Newborn Sleep - At Breaking Point

[PippityChippity]

I have the most lovely 4 week old DS who just doesn’t sleep at night time. He is basically nocturnal. I am now on day 5 of having less than 2 hours sleep overnight and I’m at total breaking point. The moment he is put down in his cot after a feed when he is asleep, he wakes up and will point blank not settle until he is picked up and put back on the breast. He sleeps fine on my husband or me, day or night but won’t settle at all if he is put down/not in his sling and being carried etc.

I suppose my question is, what the hell can I do? Husband is convinced that breastfeeding isn’t helping this as he also needs to be fed in order to fall asleep (Or be in his sling in order to be settled by movement). I’m reluctant (Very reluctant actually) to give this up but I must admit that DS is totally focused on the breast (Won’t accept me giving him a bottle of expressed milk without a boob top up after yet is fine with my husband doing this). We’ve gone against midwife and HV advise and I’ve started expressing some milk in order for my husband to feed him but that’s tricky as he has a demanding, very busy job so harder for him to be up all hours with DS when he won’t sleep.

We don’t know how to address the issue with DS not wanting to be put down to sleep either - We point blank will not be considering bed sharing due to SIDS risk and husband and me both being people who move a lot during sleep. We have no idea what else to do to actually enable me to sleep. Sleeping during the day on weekdays is pretty much impossible as husband works so can’t look after DS and he won’t sleep unless he is sleeping on one of us which means it’s then not safe for us to sleep! Does this actually get better? I’m at breaking point; I’ve needed the loo since about 3:30 but haven’t been able to go as can’t put DS down or else he screams! Husband is due to work away for a few days later on this month and I am terrified of a night alone with DS currently for fear of falling asleep while feeding him etc. We have absolutely no family support close by either so are very limited on that front too.

I’m not really sure what I’m asking or expecting here. I’m absolutely exhausted and cannot carry on like this. What am I doing wrong? We’ve had so many people tell us that this is normal but how the hell do you manage to exist on so little sleep?

We used to take shifts, it nearly broke us, you have my sympathy. Our LO wouldn't cosleep lying down, only upright on our chest. There's nothing you can really do at this age so I would look up safe sleeping and go to bed at 6pm for a few weeks to take the edge off. We had the same issue but also had a 2 year old awake for the day at 5.30 which was just awful!

I can’t really help as my suggestion goes against advice - my 4th was really really bad for the first 6 weeks and I had her asleep on my chest in bed. I was propped up with cushions and my arms were too - I didn’t sleep deeply but I did get a bit of sleep - my other half slept in a different room. It’s NOT recommended but I had done the odd night like this with my previous three - We wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t done this my mental health would have severely suffered!

For us the not being put down peaked around weeks 3-4. By week 6 we had an elaborate routine that got baby down asleep in her cot. You will find your own as each baby is different but for us it was, feed to sleep, hold upright for 15 mins (until in deep phase of sleep), slowly lower baby to be on back (we did this using a pillow on our propped up knees and lowering them) then transfer to cot with light pressure on the chest. There was about a week where sometimes it would take up to 5/6 hours to get baby in the cot asleep and we just kept going and going. If the transfer failed we would try again. You will get there I promise - this is the hardest bit. My DD slept through the night 11 hours in her bed by 8 weeks, though I know this isn’t necessarily the norm, it’s more to show you how quickly things can change

By the way we didn’t transfer the baby on the pillow to the cot, just the baby!

At 4 weeks you literally need to go into survival mode. I resorted to bringing the pram into the lounge and rocking Dd to sleep, she would also sleep in the swinging chair. So that's what we did. If she fell asleep, I stopped whatever I was doing and slept too.

Comfy clothes. Get a shop delivered of nice ready meals and easy food to prepare. Lower your standards of cleaning (and not within everyone's budget, I know) but hire a cleaner if you want one.

It will pass. This doesn't last forever but yes, it does feel like torture.

Mine were formula fed and still shit sleepers 😂 so if bf is working for you, I'd carry on. Changing to formula isn't doling to be a miracle cure.

They do get better at being transferred to their cot once they are a bit older. But at 4 weeks they just want you, the reassurance of your smell and heart beat.

