Night Time Rage

[J0D13Ann]

Hi

Ive posted a recent thread about the challenges we are having with our now 10 week old. Still having a really hard time despite all advice and GP input.

I am really struggling at night time with lots of feelings of frustration and anger. Please don’t think I want to harm my baby or have had thoughts of doing so - I haven’t. But I am struggling so much with anger and frustration.

Whenever baby boy grunts, strains, pulls up his legs it’s sends a wave of anxiety, anger, frustration over me. I feel completely triggered by it. I think because the only part of the night there is any levels of “settledness” is between 12-3ish so when it takes hours to get him down during these parts I am so stressed as I know the rest of the night is horrific.

The rational part of my brain totally understands none of this is his fault, he is a baby who is uncomfortable and my heart breaks for him. He can’t help it and I can’t seem to do anything to help him. But the sleep deprived irrational part of me is so angry at the world for giving me a baby who is so challenging.

What I am asking is if people have had similar feelings and how do they manage? Tips for trying to keep calm and coping at night - his digestive issues or whatever is going on clearly aren’t going away anytime soon, there isn’t a magic solution so I need to be able to deal with my feelings at night. If he does have a short window of sleep/settledness I am on such high alert I can’t even sleep. I feel like I’m in fight or flight mode!

Are you co-sleeping, OP?

No, baby is formula fed so I know it’s not recommended however I have resorted to trying co sleeping as I am a light sleeper and thought baby might just need to be close to me. However the issues were still the same, either he will wake instantly crying when laid down ( I don’t swaddle in bed to reduce overheating but do swaddle in his crib as this is the only way he may sleep for short periods) or he will wake within a few minutes stirring and uncomfortable.

I usually resort to having him sleep upright on me part way through the night so he at least gets some sleep.

Could he be allergic to milk or intolerant to the lactose in the formula? Maybe try goat milk based one as that is gentler on their tummies. I would also recommend safe cosleeping/bed sharing, mine would not sleep otherwise.

I understand the rage, it's awful but so hard not to give in.

Do you have a partner who can cover nights / split days and nights with so you can get some sleep?

he is currently on a hydrolysed formula as the GP is considering whether this could be an issue. As of yet we’ve seen no real changes.

I definitely would consider safe bedsharing if my little one would sleep this way however he will not. He will play reasonably happy laying on his back/side during the day for short periods but he won’t sleep next to me on the bed. He wakes as soon as he laid down, or shortly after. He won’t then settle back to sleep next me to despite reassurances and soothing.

Hi OP. Just to say that the squirming, grunting, general noisy sleeping is very common. Both mine have done this as newborns but stopped around the 12 week mark or so (I'm only just past it with my second who now only does it when wanting fed).

I also had really difficult nights at first but things are starting to settle with much longer stretches of settled sleep. We have a reasonably consistent bed time routine which seems to help.

As for feelings of frustration just let yourself cry through it. Sleep deprivation is a real struggle but it does get better.

What's your day routine like?

Loads of baby books out there about sleep routines. If they sleep too much in the day they will be less settled at night.

I followed Gina (not always the recommended one on here), but worked well for us.

There isn’t much of a routine, (I try and do eat play sleep, but often when he is overtired this doesn’t work) I try and follow his sleep cues and after about an hour/hour and a half of being awake he starts to get fidgety and cranky. I try and encourage sleep then rather than wait til he is crying but we’ve found he fights it a lot. At the moment he is contact napping for only 20/30 minutes at a time. Maybe four times a day - so he really isn’t getting much sleep.

Overnight I think he probably gets about 6 hours in total. I feel he is chronically overtired.

I would love to start a proper bedtime routine but at the moment the only sleep I get is 8.30-12 when my partner has the baby downstairs. We have tried a bit of bath bottle bed for a while but things remained the same and it just meant I got no sleep at all. It just pushed the timings back (so he might go down 10-12 but then he is unsettled from that midnight bottle rather than from the 3/4am bottle)