Exhaustion during night feeds with 7 week old, how to help or reduce these?

[Attheyard]

I have a 7 week old baby (tomorrow) who has had severe reflux since about week 3-4. Things have improved with omeprazole and gaviscon and we’ve had one stretch of a 4 hour sleep which was honestly incredible. But after that first longer sleep at night he will typically only go back down for 45 minutes to an hour, so a typical night will look something like this:
9pm - start bedtime feed, burping, change nappy, give gaviscon, burping, feed to sleep. Sit upright for 20 minutes (he’s asleep) then transfer. It’s usually about 10:30-11pm at this point.
1-2am: on a good night he will wake up for a feed. The process of feed, nappy, gaviscon and sitting upright takes 1.5 hours.
45 mins later: awake. Repeat.

Every now and then I have managed to shush him back to sleep by rocking the next to me but usually I have to get him up because I’m not sure what he wants and if he wants to feed or doesn’t like his wet nappy or he just wants a cuddle. He never feels cold, he’s currently sleeping in a long sleeved vest and 1.0 grobag.

I don’t have help overnight because my husband is back working and really struggles without sleep, so he goes back to sleep immediately. (He does all cooking, cleaning, laundry etc).

I get that he’s still really little but other friends’ babies and babies on the internet seem to be sleeping with just one overnight wake up for a feed. The multiple wakes after hardly any time plus the reflux are really taking their toll on my mental health and I am exhausted. I also can’t really catch up on sleep during the day as he tends to nap on me, in the carrier or in the pram. If transferred to the Moses basket he usually wakes up pretty quickly. Is there something I can change to get him to sleep for longer during the second part of the night? He is EBF, does have a bottle sometimes and no issues with him taking it so sometimes we give him a bedtime bottle but it makes no difference. It also makes no difference what we do in the day, or whether he has a “schedule” and I try to make him nap at specific times or just go with it. I therefore don’t pay attention to wake windows or whatever during the day as it suits us better to be able to go and do things whenever we like, or I’d be absolutely miserable. But I just desperately need more sleep! Co-sleeping and lying down feeding aren’t options for us due to no safe environment for this.

Sorry for the essay, I don’t know anyone who is going through what we are so have no one to talk to in real life.

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Gah

Yes I only ever change poo nappies at night! Def leave wees for the morning especially if you’re using pampers or other brands that are very good at wicking moisture away.

OP I understand your husband needs sleep but he should at least take over for one weekend night as even one night of more sleep for you per week will help your mental health through this season!

Have you discussed the possibility of CMPA with the GP or HV? It often goes along with reflux so might be worth thinking if it’s a worth a trial of you cutting out dairy (and soya since the allergies are linked) to see if that helps.

Also, sleep is a basic human need and you are going to make yourself unwell if you carry on as you. Your husband needs to do more overnight. The job isn’t an excuse because he can do the first shift of the night on work nights and do longer on weekends (or whenever he doesn’t have work the next day). If that means he has less capacity for the hoovering so be it, you getting sleep has to be a priority. Then do ear plugs, eye mask and if you’re still struggling with anxiety go back to the GP to see about treatment options. Eat your dinner earlier. Everything to prioritise sleep.

When my son was going through that stage I’d typically leave baby downstairs with his dad from about 7pm, I’d go to bed and get a good 4 hour stretch and he’d bring baby up with him when he came to bed around 11. Getting that stretch of sleep before the night even started helped me a lot and I wouldn’t have been able to survive without it. Your husband needs to compromise and do his bit.

You don’t need to prioritise your relationship and spending time together over a 7wo newborn with additional feeding needs.

What are you doing during the day? You say you don’t pay attention to naps and sleep windows, but if you do you may find ways to edge the night sleeps to longer stretches. When they’re tiny, you need to IMO get the lay of the land, take note of their preferred sleep cycles and patterns and then stick to them. No pattern in the day so you can ‘do things’ will mean equally you can’t ask for a pattern at night. Once you get in a routine you can do what you want around it. Order shopping in, do the cooking and get your DH to do the 9pm feed and you go to bed next to them while he does that. Sleep and baby’s routine are your priorities right now, forget anything else.

a “reverse lie in” is the best PR for going to bed early! I am def stealing this 😂

This is how some breastfed babies are. I’m sorry.
I’ve bf 4 and even right now i’m bf 3 times a night with a 18 month old.

All of the online info doesn’t seem to apply to me. There is no ‘last feed’.

