To want routine, for my 4wk old ds2, who is awake 10pm-5am . AIBU to want to sleep at night ?

[Oblomov]

I don't know what to do ?
I feel like i have already tried most things.
Please anyone offer any advice ?

We are at breaking point.
We have been up all night. Till 5am.
When dh gave him to me, and said 'take him to our bed. i must sleep. i have to go to work.

I sobbed and sobbed yesterday night at about 10pm. i just don't know what to do with him. dh is concerned too.
ds1 said, 'i don't think it was a good idea to have a baby'. 'why' dh and i said, shocked. 'he cries all nught and keeps me awake' said ds.
quite frankly, i sit here this morning, feeling the same

This is ds2. ds1 is 4.10. I was spoilt with him, becasue after cs, and being in hospital for first week, he was all over the place when we got home for second week. sleepy. awake all night. but by end of second week, he totally flipped,and put himself in a routine that you could set yuor clock by.
I bf him at 6am,10am,2pm,6pm,10pm,2am.
He would bf for 20 minutes, burp immediately and I would be back in bed, asleep within 25 minutes.

So I was spolit. So thats why ds2 has come as such a shock.

He too was cs. jaundice, thick blood and low blood sugars. I was struggling with bf, so had to express before they would discharge me from hospital. then it turned out he was tongue tied. now been snipped. bf is not much better, despite going to clinics. they said it was a miracle I had managed it for this long. I have alot of milk,. so bf every time. then offer ebm.

it is tyring bf and pumping so often though.

He takes quite alot. i suppose it is demand feeding. but quite regularly throughout day. weight gain has been very good, says hv.

he is very sleepy. poohs are green, sometimes.
suggesting wind. maybe i should try infacol( been trying for a week) AND colief(used with ds1).
I have been expressing and throwing away the first 20ml of each breast, in order to get more hind milk into him, as recommended by over supply guides. that doesn't seem to have helped.

at 10pm he was still downstairs. dh said the only thing we haven't tried is formula. off i go to get some from our supplies.we try it for the first time, last night.

so between 10 and 12 he takes about 5-6 oz of formula. wide awake and chirpy.
I take him to bed at midnight. he continually feeds and winds, feeds and winds. at 3 or 4 am i have had enough.

I let him cry. and cry and cry. thinking 'tough love'. I can't do this holding him, co sleeping shit anymore. he needs to sort himselfout. and ds1 will have to get used to a bit of crying until he does.

then I take him back to his cot.
I wind. no burp. 25 mins i wind for. put down . leave room. he cries immed. i go back. wind him. burp. roots. I feed him. wind him, for 20 mins. no burp. put him down. cries. so it goes on.

at 5 am i leave him to cry and cry. dh comes. he has been in and out all night, to be fair.
he swaddles him and brings him to me, in our bed. dh downstairs.

i have cranial oestopath booked for tomoorow. ds1 had 2 sessions and i was not convinced, but am prepared to try anything.

am thnking that tough love is required. have fed him once thsi morning, but admittedly, not at 7am like GFord would like.

should i keep him awake and feed every 3 hrs. MAKE HIM

mind you, when nanny seaside and sil where here the other day keeping him awake and feding him lots, that made no difference, to the nightime.

during the night I opened up another formula and he had another 4oz of that. so he had 11oz throught he night.

I bf him this morning though. not formula.

but seriously we can't continue like this.
I need to change his body clock. I need to sleep, so that i can get up and do the school run , taking ds1 to school ( my sil has been doing this for me for 3 weeks, finishing this week)

dh and I are shattered. we did have a few nights of regualr sleep over the last couple of weeks. but for the last week, he has been awake ATLEAST 1am-4am every night. I give it and take him into my bed. ds on sofa bed. I don't want to co sleep though. I want my dh back. and I don't think I sleep that well anyway, when we co sleep. only doing it out of desperation.
I am at a loss as to what to try next.

All advice welcome.

I didn't want to leave this unanswered.
I ff ds because I couldn't latch him on nd NHS help was very poor so completely different for me.
It does sound like you need to put the past 4 weeks behind you and try to start again. I don't know how easy a routine is with bf.
I don't really have any advice at all.
Ds was quite bad with stubborn wind and colic, I used lots of gripe water which seemed to help.
We also had a very strict bedtime routine from 2 weeks and once he'd gone to bed, he wasn't allowed out of the bedroom until he was washed and dressed the following morning.
Hopefully someone will be along soon who can help.
I hope it gets better soon.

