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.

This always gets trotted out here, but I bet there are thousands of exhausted female surgeons who get up in the night with their DC. Six straight hours of sleep with a newborn isn't a realistic expectation for him.

I think you need to cut yourself a bit of slack. Tummy time is certainly not the be all and end all, for a start. You're doing your best. Get your DH to buy some headphones so he can watch TV, stop obsessing over the details (have you really measured the decibels? You will look back on this bit and laugh. Not so much the rest). And just take it one day at a time.

Oh I rember those nights when DS was a newborn - prior to introducing a bottle he would cluster feed 8pm -4am then dh would get up and walk up and down with him, while ingot a couple of hours before he had to leave for work it's really tough. DS only slept half hour in the day until I decided enough was enough and if we safely coslept I could get a 2 hour nap for us both in the afternoon - how is your DD with day naps, could you try the same to get some extra kip in?

Has dh tried:
a warm bath (either bath her or get in with her)?
skin to skin with a snuggly towel or blanket?
A walk in the pram all bundled up?
White noise?

Have you tried a next to me so she can see and smell you?

What is her sleep like on your shift, will she wake for a feed then settle quite quickly?

This will pass op, though it doesn't feel like it when you're in the thick of it!

Thank you for this 💜

Baby is with dad. Dad is doing what sounds like a good job of taking care of baby. You need sleep in order to operate effectively as a mum the rest of the time. You're not being at all unreasonable to leave baby with a loving caregiver so you can get some rest. If you were hit by a car and ended up in hospital, your DH would be doing 100% of the night shifts and no one would suggest that was a cause for concern!

It sounds like you are quite fixed in your idea of having a routine time when you sleep. Could you sleep earlier? Say when dh gets home from work before the witching hour starts? Or a sleep whenever the baby sleeps in the day? I found I never got the grown up sleep of "one big sleep" but i just took a nap whenever the opportunity presented itself. So lots added together. Have you tried this?

It will get easier. Even a few weeks will make a massive difference. Hang in there.

I’m sure there is, but if there was an option for that surgeon to not be sleep deprived surely that’s the better option?

I’m lucky in the sense that my job is a cushy professional role, mostly WFH so if she is still a difficult sleeper at 14 months when I return to work I can sleep during the day whilst she is at nursery.

^^ could you sleep 5-8? Or even 6-8, then take her in the bed next to you so she's happier? Or 7-9 with dh and baby out walking/driving so you get a solid 2 hours. I'd have killed for a solid 2 hours at that stage with my first 😂

I regret ever finding the option to measure on our Apple Watches! I log it on her feeding spreadsheet

He has tried everything bar driving, but she hates the car so don’t think that will help.

I will however mention on the overstimulation part, we can test not doing the evening tummy time and will find some headphones and see if him watching something with headphones in helps settle her with him!

Oh god, stop tracking you'll drive yourself demented.

A colleague who's a lecturer in a statistical subject did this, tracked everything, applied a load of complicated models to solve the problem of The Baby. No statistically significant results.

Trust your gut not a spreadsheet (and I'm an actuary, I trust spreadsheets for EVERYTHING).

Sometimes gently tapping the dummy helps them settle into sucking it.
With my eldest, if she spat it out I knew she was hungry.

Once you are feeling better could you look into safe co sleeping? It was a godsend for me with DD1.
I did all the nights. DH was a mechanic back then. No one wants a sleep deprived mechanic working on their car!

Issue is she is a very noisy sleeper, so sleeping at the same time as her is difficult and tbh in the day impossible for me atm anyway, I don’t doubt the longer this goes on I might get so evaluated I sleep regardless of her grunts etc. but currently I don’t sleep properly if I’m in the same room as her, and with the safe sleep guidelines that’s a non negotiable atm.

overnight I’ll get a few cat naps (so 20-30 mins at a time) when she gets into a deeper sleep and is more quiet. But it’s not solid sleep if that makes sense.

*exhausted not evaluated - fml

Has your DH tried baby massage and a warm bath?

Doesn't work with all babies but it worked with mine.

I haven’t read the full thread but have read the OPs posts.

Putting aside safety for a second, are you able to sleep with the baby on you? Both my babies (including the three week old that is currently keeping me and DH up all night) wouldn’t sleep anywhere except on a person for the newborn stage - almost entirely on me rather than anyone else. We split the nights very similarly to you and your DH (I sleep 9-1 and DH sleeps 9-6:30). DH tries to settle the baby himself during his turn but if that doesn’t work then the baby sleeps on me, I go to sleep and DH watches us during that time to make sure the baby doesn’t get into a dangerous position and I don’t roll onto them.

It’s obviously not ideal but at least I get some sleep and the baby isn’t screaming so I count it as a win.

Do you use white noise? I have a noisy sleeper too, but we put white noise on in the bedroom which makes it less disruptive. Your baby isn’t getting enough nighttime sleep if he/she’s crying from 8-11pm. You need to work on a nighttime routine / cutting down late afternoon naps etc. For all your sanity.

Colic is thought to be severe stomach pain caused by such things as the digestive system not having finished developing yet or indigestion or food allergy etc etc

The baby is not crying for no reason. The NHS site is crap on this, better info here
www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/colic/symptoms-causes/syc-20371074

Medicines exist which may help with the colic but probably all you can do is hold her while she tries to cope with the pain, and if you’re breastfeeding do try eating milder foods. My baby screamed in agony for hours if I’d eaten curry before breastfeeding but if I lived off very mild foods like pasta and white rice she was much better.

Also do you swaddle? A nice tight swaddle might help baby settle.

This is such dangerous advice and really stupid to put on the internet. Please do not give your 4 week old baby water.

OP millions of women manage the newborn stages on no sleep. No it’s not ideal, no it’s not easy but it’s what you signed up for. Put white noise on when she sleeps so you can drown her out. Try contact naps via a sling etc. Definitely SAFE cosleeping is something I would try.

Bottom line is the 4th trimester is very much a real thing and your tiny baby is seeking comfort from the only primal thing she knows. You need to fulfil her needs.

This can't be real?

Leaving a 4 week old to cry when you know all she wants is her mum?

No way.

Why are you getting no sleep? You said she sleeps well from 12 -6, six hours sleep isn't bad with a new born. Does she have naps in the day? If she does you sleep when she does. You just get through this stage however you can but a baby screaming for 3 hrs can't be good for her.

If I've had zero sleep for days I would sleep if a bomb goes off, exhaustion does that to you.

Don't be bloody stupid what an overreaction. Tap water boiled and cooled is perfectly safe for a young baby.

I might be being fussy but I really don't want a surgeon who is getting no sleep to be operating on me. I hope they would have the sense not to do it.