To leave 4 week old to cry

[Toastmostwoast]

With their dad!?

I'm honestly not sure what other parents do in this situation so want to know whether IWBU.

First baby is 4 weeks old, has recently started a witching ‘hour’ which coincides with DHs weekday ‘shift’ with her while I have a nap.

Since he is back at work and needs to leave early I tend to sleep 8pm-12am and then do the night shift (12am - 6am) as she sleeps relatively well but nosily. However she has started to cry for the sake of crying every night between 8-11. During this time she will only settle if I cuddle or sing to her, she will also not be put down during this time.

For the past week I’ve been reducing my sleep time to support, as I know it’s stressful for DH to be sat with a screaming baby for 3-4 hours straight, I also know he has a tendency to overfeed during this time as he can misinterpret her hungry cues.

I currently have a stinking cold and am tempted to go back to my 8-12 sleep and just leave DH to deal with DD, as I’m knackered, but is that super unreasonable when I know she will be distressed and I can ‘fix’ it in minutes whereas DH will be struggling for hours?

I just can’t see any other way to get ‘solid’ rest, DH can’t do the 12-6 due to work and tbh she isn’t bad overnight, with my 4 hours ‘nap’ and the few hours I get between 12-6 I usually am quite well rested, but now with her 8-11 screaming sessions I feel so guilty even considering going back to sleeping while she is upset.

WIBU, is this what most parents do in this situation? As mentioned she is our first so I have no idea what’s normal.

That’s not actually what the Lullaby Trust say. In their own words:

”To clarify - our guidance is for all families, however they feed their babies and does not include specific recommendations for formula or breastfed babies.

We have had a lot of comments suggesting there has been blanket advice for formula-fed babies to never bedshare, and equally that it is fine for breastfed babies to bedshare. This is not our message. We would like to ensure that all families know all the information around bedsharing.”

This is a far more nuanced position than you’re stating so I think you should take your own advice about “trotting out” misguided advice.

All of this 👏🏻.

It doesn’t sound like this baby has colic or reflux, it’s just crying for it’s mum.

Perfectly natural when you consider they don’t even realise they are a separate person yet.

So what happens if baby is your second or third? Not possible then to immediately drop everything to stop them crying etc. 🤷‍♀️

You use a sling. I have 3 with in a short few years, and it's the only way you survive

The OP is going for a 4 hour sleep leaving her newborn who is clearly looking for her mother to cry for that time. This isn't a 'hold on a few minutes' situation, this is leaving the baby to cry purposefully for 4 hours while she kips its totally different.

When I had a toddler and a newborn I had the baby in a sling so I could look after both at the same time.

All this "baby needs mum" guff. Nothing wrong with dad doing his job and learning to comfort baby. It is a partnership. No need to be a mummy martyr.

Then dad needs to step up. OP needs her sleep. You make it sound like she is off out to get her nails done. A mother who gets sleep will be a better parent.

Why couldn't your children's dad help so you weren't looking after both all the time?

Maybe if OP didn't have 4 hrs sleep she wouldn't be so disturbed by baby snuffling. Maybe I am unusual but if I am very tired I sleep more deeply and it is much harder to disturb me, if I'd just had 4 hrs sleep it would be much easier to disturb me. Perhaps a shorter sleep when DH gets home, then spend the evening together with baby and bed at 11 when baby is more settled and mum more ready for sleep.

@Derbee

”But the most important thing is meeting all of your babies needs in the 4th trimester”

no it’s not

OP’s needs are equally important

@CrotchetyCrocheting

mum needs sleep

baby has got their dad

mum needs so sleep so baby needs to get used to it 🤷‍♀️

@BrocoBill

she is giving baby to her husband

he can cuddle rock sing etc

YANBU to get some sleep, but I wouldn't just write off this evening crying as colic. Colic is just the name for 'haven't found the problem yet.' Mine used to start this around 7pm, eventually it turned out she liked a 6pm bedtime. Still does and she's nearly 2. I was amazed. My first was the opposite. Happy to stay up all night as long as I was there and would just sleep on me.