Where does he nap in the day? I didn't use cot in the day, as wanted to teach ds the cot and the bedroom were for long sleeps, and rocker downstairs were quick sleeps

This is very hard for you and I sympathise - my DS wanted to sleep all day and be awake all night at that age. Nothing I did seemed to help at the time.

However - 'tough love', leaving him to cry, is not going to make him sleep at this age and it is going to make you both miserable. At 4 weeks he should not be kept awake for hours in the day to make him sleep at night. It won't work and I found that it just made DS sleep even worse at night.

I think your expectations are very unrealistic, wanting to put him down in his cot and settle himself - your DS1 was unusual if he settled into a routine so quickly and self settled without leaving him to cry for ages.

If I were you I would just do whatever it takes to get some sleep, day or night, and sod the routine and the self settling etc until he is older. I'm sorry if that is not what you want to hear - I really do sympathise and I am not looking forward to this stage when my DC2 is born in the next few weeks.

Oh you poor thing.

I remember being desparate for sleep with dd2 and for me, I found the Baby Whisperer advice invaluable. (But not the bf advice, which was woeful, IMO).

I think sometimes when babies get like this they are desparately overtired, so I think it's worth taking them into a darkened room and sshh/pattimng until they fall asleep. By this I mean cuddling them over your shoulder, patting them on the back regularly and saying "sshh" past their ears. Usually, they calm down after a while until the screams become sobs, and eventually they start to relax. Keep sshhing and patting for longer than you think, until they are asleep and then gradually put them into bed. They might well startle a little at this stage, but just keep sshh/patting until their breathng is relaxed and regular. The whole process takes maybe 20 minutes at first, but shortens within days.

In the day, don't let ds sleep for longer than 3 hours at a stretch. But leave him to sleep as much as he wants at night. Look out for signs of tiredness (yawns being the obvious one) and put ds down for a nap when you see those signs.

I know things seem awful now - believe me, I've been there. But it won't be like this for ever and things will improve.

I would say you either co-sleep for a few nights (without your DH) IN ORDER TO GET DS2 SLEEPING AT NIGHT and to let your DH recover a bit. Once you are all sleeping through, you will feel better able to tackle everything.

Or you get a maternity nurse for a fortnight to sort you out.

goodness, how tired you sound....

I second everything the hedgewitch said

4 weeks old ??

Far too early to have a routine, you will kill yourself if you try to force the issue

All you can do is go with the flow, rest when you can, take up all offers of help, sleep when the baby sleeps, let the housework go to hell

Look after your family and yourself, nothing else matters

As the weeks pass, your baby will start to go longer between feeds and eventually start to get the days and nights the right way round. Some babies are just much slower at doing this, and you just can't rush it.

oh, sweetheart, I feel your pain! I really do. DS2 is only just sleeping at 7 1/2 months!

Instead of full co-sleeping could you sidecar? We took the side off the cot and attached it to our bed so I could pull him over at feed time but still felt comfortable in bed.

At 4 weeks he should be sleeping between 8-10 hours a night (with wakings) and about 6-7 hours in the day (over 3-4 naps) what is his sleep like in the daytime?

Do you have a bedtime routine? How does he get to sleep?

Do you swaddle him?

Sorry, a lot of questions I know but I'm trying to think of what helped with DS.

< offers thanks I don't ever have to go through this again.... >

You are exhausted and not surprisingly miserable

how dark is the room at night?
what do you do in the day, is he in a sling/carseat/buggyu for long periods where he is happier to sleep?

YABU to want a routine but clearly not BU to want sleep.

You can't use tough love on a four week old.

He is crying because he wants you.

Forget the housework, tell your DH to take some time off and just concentrate on feeding and holding your baby whioe DS1 is at school.

If you think there is something wrong with the baby take him to the GP.

Not all babies are the same.

BTW if you live near me, I would be happy to help.

Agree with provincial lady - i think its unrealistic to expect anything other than what is happening at the moment - the only thing you can change is you need to nap during the day and go to bed earlier. and get your dh to do his fair share of course.

