Day/night patterns!

[CrazyAlien06]

hi I have a 3 day old baby girl and am struggling a bit :(
During the day she feeds,sleeps ",feeds,sleeps etc but at night she will not settle :(
at night she ll feed then cry when put into her Moses basket then is quiet for two mins then crying so feeds again and this goes on all night.
I have had about 2 hrs sleep since Wednesday and if I go without sleep for so long i get severe migraines.

Any advice? Why can't she do what she does in the day at nightime?!

Lots of babies just don't like moses baskets at night! Keep her in your bed and you'll probably find she settles much better - newborns are programmed to stay near their mothers at night (survival strategy!).

She's wanting to be with you at night. It's dark and quiet - she's only been in the world for two days. So keep her with you. Then sleep in the day and forget trying to do anything "normal" for the first few weeks. Go out for a walk every afternoon but the rest of the day just survive!

Oh poor you! You are doing really well, keep feeding her when she wants and she will grow out of it in no time. They have lots of growth spurts in the early days and want to feed all the time.

Also you could try swaddling her or laying her on a tee shirt you have been wearing. Make sure the transition to the basket is when she is well asleep and consider putting a Luke warm hot water bottle where she will be so the cold is not a shock.

Do you have someone who could hold her for a couple of hours while you get some solid sleep early evening or early morning? My DH or MIL used to do this for me so I could recover a little.

Finally, if you do co-sleep (we do and I personally recommend it) make sure you read the safety guidelines so you can be confident you are doing it without risk

Congratulations on your baby!

There's a leaflet on safe bed sharing here - www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Baby_Friendly/Leaflets/3/sharingbedleaflet.pdf

Thanks for the advice. I'm scared to do the co sleeping as DH is such a big bloke and a wriggler with random arm and leg movements.

Little one slept better last night, think a lot of the problem is the heat, she had one more layer on the nights she was not settling. Now she only has best and nappy on as room temp is a ridiculous 25 degrees :( she seems a lot happier. Also I got into bed earlier and chilled out with her in Moses basket next to me. Am planning on doing the same tonight with the x factor lol. When sh wakes for her next feed we'll get ready for the transition to nighttime. Fingers crossed she sleeps tonight. I also need to stop checking she is ok every two minutes!

Regarding help, we don't have any family nearby.DH does his best but when I get to bed I can't switch off :(MIL is visiting 2moz and I'm planning on escaping to sleep lol ( I'm not keen on her as she will be spending the whole time telling me how much my daughter looks like my DH - which she does but she ll also spend the time patronising me.I dread seeing her as she makes me feel crap)

Your DH should never be next to the baby if you co-sleep anyway, only have the baby next to you.

Hi CrazyAlien

it sounds like you've found an answer but I just wanted to say my DH is a big bloke and he used to flump around in bed until we started co-sleeping with our DS.
I've read somewhere (or maybe I was told by my sister who's a bf support worker) that quite often men can develop a natural instinct/sleeping position whilst co-sleeping.
Well mine certainly has!

Checking every 2 mins = perfectly normal.

And I can totally empathise with the MIL situation..good luck

Woooo she slept from 2045-1245
But now we have been feeding/changing/hiccuping etc since then :(
This girl can feed!!!!! When I put her back in her basket she wriggles and gets upset then starts rooting again-whoa.
Feeling more positive now, especially after i have 4 hours stashed in the sleep bank :0)

Any advice re ways to settle her into her basket??:)

I've been feeding my 6 day old dd on the mattress from the moses basket on my lap and then when she is asleep very gently lifting the mattress back into the basket, so she does not feel like she has been moved.

We found baby sleep bags really helped, both with getting the right temperature and keeping little one settled whne put back down.

I used to put a hot water bottle in the Moses basket before putting my DS back in.
Obviously I'd take it out again!!!

Oooo thanks for the tips ladies :0)
Tonight isn't turning out to be one of the good nights!
Fed at 2030 and fed at 2320 and now won't settle again :( trying not to get stressed about it but really hard not too, will defo try the mattress idea and hot water bottle tomorrow night !!

How long was it until u got into any sort of pattern?

Sleeping bags.gro bags - they need to be a certain weight before they go in don't they? I have one and thinks it's minimum of 9lb. LO has a bit of weight to gain before she can go in one ( week old and weighed 8lb 8ozs at birth)

Right ordered suitable gro bags!!! This all night feeding is lethal for my bank account ;)

Congrats! I really feel for you! We went through the same experience. I found that swaddling helped and also sleeping propped up on pillows with DD lay on my chest helped us both sleep. Don't worry about her sleeping independently of you yet, she doesn't know that you aren't attached anymore. After a couple of hours of good sleep you'll be refreshed and more relaxed which will help her settle.

I'm scared of having her sleep on me in case something happens, I'll spend while night checking on her. I'm getting really frustrated now as had about 8 hrs sleep in 8 days . Going to breast feeding help place tomorrow to see if they can offer any help. Also going to express tomorrow to see if that helps her. I want her to have the best milk however it is given. Last night was dire and this one is panning out the same :( I dont know how I'm surviving :(

Just to maybe give you some peace of mind

This link show's what newborn sleeping feeding patterns can be like
www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/newborn-feeding-pattern.html

She need's to sleep on the bed next to you have a look at the bedsharing leaflet above.

Crazyalien hope you get good real life help.

Hope the help explains that your expectations are really, really, really high....too high :) This is a tiny baby just a week old, brand new to the world and only really familiar with you, your voice, your smell, your presence and your comfort. She needs to be close to you to feel loved and reassured.

You can catch up on sleep in the day as best you can - but expressing and trying to settle her in her basket and getting her to go longer between feeds actually makes more work for you. Go with the flow and she will find her own pattern which you can fit in with :)

crazyalien I used to be a zombie sleeper, it's amazing how responsive you become when you have a newborn lying on your chest. My DD just wouldn't sleep in her basket. It took until she was 10 weeks old to get her to settle in it and then she ended up in bed with me after the 1 am feed! She's been in her own cot since 17 weeks and settling with a dummy once I was happy with my milk supply and she was happy to stretch out on her own.

If you aren't comfortable with sleeping with her on you, then don't try it. Co-sleeping cots that attach to your bed are available but mega expensive. My friends bought a 'bed wedge' and baby slept up on the bed wedge with their own sheets and they slept to the side and lower so baby couldn't be rolled on or covered up. The other (cheap) option I've heard is a pop up basinet in the middle of the bed, but I suppose you'd need a big bed!

Constant feeding is tiring. I sat in the bathroom sobbing one night because my head was pounding from constant let downs giving me headaches and lack of sleep. I contacted a NCT breastfeeding consellor and we spoke on the phone about relaxing (she suggested biological nurturing which really calmed us both down) and she also recommended feeding lying down. 5months on we're still feeding lying down at night and it really helps me because I don't awaken too much and neither does LO.

I can see why you want to give expressing a go, but I understand that Expressing at this early stage might not be a great idea as it might interfere with your supply. Can you just potter about the house and nap on and off?The constant feeding is to establish a good supply for herself and also for comfort. You are doing a great job (you would not be looking for solutions otherwise) so don't worry that your LO is calling the shots at the moment, from what I hear that will carry on for the next 25 years!

We swaddled DS at night. He wouldn't sleep otherwise, so was swaddled until 9 weeks, when he found his thumb which helped him settle so he didn't need anything else.