It does get better, hang in there.

Have you tried a dummy?

Have you tried swaddling and white noise? It will get easier. Your husband should be taking your baby so you can have naps in the day, not trying to undermine your breastfeeding. FF may not help.

You get used to running on no sleep, at the moment it's new for you.

I used to have a swing that my son would sleep in or wheel him around in the buggy. My first was so bad we did end up combination feeding him so I could get 4 hours in a row of sleep. It's really hard but it does end.

In my experience you have to work to get them OK to be put down. Work on it in the day time when it's less high risk. Meanwhile you need to do whatever you can to get some sleep in you. When your husband knocks off work, you go to bed. Take naps at the weekend. Re breastfeeding the thing is if you stop, you would lose that way to settle your little one. The risk is you end up with a baby who you can't put down and also can't get to sleep. I say this as someone who did change to formula with both of mine due to not being able to cope with lack of sleep, Dd at 5m and ds at 4 weeks. With Dd I don't regret it really because I couldn't cope any more and it enabled dh to do full nights. With ds I shouldn't have let 'the fear' cloud my judgement and actually he was a very different baby. It is a very difficult time.

Keep going with the breastfeeding. I've had good sleepers who have been breastfed. They've all had small top ups of formula from birth but predominantly breast fed. It doesn't make a massive difference to their sleep if they are taking good feeds.

Is he taking proper long feeds from you and keeping it down? I found when my middle DC was feeding ALL the time and not sleeping it was reflux. She was only occasionally sick (violently vomiting) so it was slow to be diagnosed but once she had medication she slept again.

As others have suggested, swaddle, dummy, white noise, rockit machine?

We've also had all of ours in a sleepyhead but they are very unpopular on MN sleep threads. Lots of people will come along to tell you to cosleep. There are safe ways to do it if you follow the lullaby trust guidelines but I'd put your DH in a different bed or on the sofa to try it.

Do you have other children or is there any chance of a nap if he's in the pram?

Ours do sleep better after a bath and also kept nice and cosy. The house was freezing overnight recently and DD struggled to settle. She loves being cosy although I'm paranoid about her overheating and want to check her constantly!

We also have a snuzahero which is a little breathing monitor that attaches to their nappy. Might that help with some of the co sleeping anxiety?

I really feel for you. I have a 3.5week old but she sleeps pretty well. I'm still hardly functioning! I don't know how you are coping.

Ditto comment re have you tried a dummy? He can't be feeding all this time so is using you for comfort. The dummy acts as an alternative soother. He might spit it out to start with but worth trying to persevere with it. It really helped us with our daughter who wouldn't be put down or go in a sling at all in the daytime in the beginning, albeit she was a bit better at night.

Also don't worry about expressing and bottle feeding. We started this at 3 weeks with no issues. Good to get him used to the bottle. I know several people who held off and their babies now won't take a bottle at all.

Practise different things to try and help him settle and go with whatever works. Also, is he sleeping enough in the daytime? He may be horrendously overtired if not so working on sleep in the daytime might help the nights. Huge sympathy for you, it sounds horrendous but will get better.

Agree about the need to steadily work on your little one sleeping in their cot.

We used to do bath, growbag + swaddle, feed in darkened room (with hot water bottle warming up cot mattress), swap hwb for my T-shirt, lower sleepy swaddled baby into cot and maintain hand pressure on chest for a bit.

Same routine for lunchtime nap (without bath). The better the daytime sleep, the better the night time sleep!

Personal experience - I only breastfed for a month and I found baby wasn't satisfied so we were waking up loads.
We started giving formula bottles so baby was properly full.
When the baby gets a little bigger, If you have the owlet or baby monitor, you could try moving baby to the nursery. I think it was us that kept disturbing the baby during sleep as when we moved baby to the nursery, the change in sleeping was amazing.

As soon as they start having solids, it is soo much better as when they are full they don't wake up. My 9 month old has now been sleeping from 6.30pm-7.30am for the past couple of months.

