComesATractor of course I understand that. I would think it goes without saying that falling asleep on a couch or whilst holding a baby is also extremely dangerous. The risk of suffocation on a couch is huge.

I have sincerely tried to give the OP some genuine advice. I am not trying to distract from her post. Someone mentioned bed-sharing so I just wanted to respond that it's not safe.

We've all been utterly exhausted. That's what happens with babies. I too never risked falling asleep with them on the couch or when holding them. Never.

God, yes. It gets so much easier. In general, barring the odd blip, it gets easier every day. I found 6 months a turning point, then 9 months, then 13 months (for some reason 12-13 months she was a total pain), then 2 year etc etc. She's 3 now and easy as pie most of the time. I hated most of the first year.

Son got loads better once he began on solids (4 months in the olden days), and began sleeping through from 5 months.

At 3 months I was still sometimes (breast) feeding for half an hour, then sleeping for an hour, then he was up for another half hour feed, during growth spurts. Bloody awful.

It has 100 per cent got easier with every year that passes. I wish I'd known that before, because in the modst of it I thought, 'this is awful but it's your life from now on, and you just have to get on with it.' If I'd known it was temporary, I would have let the house chores and meals slide and would have enjoyed my baby more.

“ We've all been utterly exhausted. That's what happens with babies. I too never risked falling asleep with them on the couch or when holding them. Never”

What you are suggesting means that some women may. In their efforts to avoid cosleeping they may end up taking greater risks. That would have been my situation. It’s great for you that you can’t imagine not being able to put them in the cot. Every. Single. Time. Big motherhood claps for you. But with some babies the greater risks come with the mother not actually being able to get them back into the cot at all and trying to follow advice like yours. Planning cosleeping where the risks are mitigated is much better than non-planned cosleeping. You think we just didn’t try hard enough to get them into the cot, don’t you? You’re wrong.

I feel like safe sleeping has become a bit cult like sometimes. In an ideal world every baby would be in a clear cot for every sleep but not every baby will sleep that way they just won't. Ds1's refusal to sleep in a cot drove me to the point of PND. If you haven't had a refluxy, Velcro baby you just won't get it I suspect.

@HereComesATractor spot on when you say there's an assumption you just didn't try hard enough to get them to sleep in a cot. It's a risk assessment like anything else in life, it's not black and white.

Much easier, OP. Absolutely, parenting older children also has its challenges, but assuming no significant additional needs, you'll never be this sleep-deprived on a regular basis, or for that matter, breastfeeding your stroppy nine-year-old. And they can talk to you and tell you what's wrong. You aren't continually playing the 'guess what this Random Unhappy Wail might mean' game.

You have my total sympathy. I absolutely hated the newborn stage. Don't despair. It gets better.

I'd rather have a baby refusing to sleep than a dead baby. That's what it boils down to for me.

I am not making any assumptions about whether or not you tried to put your baby in a cot.

I rather feel you're assuming that it's all been sunshine and roses for me. It hasn't.

Anyway, we will not come to any agreed on this.

Again, I hope the OP will soon be through this very difficult stage. As I said, my youngest is 8.5 months so I do have a recent understanding of what it's like.

If you understood risks, you would get that there comes a point with some babies where “cot at all costs” increases risks beyond the risks associated with planned cosleeping. By definition, you did not reach that point and I am glad for you as it feels horrible.