Somebody stop me from walking out the door and not coming back

[passedwitsend]

I'm falling apart here and need help. Last night I put LO to bed at 6.30, she woke up at 9 fed, screamed and cried and eventually fell asleep at 10. She woke up again at 11.20 fed, screamed cried and fell asleep at about midnight, same again at 1.30 - 2.15, 3.30 - 4.15, 5 til god knows when and then I lost track. I've just put her down screaming in her crib and I think she's fallen asleep. I'm downstairs and don't dare go back into the bedroom to sleep incase I wake her up. I can't do this anymore. I've got to the point that I don't care why she's crying, I just want her to stop. I hate being like this, I know she's a defenseless little baby but I can't help it.

Hi, much, much sympathy. I've been there, and it is torture. How old is your baby? Do you have a partner? How are you feeding her?

Look my first one was like this. How old is she? Are you feed yourself? Do you have help?

x post banana

She's 20 weeks. I have a partner but he has to go to work so ends up sleeping on the sofa when she won't settle. I'm breastfeeding her but seriously considering giving up. Just scared that if I do give up I'll feel like even more of a failure as a mum than I already do. And what if it doesn't work...

Thing is, if you give up & switch to bottles, you may well find it makes no difference.

Has stuff like colic and reflux been ruled out?

its okie. its normal.
i once locked baby in room, came downstairs, made a ucppa, and watched startrek. baby was fine fortyfive minutes later. sleeping beautifully.
i also once left the house. dh had exclusively breastfed baby, and four year old. i dint come backtill my breasts were so swollen, they hurt. dh was in a bit of a state, but baby was fine.
better to leave the baby crying in a safe place, than end up shaking her from frustration. do you have someone else you can leave her with, plus a bottle?

passed have you tried co sleeping this really helped me get through the tough nights as I just latched them on and then went back to sleep
this stage is really tough as the sleep deprivation is really starting to take its toll
hang in there it does get better
maybe stick her in the pram this morning and go for a coffee have you got any friends you oculd meet up with?

is she in some sort of pain? does she have a hard belly? is she pooing bproperly?
does she like bathing? what about baby massage? my babies loved it at that age. before they managed towriggle away.
is she teething? give her something hard to chew on if that isthe case.
does dp have a mother? hand her over, with a bottle of formula. it wont hurt the baby, [i am very pro breastfeeding] but there are times when formul is essential to the mother/baby bond

As Dragon says, you may well find switching to bottles makes little if any difference.

How long has she been unsettled like this? If its only over the last few days its likely to be a growth spurt, and so once your supply has caught up she should settle back down.

If its a longer term issue, then colic and reflux need to be considered, also the possibiity she is reacting to things you eat. Is there any family history of food intolerances?

Try to get a few minutes to yourself, have a cup of tea, get yourself ready for the next round - and remember you are not a failure. You're doing brilliantly.

Are you feeding on demand? When my DD got to 20 weeks she need more substance (a fact I only know now!)and I was all over the place. With my DS I fed efery 3/ 4 hours and this meant he was settled at night as he was full.

However, I think it is unlikely this is just a food issue if she is up so often- she's comfort sucking too. For piece of mind IMO you should get the food issue sorted out first and this may mean supplimenting (it will take the pressure off you in the evenings and means you don't have to give up completely). Get your DP to give her the bottle at the 9/10pm wakeup and you go to bed.

Feel bad I didn't think to add to check all the medical bits .

Is your HV any good? You could get some help there perhaps.

You should try your HV and ask her to rule out any medical reason, but be prepared for the fact she may suggest weaning/formula rather than any real support or advice.

Do you have a local Baby Cafe or other BF support group? Whereabouts are you (ish)?

how does she sleep during the day ? overtired babies (ie ones that don't sleep much during the day) often don't sleep well at night. Keeping awake periods to two hours or less worked brilliantly for mine (once I discovered it - before that it was a nightmare - and I recognise the sentiment of your title so well).

Also - probably will be shouted at here - but with ds1 it took me an hour to settle after every night feed until I stared putting him on his tummy, then he settled in a few minutes. I waited about 10 mins and then turned him over to sleep on his back - and it worked very well for us - you just have to make sure you don't fall asleep and leave them on their front.

I was told "sleep breeds sleep". It proved to be true with dd, who was just like your dd. I found that a combination of making sure she wasn't overtired, tanking her up with milk in the early evening, a dummy and her just getting older and less susceptible to wind all helped.

She slept better on her side, but best of all in our bed.

She began to be much more predictable sleepwise when she was about 7months. ANd has slept like a log since 11months (is now 5).

I used to find it so difficult when other people were talking about their 12 hr sleepers at 6 weeks, 12 weeks or whatever. But in the end dd got there and at the same time many of the people who had babies that slept well early on later found that they went through quite long periods of being hard to get off to sleep.