I dont think the ff will be helping to be honest and will probably in the long run be the end of bfing tho I know thats not a very helpful thing to say at the moment.

oh and I think the hind milk/fore milk thing is a load of old tosh and you shouldnt be throwing any milk away but thats just my opinion...

so you're not unreasonable to want to sleep at night but unreasonable to expect to...

oh and can you get other parents to do school drop off/pickup for you? That really helped me...

I don't think you should be throwing away milk either. You have to feed him yourself so that your supply adjusts itself... also, maybe he's thirsty and needs that foremilk?

Poor old duck... I do feel your pain though. All I can say is it really is only a few weeks. YOu've had lots of good advice, which I can't really add to, and some of it will work.

Hope you and dh can get the shifts organised so that you can both sleep a bit + that your baby gets himself into a better rhythm soon (NOT a routine!!).

all the best,

pb

I didn't see the throwing away milk thing.
The hind/foremilk is much more complicated than the first 20ml. Who suggested you do this?
Pumping and disposing will just keep the milk at the level you're at so not help oversupply.

If you have a lot of milk, stop pumping.

You need to cut out everything you are doing that's not essential (housework etc) and pumping is a lot of effort/time consuming/you have to wash and sterilise pump etc.

I'm not sure I understand - but if you have a lot of milk, surely pumping will only stimulate your supply even more. Don't throw away expressed milk either - won't help imvho.

Hope things get better soon - it's really really hard esp with an older one to sort out.

Oh, Ob, I don't know what to say except to wish you the best.

HUGS.

I'm not BF so don't know how to help you sort out those issues.

But hope you do soon!

Sleep deprivation is awful.

Had to respond to many good posts. Thank you.
Will have to re-read to digest the good advice.
Sorry just got back form Hv, who suggested a dummy.
Must bf ds2, he is crying.
Only pumping so milk in bottles, so can give EBM if the bf is not so good.
Disposing of first 20 ml was suggested by site, when I researched over-supply, on MN.
Will find link.

dummy sounds a plan, i was really against with DS1 and he never had one but was essential with DS2 as he was a really 'sucky' baby

at about 9 months we took it away with only a mimial amount of fuss.

try and keep him awake in the day by cuddling him and being interesting (ie talking to him!) and being dead boring at night (no lights/whisper if necessary etc)

Hope tonight is better!

Hi - can I just ask, has the HV mentioned the green poo as a problem? I would have said that by 4 weeks he should be entirely yellow/mustard colour and I have no idea why he would still be showing as green if he's taking lots of milk (which you know he is as you;re giving EBM).....hopefully the MN experts will know why.

I posted a thread about green poo when DS2 was small.
Tiktok said the poo colour changes from poo to poo and green can be perfectly normal.

hv said green pooh sign of wind. suggested infacol. also too much fore milk. can't find link now, but when researched over supply on mn threads, it said, if big let down, when expressing, to dispose iof first 20ml.

believe me, i could do without expressing. but bf and latch, because of 3 weeks of problems, prior to tongue tied being cut for second time, yes second, means exclusive bf, not possible.i wish. really i do.

do you all think that being up from 10pm to 5am is sustaiable ?
i have been doing it for a week. and for the 2 weeks before that, i wasd up for alot of the night.

my sil has been picking up ds1 and taking him to school for the last 2-3 weeks. I can not ask her to do that for any lonmger. surely ?
so suggestions of help in the dy are not really takling the main problem.

I can not do thsi 10pm - 5am for much longer.
surely you all agree witht hat ?

how can i change his body clock ?
or do you all think I am lookign at it all wrong.

and I did express the leavging hi to cry and tough love badly, in my previous post.

I only sat there and let him cry lat night, becasue I was too dog tired and sobbing to get up to him again. sorry if that wasn't clkaer from the way I phrased it.

i will post this and then continue to read the responses and respond to them, as i can.

Oblomov - i had 4 weeks of this with my dd. And I resisted all advice to use a dummy (like an idiot!). Lo and behold at the absolute end of my tether with all the crying and sitting up all night, plus 24 hour breastfeeding, we tried a dummy. Within about an hour my life was back! Try and get one, you never know.

Of course it's not sustainable, not if you're not sleeping through the day. You need sleep and you need help to get that sleep.
Anyone who is willing to help let them do as much as they can.
TBH at 4 weeks it's a bit early to try sorting sleep patterns out but you need to be rested when you do start.
Best way to prepare is the bedtime routine. Try and put baby to sleep at the same time (give or take half hour) every night but do this when he is awake not straight after a feed.