I’m on my knees with 4 week old - please help!

[Ahorsecalledseptember]

Sorry to moan but I’m a desperate woman.

My 4 week old baby has barely slept in the last 48 hours. He briefly slept on a car journey yesterday morning and then when we got there woke up and has more or less stayed awake since. I put him in his sling and walked around for hours and he does sleep then but it’s cold, wet, muddy and generally unpleasant for me. So we did that 3-5. As soon as I got back and sat down he woke up. And stayed awake until about midnight where he finally slept for about 4 hours. Then woke up and is still awake.

My back is incredibly painful as he wants to be on my shoulder but he keeps sort of ‘pushing’ himself up with his feet. I’ve given him another feed as OH said he didn’t finish the 2 am one but this generally doesn’t bode well for the day as now he hasn’t finished this one either.

I know it’s normal for new babies but I’m really feeling unwell and absolutely sick with tiredness here.

Is that like a snuggle pod? I have one of those. It did seem to work quite well initially.

In fairness this is an exceptionally bad day and there are days where he just sleeps and cuddles and you can do anything with him. But we’ve had two ‘bad’ days now.

I do think he gets a bit of wind after feeds but I do think the issue is exhaustion rather than wind at this stage.

OP this sounds so tough. I think you need to do what you can to get your baby and you to sleep.

Lots of good advice on here.

Does your baby sleep in the pram? If my DS is fighting sleep, I pop him in the pram and rock it back and forth to get him to sleep. I even use it in the night if he is fighting sleep.

You could try that?

How often are you trying to get your baby to go to sleep? At that age, DS could only manage 1.5 hours awake before he needed another nap. Maybe try getting your baby to sleep earlier after a successful nap to try to break the over tired cycle.

It's tough OP but you will get through this.

Maybe it’s a growth spurt, can you offer more little bit more often feeds for a few days and see if it passes?

No - he is not a fan of the pram, sadly!

I think I spent all day yesterday trying to get him to sleep. As I say the only thing that seems to work is the sling and walking around but this is so exhausting.

It's so hard. Not a permanent solution, but if he likes the sling, do you have a birthing ball or can you borrow one? With my refluxy baby I would sit on the birthing ball and gentle bounce for hours while he napped, the house was a mess but at least I could read my kindle or watch TV 😊

Ah yes probably the same - glad you have one anyway!

Sounds like hopefully just a bad blip and you sort of need to go into survival mode to just do what you can to get him to sleep any which way while he’s in it! It is just the WORST when they’re screaming with exhaustion and yet WONT SLEEP.

You say your OH does 9-1...could he start from 6 or 7 tonight and you can get a big stretch of sleep x

Have you tried BF ? Might settle him and help with colic / wind .

Try giving him a bath, then sit in bed and do skin to skin in the dark and don't move for hours. Try not to speak, just shhhh if he starts to cry.

I second the birthing ball trick! I used to put DD on my shoulder and bounce on the ball watching tv. It would take about 20 mins sometimes and she would cry until asleep but then she would finally fall asleep! You may need to keep bouncing but you could do a gentle bounce and could be easier on you than walking for hours. It might not help your shoulder ache though..

I need to express milk as well so that’s another difficulty. Baby is now asleep and hope to god he stays that way ... looking at bouncy chairs, any recommendations? He does have a rocker but it’s a little flat for him I think.

Will he just cry if you pop him in his sleep space?

Have you tried a dark room without the talking/singing?

I did once by accident as I fell asleep myself - not recommended I know.

A lot of the time he won’t actually cry but he just stays for ages flailing his arms around which I do find a bit stressful to watch.

And thank you for keeping me sane everyone!

The best advice I read was to get them to sleep in ANY way possible, as it's also as if they have to adjust to what sleep is and what it feels like. You also need to get them to sleep before they become overtired and that's where the challenge lies! Once they start having more sleep, it comes more naturally and they should start sleeping better in general (and at night). So my priority would be making sure he only ever has max 45m-60m awake before you go for another sling walk. You can always walk round your house or bounce on a birthing ball or what have you. It's going to be tough going for you for a couple of weeks, but if you are consistent he will likely start sleeping better as he starts getting less overtired and into the rhythms of sleep. We went from having to walk him in a pushchair to gradually getting him used to falling asleep in it being rocked at home to just putting him awake in his pushchair with a white noise machine. It took a few weeks but did happen eventually! Also make sure you are keeping it light during the day and dark at night, to set his body clock. That will help him understand night is for sleeping too. It's such a tough period the early weeks, but it does get better!

What worked for my DS:

• Pram - I lay on the sofa and rocked it with my feet.
• Sleepyhead - though I think this can be a SIDs risk so treat with caution.
• Going to a noisy pub - the noise just knocked him out. Not much good in lockdown, I know, but you can get bar noise on repeat on Youtube and turn it up loud. I did this when we were at home and it really worked.
• Swaddling.
• Pacifier.

Though all babies are different so no guarantee any of this will work for you .

My DS went through this at around 4 weeks too so this is bringing back memories - I think he stayed awake for 14 hours once. He was so tired, hungry and super-charged he just wouldn't feed or sleep. What saved us then was giving him a big bottle of formula (he was usually breastfed). That seemed to knock him out so he got some sleep and then everything was better after that. I'm not suggesting that as a solution for you, but just telling you what worked for us.

Stop being a martyr OP, your OH really needs to help. I tried the 'he has to work, I should do the majority of baby looking after'. Then I had a complete mental collapse, better believe that was disruptive to his work!
We used to do 8-2, 2-8 I think.
Not sure you mentioned a vibrating or rocking bed?
We used to put baby in a moses so they were cosy, then moses inside a rocking crib and rock them to sleep (with white noise, I recomend Ollie the Owl over Ewan as its louder).
Then when they grew out of moses theyjust had rocking crib without moses.
The vibrating things are brilliant too, from what I remember you have to supervise them sleeping in those though.

Omg my ds was just like that ... for day time naps we had a vibrating bouncy chair that really helped, but he might have been a little older than 4 weeks ....cant remember , it's all hazy !
He liked music, the carpenters and me singing along , bizarrely.

It's hard.

No one is being a martyr, I already worry a bit he’s doing more than he should be to be honest. I’m just trying to be fair. Fair isn’t a full days work and then a full night with an unsettled baby.

He has a rocker (baby, not OH obviously!) but doesn’t seem keen at the moment. I wonder if it isn’t upright enough. I’m looking at more upright ones now.

White noise is not a hit here: poor old Ewan the dream sheep would be eaten with mint sauce if baby ds had his way.

During the day I will put him in the sling and walk around but it’s a bit harder in the night!

Flailing is normal, some even jiggle a lot side to side to get themselves to sleep.
I’d honestly just leave him if he’s happy to lay there.
Just give him a gentle shhh to help him along if he starts to cry.

Could it be that you’re trying so hard to get him to sleep you’re actually keeping him awake?

Pop him down next time and give him time.
Some babies just like to be left to get on with it

Does he sleep at all in the car? I used to go out in the car just so my baby would sleep then park somewhere and just sit in car myself and relax while he slept.

He’s been put down for a while now - he keeps waking up. It isn’t a very settled sleep. I sneezed and woke him up.

Sometimes I will see if he nods off alone but he never does.

No maggie and this drives me potty as it would be an enormous help if he did. It also means we can’t go anywhere.

No advice but loads and loads of sympathy. I hope you both get some sleep soon.