But make sure that she's getting enough sleep and feeds during the day. I used to get dd to sleep at about 1.30pm until about 4pm and then feed feed feed her until about 6.30pm, then bath, then feed in the bedroom, then into her cot/our bed. Quite often I would fall asleep at the same time, which was good and bad - meant I'd catch up on sleep but did feel like I was missing the evenings. But it all came right in the end, and it will for you.

I also thought about bottles, but was concerned that would still have to deal with cry-y baby in the night while also having to make bottles up and sterilise and so on.

bottle is only any good if someone else gives it, and you get a break. otherwise, its not worth th ehassle. you are doing brililnatly for breastfeeding her so well. dont think any differntly.

The tummy thing worked here too. You are obviously doing really well to have come through the past 5 months and still be feeding but don't impose any guilt on yourself for wanting to get a kip. I continued to breastfeed my DD as she refused a bottle at 4 mths and I had 2 mths of being up every couple of hours.

I felt trapped and miserable and inadequate. My DH wanted me to keep it going and my HV was less than useless. BF is obviously beneficial and you have chossen to do it. This said, it doesn't make it the easy option.

This said, I decided as I had fed DD that I would at least try with DS- he was a different ball game and was a pleasure to feed and I could have fed him til he was 8! I thinbk what I'm trying to say is that the feeding issue may not be the real problem- maybe you need to get some help with your routine or you just have a difficult baby as I did 1st time round.

Good luck

Oh sweetie.

Might you be putting her to bed too early? At that age dses still went to bed when I did iyswim.

Cosleeping. Cosleeping. Cosleeping. I can't recommend it highly enough. Really. Search out the Unicef guidelines on safe bedsharing and away you go.

Dragon is spot on that this will quite likely not change if you switch to formula - you'll just have to get up 4 times a night and make bottles on top of everything else. Babies wake - it is what they do and it makes very sound physiological sense (although the screaming/crying might be something to get checked out - are you holding her when she is screaming/crying?) - it is only fairly recently that parents have had it continueally suggested to them that a baby 'shouldn't' be waking at x weeks/months. Also, you have come so far with the bf and you might find it really quite sad to stop now.

oh FFS, I can spell continually

should be 'chosen' and 'think'- sorry.

IMO a 5mth old baby can manage to get throught the night without feeding so the getting up during the night to make bottles should be a moot point.

Cosleeping will get you a sleep at least. Worked for us.

when she screams are you offering your breast again? or offering the other side? i mean could it be she's still hungry?

passedwitsend - please hang on in there. Loads of good advice on this thread but at 20 weeks you will soon find things improve, slowly but surely.

Try wearing her in a sling much of the time during the day. Mine was like this at that age and got terribly overtired (I think a combo of being really good at fighting sleep and having a sore tummy all of the time really ruined any decent sleep for him) but once I made a policy of getting him to sleep by whatever means necessary for a week or two things definitely started to improve.

Also, what about lying on your bed and BFing her to sleep propped on her side - from around 6 months DS would nod off after about 45 minutes to an hour if I did this, and I could put pillows around the edges of the bed to stop her rolling off and escape for a while.

So sorry you're having such a crappy time. Hang on in there, you're doing great - life with a baby like this is not fun, and you feel like nobody else in the world has been there, but there are some of us around! You will be able to enjoy her more in time, I promise

Your partner should be helping. Yes, he has to go to work, but you have to be a full time carer! How about shifts - ie he takes responsibility for any wakings after 4am so you can at least do a feed then go to sleep and he's not to wake you until at least 7.30 - 8am. It's just not fair that he's snoozing away for eight hours while you don't get any uninterrupted sleep.

Good point mabanana - I gently reminded DP that at least when he went to work he got a cup of tea once in a while and an hour for lunch - all on the back of a night's sleep!

Got a bit more help after that.

Sorry but I think you're getting bad advice here. Supplementing won't necessarily help and could hinder.

The first things you need to work out are why she is waking, and why she is screaming?
Is she def hungry or just waking up? I had this with ds2 at around this time and he wasn't able to enter a second phase of sleep cycle due to being overtired, it wasn't hunger. Within weeks he went from waking at least every hour to going to bed ay 7:30, dreamfeed at 11 and sleeping til 6:30 so it could be something as simple as it was with DS2.

Second thing how you and your partner can arrange something so you can get more/better sleep?
What hours does he work? How are you at expressing? Would you be able to express and feed at the same time? Would you want to add a bottle of formula? How easy would it be to get dp to help? Is there anyone else who could help?

How long has she been like this? Could it be a growth spurt?
How is she sleeping during the day?

Sorry for all the questions but I really hope we can help, I know how shattering this can be but we can't help without more detail.

Most of all try not to see it as forever, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we will do everything we can to get you there