It does eventually get better, it is temporary.

It’s a good point. We tend to get up, get ready and either walk the dog or go to a baby group and meet friends for coffee. And then vice versa for the afternoons. My days are really nice! I do very little around the house, except occasionally chuck a load of laundry on. DH does the food shop, cooking and cleaning etc. and we do have a weekly cleaner/housekeeper. I do think with all this help it should be easier for me and it’s more than fair what I am doing/if anything it’s weighted in my favour. So I like some of the ideas about trying to get an evening sleep, I think I need to let go of old routines and just accept this is just a short season and hopefully in a few weeks we will have our evenings back.

But does anyone have any advice on how to reduce the number of night wake ups? Is there anything constructive I can actually do to stop this rather than just dealing with it?

I agree with others you need to go to bed early. I did this was the only thing that meant I got some sleep.
You cook for yourself and eat early.
Yes its not great in terms of spending time with your partner but lack of sleep should be more of a priority at this point.
Also weekends does he work? If not can he not do one night or two? And you get a couple full nights sleep . Or atleast as much as you can .

We had this, it was CMPA. Going completely dairy and soy free solved it, around 7 weeks. By 9 weeks he was a different baby.

No buttered toast, no biscuits, cakes etc. If your DH is doing the cooking, he has to take this VERY seriously. No butter or ghee even for frying, no cheese, no milk in the mash etc. No takeaways or restaurant meals as they all use dairy and soybean oil for cooking.

Takes some getting used to but within a week you'll be fine with it.

It's not just about sleep, but if he does have CMPA, the dairy protein is inflaming his gut and damaging it long term. The only way to know if it is CMPA is to go dairy free. There is no test for it.

And him doing all the cooking and cleaning but no night wakings is nonsense.

My DH is an emergency worker and yes, needed his sleep. But nobody needs 8 hours of sleep in the short term. 5 hours is more than enough. He may not like it but sleep is a basic need, more important than mopping and frying some eggs.

He has to buckle up and be a real man here.

You may think you are fine without his help because this is temporary.

It's not temporary. Even if you sort his reflux, you'll likely still have a minimum of 3-4 wakes a night until 6 months and then at least 1-2 wakes a night, unless teething when it'll be worse than the newborn days.

You may think 3-4 wakes a night is doable but not when it's been 4 months of it.

No one gets a full night of sleep every single night until you are way, way past 1.

No point comparing yourself to people who have babies who sleep. It's a lottery, you lost on that front.

Thank you for the solidarity. I do appreciate knowing it isn’t just my baby because it sure feels like it sometimes!

OP I think I’ve blocked that part of newborn life out (my kids are 10 and 8 now so it’s a distant memory)

What worked for us was me going to bed early (wasn’t 7pm but it was before 9) and DH doing a bottle feed at about 10/11ish. Then baby usually slept til 1/2am and then the nighttime drama started. Also DH didn’t need to leave for work til about 8am or later so I’d do an early breastfeed and then he’d be in charge for an hour or 2 before he left and I could get some more sleep.

Meant we were both just about functioning and gradually the night feeds got less and we settled into a routine and got our evenings back.

I also agree with someone above - a day routine for naps would help too. Not necessarily super strict, but just more awareness of it

Kindly, your days are too nice! For someone living off no sleep, you’re doing too much and you’re not letting your baby get into good sleep routines. Babies need routine in the day to have good sleep at night, is what I was trying to say. They need to have cues and routines to be able to settle (yes some babies don’t need this but it’s rare!). I’ve had 3 babies and am very much a social and outdoorsy person, but being out and about with no system for the baby at 7 weeks is frankly madness. The first few months need to be quite sparse, they don’t need back to back baby groups and coffee shops. Invite someone to yours for a coffee sometimes while you make the dinner or otherwise adhere to a routine. Your baby has only instinct and bare minimum to go on as to what you want them to do - you have to rigidly enforce it with sleep hygiene for both of you. I’m sure someone will be along to say marriage is important, too. But if your marriage can’t survive you focusing on your baby and yourself for the first few months of life then you’ve got bigger problems. Take it easy, choose sleep and routine over all the other business.

Hi op, are you breastfeeding? It would be worth seeking some support with positioning if so as this can help the reflux. It's very normal for the second half of the night for babies to not be in as deep a sleep, and breastfed babies feed for many reasons other than hunger so may very well be on and off the breast frequently. It's hard but quite normal at this age. Is there space for your husband to sleep elsewhere so you can co sleep with baby following the lullaby trust advice? Earlier bedtimes are boring but worthwhile also, you have to prioritize sleep.over time together for a short time.