Anyway, have a look for the source of the problem. Overtiredness, reflux, CMPA. Don't dismiss the idea - you have lots of experienced mothers telling you this isn't something you or your baby have to live with.

Also, if she is overtired you might be best putting her in a next to me and sleeping beside her. DH can keep the baby monitor on and feed and change her when she cries. Your sleep won't be perfectly undisturbed but it never is when you have a newborn.

White noise is helpful. If you have an echo Alexa will play all sorts. I like washing machine sounds.

It would seem that her baby will indeed need to get used to her mother putting being 'well rested' ahead of her needs.

Mum could sleep when the baby sleep if she chose to but instead picks the 4 hour window when her baby needs and wants her 🤷‍♀️

My 'napping with her' comment was meant to be 'put her in the bedside cot next to you' as she's more likely to settle close to mum

While the lullaby trust says there is no specific advice regarding bf/ff mums and cosleeping, there's plenty of research regarding it and the reasoning is the same that dads shouldn't cosleep - they don't have the biological wiring that makes it safe

No, she picks the four hour window when her DH is about between him coming home from work and when he needs to go to bed - i.e. the only window available to her.

Look if you have no knowledge of newborns then I'm not sure you should be commenting. Newborns sleep during the day too. You sleep when they sleep not when they need you. It's basic parenting 101.

@CrotchetyCrocheting

its not always possible to sleep they sleep though is it

and mums needs to sleep trumps baby needs to be cuddled by mum when there is a perfectly capable other parent right there to cuddle them!

OP can sleep through the screaming, but the snuffly newborn sleeping sounds are too much?

There are so many threads on here at the moment about people being shocked that newborn babies are hard work.

Just come back to say I hope you're OK @Toastmostwoast. You've had some harsh replies here (I'm not saying they are right or wrong, but you're in the midst of a tough time with a newborn, sleep deprivation, hormones, etc).

I hope your GP/a paediatrician can help you figure out whether this is "just" colic (still hellish) or something more, like silent reflux or an allergy (my bet - and also hellish). If it is cmpa it can be really daunting when you get to weaning etc, but there are some great Facebook groups which I've found really helpful.

It will get better, I promise

At 4 weeks I just grabbed sleep where I could and tended to my babies when they needed me. You are their mum, there's a reason why you can comfort them more easily. My husband worked., I looked after the babies. The house was a tip half the time but my babies were my priority. All three of them in under four years.
Mine are all teens now but the way people talk about mothering an infant seems to have changed massively. I just did whatever the baby needed, whenever it needed it. Unless you embrace your new life with flexibility and leave these rigid expectations behind, this could get tricky. I could never sleep when the baby was crying so it just makes sense to get up and settle to them and then you get to sleep again sooner.

Ive read your posts and it appears to me that you only have read about newborns as everything you are saying is textbook, not the messiness of real life with newborns. If you had experience with newborns you wouldn’t be trotting out the advice mums find to be useless by day 3, advice like sleep when baby sleeps. Or say that the reasons the baby fusses for DH during those four hours is because “baby needs it’s mum” and it’s “only that four hour window baby needs mum”, when it’s known babies can settle for their dads (or other partners/elder siblings/adoptive parents etc) and so either the baby just needs to get used to dad or the baby is high needs and has silent reflux or something making them physically uncomfortable.

Are all second babies traumatised or something? I have to leave my second to cry to sort out my first child and sleeping during the day is not an option - surely that's the reality of life with more than one child.

The 'sleep when the baby sleeps' doesn't work for everyone.
DD wouldn't nap in the day unless she was on me until she was 14 weeks old. I literally couldn't sleep when she slept because she was laid on me. She would sleep in her crib at night for an hour or 2 between feeds but not in the day. I don't know how I did it but I managed to push through on a few hours sleep each day, it's the joy of newborns.