8 week old baby. When does it get better?

[265IceCream]

Please please tell me when I will get slightly more sleep? I thought we'd have it down by 8 weeks but I'm actually sleeping less now than at 3-4 weeks. He sleeps longer stretches (4-5 hours at night) but he SCREAMS 8-11pm and I'm so wound up, I can't fall asleep right away. He also gets very loud (grunting, thrashing about) in the last 1-2 hours of his sleep. Then by the time I have fed him and held him up long enough (he has reflux), it's 6am when he goes to sleep again but I can't. It's morning and I can’t just sleep. I try, I really do.

Then when I could nap in the day, lunch time onwards, he's wide awake.

There's nothing wrong with the baby other than some wind and reflux.

I KNOW every mum probably goes through this. But I have no mum friends. I'm the first in my friendship group to have a baby (I'm 34 so not exactly young). Any mum groups require driving and I can’t do it all by myself (faffing about with the buggy, car seat, too much faff). I feel too tired to drive safely.

OP noone knows what a newborn induced sleep deprivation is like until they have it, don't worry. Xx

Mine were very broken sleepers but I didn't have that distress in the evenings, I just literally popped my third one daughter in the boob early evening and let her feed/snooze whilst I watched telly. She didn't have reflux/wind though. That is tough.

My second was the toughest sleeper but my first was the hardest because I moved to a new village and was lonely. (And sleep deprived). Please try to get out. You'll meet other sleep deprived mums and drink tea and it'll all be better for having human adult company xx

@265IceCream have you had your latch checked and baby checked for tongue tie? By someone qualified not just any midwife/HV. The wind and reflux could be linked to a tongue tie. If you've got access to a spare £200 I'd 100% recommend a private tongue tie practitioner.

I know he's refluxy but in that witching hour when he's cluster feeding I'd get yourself sleeping while feeding lying down. Even dosing would help you a bit and not get so wound up. If he really can't tolerate the lying down then prop yourself up in bed to feed and get your partner next to you so he can supervise and make sure baby is safe