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.

Cargirl - Tb journals ? can't wait. My fave = saddo

To some of the other posters:

you can bf & do Gina, at the end of the day you can try it for yourself it certainly never involved leaving my babies hungry or screaming!

Ob has insulin controlled diabetes and had a c-sec (under general I believe) which means she has to be very careful about her eating & sleeping until fully recovered - hypos & baby dropping are not to be recommended!

Also her ds isn't latching properly despite lots of help from the bf teams so it isn't safe to assume that he will be adequately fed from bf alone.

Hang in there Ob, c u soon - back to my wretched journals, think I'm sinking tbh - lol!

starlight, did start thread. phoned nct. left details in their rigmarole of message system. no response. week later, received 'helpful pamplhlet'. useless. have been to bf clinic at hospital 3 times. going this wed. know not of any local bf cafe's.
dh and I have been doing shiofts,. he does 10pm. i go to bed at 8pm.
Do I sound confused ? I thought my understanding of bf basics was pretty good. maybe not.

stacks, will look at swing.

babintot, have been eating classic biscuits and watching merlin and strictly. will consider transfering this to bedside entertainment.
or sod, blockbusters. I may just jack it all in, and run off with 'john 'jo brand' sargent' in his cuban heels, to somewhere hot and sunny. and forget about all this nonsense. JOKE

monster, i have read easy and gf. It just seems non-applicable to apply any sensible rules/ideas to anything at the moment.

butterfly, have looked up tiger hold. will try it.

Tiktok, I try to bf everytime. ebm follows, sometimes 3oz, sometimes 6oz. which is alot. but he has out on 1 lb in the last 9 days. and he did 1 lb in the previous 9 days aswell. so no concerns that he isn't getting enough.
becasue he slips , from what is sometimes an intital good latch, it means re-adjusting every , literally minute. very tiring. bf counsellor said it would be hard to break his bad habits. often out of tiredness, laziness, i suppose ( sorry), I just let him continue, even though I know his latch is not that good. becasue I think he gets alot. and becasue my nipples are not sore.
do you really think I wil be able to stop giving ebm ? stop pumping. becasue i just can't see that.
I enjoy the bf. take it for what it is. not eay. not ideal. but atleast I am just about managing.
and i express, and can get 150ml form one breast. on a good day. 30ml on a bad. so i just keep going.
I think i have been too tired,lazy to perservere with getting latch 'proper'. I jsut let him suckle.
do you really think I will be able to stop pumping ?

Message withdrawn

just read your OP and your update but just thought I'd say that I found the first 6 weeks of ds being born really hard - dd was a dream (doesn't sleep through still, but seemed so much easier. think for opp reason to you, we had no routine and went with flow but been tryingto get ds ''into' routine)!

ANYWAY
post 6 weeks has been much much easier. we've had wobbles (all ill - aarrrhgh) but honestly, it does get easier and easier. ds 4 mths now and we have fun! (still wakes every 2 hours but is 5 min feed and back to sleep)

also ds is MASSIVE and feeds for 5mins every 2-3hrs.

PS dd was ff and woke pretty much same as ds, though she had dummy too (ds won't take one ) - do whatever is easiest IMO.

Ob if he's not hurting you with a bad latch then I would be tempted to ditch expressing & topping up or just express once per day to build up freeer stock. For as long as he's having a bottle he's got no incentive to learn to keep his good latch going IYSWIM? Also as they get bigger their latch tends to improve anyway because their mouths are bigger?

If you try exc b/f and he continues to gain weight & your not in pain it doesn't matter if his latch isn't fab?

Can you tell I'm stuck with my trade creditors ?

Trade Creditors ?
Wimp
I thougyht you were stuck on something tricky like PAYE

Oblomov - I'm glad things are a bit better today. Feel free to CAT me if there's anything I can do to help.

We are in South Bucks.

Thank you Dryad.

By the way, i have taken on board lots of posts.

My dummy phobia hatred , was cured last night , only because it worked so fabarooney.

I did not co-sleep last night, but am more open to it now. and will def do it, without a second thought, if i think it will help.

have stopped throwing away, the first bit of pumped milk.

you should what I'm trying work from and it has been 15 years & 4 dc since I last did accounts clerk stuff - when it was all on paper not excel with all these links

Jeepers, your OP brings back ghastly memories [sympathetic shudder]. Glad things look brighter today.

