Newborn Sleeping Woes

[Bluejayway91]

Hi all,

My son's just over two weeks old and we're really struggling with his sleep at night.

I know at this age that his circadian rhythms haven't sorted themselves out and that he's still only very young, but the lack of sleep for his dad and I are starting to take its toll.

My husband goes back to work next Tuesday (WFH) and ideally he needs to be getting some sort of consistent sleep. At the moment, he's getting an odd hour during the night and cannot sleep during the day (his body won't let him). My husband also has heart issues and previously had a TIA (he's only 33). I'm so worried that the lack of sleep my really poorly affect his health or even kill him.

At the moment, I'm trying to stay up with our son during the night and sleep when he sleeps, but he's so active and really struggles to settle. He's formula fed (breastfeeding was a massive failure for me) and sleeps in a Moses basket downstairs and a next to me crib in our room. He spends a lot of time in the day asleep.

Does anyone have any tips apart from waiting it out? I'm sick of crying and pleading, when I know it's not going to do anything.

Sounds like your DH needs to sleep in a spare room. In terms of ideas fir improving sleep, the usual suggestions are swaddling and white noise. Why do you have to 'stay up' with your baby at night? Does it feel like the baby has night and day swapped around?

Oh the other common suggestion is taking it in shifts. You sleep 7pm-midnight, then DS 12am-6am, then you 6-8am or similar.

I'll suggest this to him and see what he says. I'll also try the white noise trick.

I sleep for a long block in the day (for example, about 9 until 2) while my husband looks after our son. Obviously, this isn't sustainable from next week when he returns to work.

It feels like it, yes. I dread nights.

Can you sleep when baby sleeps? Even if it means you sleeping most of the day if that is when he sleeps the most? I couldn't sleep in the day when DD did because daytime sleep just doesn't work for me. I tried so many times to nap with her and never managed it!

I'd get your DH to sleep in the spare room and/or get some ear plugs so that he can get a chunk of solid sleep at night.

Can you split it as shifts? My DH doesn't have existing health issues but since he's gone back to WFH, we ve been doing 9pm-3am I sleep then DH sleeps till he needs to start work and he sometimes gets a nap in the evening. We don't have anyone that can help nearby but if you do don't be afraid to use all you can get.

I had a rough recovery post birth (I ended up high blood pressure despite a very healthy pregnancy until the day my waters broke so am still trying to get off the medicine for that) and we re both in agreement that we both need solid some sleep to still look after ourselves to look after baby as best we can. He's six week old now and sometimes we ll get him to sleep 3 hours then half an hour feed then back to sleep if we re lucky.

You just muddle through the best you can but if you shoulder the majority of it yourself remember you need to look after your health too or you ll get ill and your DH ends up needing to take over anyway.

As far as your DH is concerned he needs to get ear plugs and make a plan so that he is confidently going to sleep at certain times , this probably means spare room/ sofa. As far as you are concerned ; try not to look at the clock. Just slot in with your baby's routine and sleep when you can. Your DH will be able to find time to take the responsibility before and after work . This scenario happens in every house with a newborn. It improves over those first few months and becomes a lot more manageable. It is brutal .

This is the problem with babies, absolutely no respect for nighttimes and that their parents need to sleep. Keep daytime's bright and noisy and nighttimes dark and quiet to help baby learn day and night but it takes a few weeks and even then you probably want to lower your expectations about getting a decent night's sleep for a while.

We've got a newborn, my DH has moved into the spare room for the time being and I go to sleep as soon as baby does at nighttime, I try to have a nap at weekends too. With my first I used to nap when baby did, especially in the morning when I was most tired, and prioritised rest and recovery over housework. It's only for a short time.

Take it in shifts as others have said, also although you can't start any kind of routine we did the following with our DD which worked very well:

7am - 7pm bright lights normal talking, tv/music on etc

7pm- 7am lights off or on low no tv or music voices low

It helps them to develop the cycles of night and day.

Lack of sleep won't harm your DH but stress will so just keep in mind it's temporary and support each other with sleep and taking turns.

Babies get better at sleep quickly OP some better than others but generally three months onwards it's not anywhere near as brutal

Yup, DH into spare room with white noise if he needs sleep. Splitting into shifts is also sensible (although means you don’t get much time together). If you can sleep when baby is napping during the day do so, and then your DH need only do a fairly short stint so you can get a toP up in the evening e.g he does 8-12 then wakes you.

If he sleeps well in the Moses basket, can this come upstairs for nighttime sleep? Maybe he prefers it.

I’m afraid it’s going to be tough for a while whatever you do. You just muddle through it and one day realise it’s much easier. Lowering your standards for what you do during the day is crucial -napping while the baby sleeps is TOTALLY valid - sod the housework and step away from your phone or other distractions and priorities sleep.