Your husband could cook dinner and take baby from when he gets in from work. Then eg 2am when husband goes up he brings your dinner and you eat (that he has made you) in bed and take over rest of night.

Oh I sympathise OP - both my BF babies had reflux and the sleep deprivation was awful.

My husband really stepped up to the plate though and helped overnight. Without his support, even if it was just emotional support, I don't know how I would have got through it.

My husband used to come in from work at about 5pm and I would BF the baby and then I'd hand the baby over and go for a 2 hour nap. During this time my DH would cook dinner so when I re-appeared at 7pm we'd eat together. I would also BF the baby again at this time and then I'd go back to bed for another nap whilst DH looked after the baby and tidied up after dinner etc.

During the night the baby would be up at least every 2 hours and I'd feed him and DH would do nappy-changes if they were needed.

The nights were difficult but having the opportunity to have those two hour nap-breaks once DH was home from work was a God Send and made things so much easier.

Some nights the reflux was horrendous though and baby would be crying for hours and me and DH would just take it in turns to sit up with him or rock him etc and it felt absolutely relentless. We'd take it in one hour shifts in these instances, and whoever wasn't on 'shift' would just go and sit in another room and although no sleep was had because of the crying, just being away from the baby/noise and having that small break for a short period of time also just made things more bearable.

Every morning before my DH went to work he'd make me a little packed lunch and leave it in the fridge so at least I knew that I always had something there to et when I needed it as sometimes even finding time to prepare food during the day seemed impossible.

Well done for ignoring all the wake windows nonsense...... I did the same. I tried to "sleep when the baby sleeps" but it's just not that simple.

You just need to accept that for the first 6 months (if not longer) you and your husband may be ships who pass in the night but that's the reality of having a baby. The dynamic of the relationship HAS to change when a newborn is in the picture and you just have to get through it. You've got the rest of your lives to have dinner together... this post-partum phase is really, really hard and you just have to do whatever it takes to get through and support each other even if that means your relationship has to go on the back burner for a while.

I also think looking at social media and comparing your baby to others isnt very helpful. Have a look at the Basis website for info on normal baby sleep. They aren't designed to sleep for long periods unfortunately for us!

BF babies are expected to feed 8-12 times per 24 hours (if not more) and night time feeding is especially important, so you shouldn't be trying to find ways to stop your baby from waking. It's completely biologically normal. Even if your baby didn't have reflux they'd still be waking every 2 hours to feed. To be honest OP, I'd prepare yourself for a lot of sleepless nights for many more months to come.

The best advice you could probably be given would be to get some breastfeeding support as even the littlest tweak in positioning and attachment can massively improve a baby's reflux symptoms so I'd start with that.

Agree with all the advice about going to bed early and also about prioritising naps during the day - you do not want an overtired baby as this contributes to them sleeping badly at night.

I would also recommend getting a private lactation consultant to check for tongue tie. This can cause reflux type symptoms because they take in so much air. Also causes them to be less full of milk and more full of air and these definitely do not help sleep.

You're caring for a newborn baby on your own 24 hours a day. There's no 'weighting' here.

Also OP, in the very nicest way, try not to let your anxiety make you reluctant to hand over the reins to the baby's dad. You will get used to him doing it.

Im another one saying to check out whether it’s CMPA or just reflux. You can’t really reduce night feeds, but if you can reduce the amount of time you need to spend holding upright and getting them comfortable enough to sleep, it makes a world of difference

My second had awful reflux and would NOT lie flat. He slept in a carrier or ON me. It was hell on earth. You do get through it though.

Edited to add I spoke with the GP and whilst then acknowledged my sleeping arrangements weren’t perfect - they also acknowledged I needed to sleep and did it as safely as I could (safe sleep guidelines) he just would scream as soon as he was flat. He was EBF and you’ll be told EBF babies don’t get reflux and constipation but they absolutely do!

The mothers with sleeping babies are the ones who make it out and about, post on fb, and shout about how brill life is.

The mothers with none sleeping babies are frazzled, cat napping where they can, and not socalising as much.

Your baby isn't unusual in his sleeping patterns. Maximizing your sleep will be easier than adjusting his.

DS was 15 months before I got 4 straight hours out of him most nights