You said you were swaddling but not tightly. IMHO if a swaddle's worth its salt, it has to be tight -- so they can't do that starfish/jerk thing with their arms which wakes 'em up. Get DS's arms pinned tight to his side, and his legs tamped down firmly too.

No startle reflex = more sleep, honest.

Oh fab. So pleased to hear you had a better night last night. You sound so much more cheerful today.

I went to bed last night hoping that you were going to get a bit of sleep

Just want to say a big well done to you. You are doing a fantastic job under extremely difficult circumstances, particularly with the breastfeeding. I'd keep going back to the clinic if I were you - I went 10 times with dd1!

cr bank
dr ..... light and heat/telephone

tee hee

yay - thats really good news...

reading cargirls post - i didnt realise you had to be careful about eating and sleeping - I was in a similar position after my dd was born and had to put her into a bf/sleeping routine for my health relatively early - can let you know the details if you like - it may be a bit tedious for everyone else though...

we used a dummy as well and I had to swallow my hypocrisy about the whole thing - we never did it with my ds but babies are obv all different with different needs and it went at 13 weeks with no problems at all.

where are you? we could find out about bf cafes for you...

Oblomov, my DD1 didn't sleep at night until 12 weeks. She would only stop crying if we pounded her back with our hands - felt like child abuse, but she relaxed when we did, and almost smiled. As soon as we stopped, she cried.

What we did:

DH slept down stairs, to get rest for work. If she wasn't finally asleep by 4.30 am, I would wake him, and he would take over so that I could have a couple of hours sleep before he went to work.

I tried to sleep a bit in the day.

When she was about 5 weeks old, she started to fall asleep at around 4 am, so I would wake DH at 3, he would take her and she would sleep alongside him (not in his bed) until he went to work.

When she was about 8 weeks old, she started to settle at about 1am.

When she was 12 weeks old, it was like flipping a switch - she suddenly started being ready to sleep at 7pm, waking in the night for feeds but going straight down after.

I made up a song which helped to while away the hours also.

Ob, sorry you were not helped by the NCT bf line.

This is what happens sometimes: i) the caller does not leave any number at all ii) the caller's number is missing a digit or is wrong iii) the caller's no. is not heard clearly iv) we call back and there is no answer and no voicemail to leave a message saying we have called back

These are overwhelmingly the reasons why a handful of people do not get a call back. We feel a bit helpless about this, because there is no way of letting the caller know!

The leaflet you have got comes from the central service we use to collect data, and to send general info about NCT to.

Please call again and if you don't get a call back this time, it's likely to be one of those 4 reasons....we will not be ignoring you

Oblomov - lots of babies have poor breastfeeding technique initially and they do 'learn' to breastfeed effectively. I have supported women who have regained exclusive breastfeeding after going down the road of formula topups because of weighloss. The weighloss has been dues to poor breastfeeding technique.

I have 2 friends whose babies never fed longer that 5 minutes at a time.

I think you should concentrate on the latch and start scaling down the EBM if you don't feel confident to stop it. He may be having EBM that he doesn't need and therefore upset because he is overfed?

My daughter had a battery-powered swinging chair and it saved my sanity at times. She'd settle in it when nothing else would work. I bought it secondhand for about thirty pounds.

Oblomov - have no specific advice as think most useful stuff been said already. Just sending a virtual hug - things will get better.

Just got back from cranial. He did the most explosive pohh that sprayed all over ME, at the end of ehr session. A good sign, I assume

witch, yes mw did suggest shields. Dh drove to 6 chemists. all sold out. but next day, when I went o bf clinic, she said, seeing as I don't have sore nipples, not to worry.

Tiktok, I knew why they hadn't responded. I wasn't that bothered. Becasue I went to clinic the next day. I hold no grudge against NCT. I know they are fab, and all volunteers.

Mears, I know that is what i need to do. concentrate on the bf, lessen the ebm. I know this. I will try.

stacks, how do you find out about bf cafes thn ? I am chertsey, J11 M25.

Ob, I've emailed you, baby cafe included.

thank you vs.
nearest cafe is tomorrow, but I think I will go to the st peters hospital clinic, tomorrow.