It seems endless now, but the fresh little newborn stage really don't last that long looking back! Promise xx

Also - swaddle and white noise will be your best friends if you haven't tried these x

Thank you all for such helpful, non judgemental advice - It’s really reassuring to hear other experiences and also know that it eventually gets better

To answer a few questions that have been raised:

We are trying dummies and are doing our best to persevere with them but he isn’t keen and generally he spits them out after a few minutes of having one. We’ve found that he quite likes the Phillips Avent Soothie ones so will keep trying with those for now.

We’ve tried swaddling and white noise to no avail at all. He was actually worse when swaddled as he seems to like having his arms above his head which I think is why this didn’t work for us. I might give it a try again today though to see if this has changed at all.

We’ve also noticed that he seems to be quite sensitive to the temperature of the house, preferring a warmer room to a cooler one. Again, slightly worrying for us as we don’t want him over heating. We’ve been using sleeping bags rather than blankets with him as it seemed less faffy.

He sleeps well during the day - My husband or me keep him in his sling to get naps in during the day which works well, either when we are out or when I’m doing things around the house. We’ve noticed that sleeping at night is 100x worse if he is over stimulated or tired during the day from lack of sleep.

There are some great suggestions for things to do on this thread so I’ll write these down today and we can work our way through them. Please keep them coming!

This is the toughest part. I really feel for you.
These worked for me;
Pram walks- got him to sleep, came back home parked pram near the sofa and I got what I could on sofa.
Dummy
White noise - life saver
If he fell asleep on me I waited 20 mins till he was in a deep sleep and put him down in Moses so slowly, like ridiculously slowly so he didn't feel the drop.

Express for night time feeds, getting him used to a bottle is fine and means DH can do some night feeds.

It does get easier op, it feels like it won't at this stage but it does.
Sending you some love I was a broken women at new born stage.

You can get swaddled where their arms aren't pinned down, this might be a good option? We also went against advice from professionals and used the sleepy head for our little one and it worked wonders. It's nice and snug so I think she felt secure in it like she was being cuddled almost. They are expensive but you can get some great deals on FB market place if you wanted to try that option. It won't go on forever!

Try swaddleup sleeping bags. My DD liked her arms up, these let them be swaddled with their arms by their heads. Swaddleups are pretty expensive so I bought some on eBay and they were in excellent condition.

I have found in our freezing, draughty Victorian bedroom a swaddle bag is not enough to keep my youngest warm and we swaddle her in a blanket. Your DS might be ok if he's got slightly thicker jammies on though.

Love to dream swaddles are great as they can put their arms up (mine was the same). We had these plus blankets. Most babies are cold. In aus we often use 10-12 layers of blankets (3/4 folded) and ours hasn’t overheated..

You poor things, it’s so hard. Usually by 6-8 weeks they get their days and nights the right way round and it’s a big improvement.

Getting outside in daylight hours really helps with that - you want to kickstart their circadian rhythm, and daylight is a big factor. Try and get out for an hour or so if you can every day.

It’s absolutely fine if you really don’t want to try co-sleeping, but there are ways to do it which mitigate the risk to the point where it is on fractionally more risky than having the baby in their own cot. The Lullaby trust has advice on this. It can be the only way to get some sleep sometimes.

Stopping breastfeeding is unlikely to help (and breastfeeding also reduces the risk of SIDS), so I wouldn’t give up unless you want to for other reasons.

I promise it gets easier. It feels so endless when you’re in it, but after a few weeks they really do turn a corner and it’s not so hard.

@Mnusernc

We used to take shifts, it nearly broke us, you have my sympathy. Our LO wouldn't cosleep lying down, only upright on our chest. There's nothing you can really do at this age so I would look up safe sleeping and go to bed at 6pm for a few weeks to take the edge off. We had the same issue but also had a 2 year old awake for the day at 5.30 which was just awful!

Me too with the chest sleeping. DH worked away 5.5 days a week, no family within 5,000 miles. Literally had to do whatever it took to get some sleep to survive.

OP, this is completely normal. Your baby is in the 4th trimester. They want everything they had in the womb: fed on demand, held constantly, hearing your heartbeat. Not a cot. Not being put down on their own (a very Victorian practice).

Did mix it up with the bouncy chair (I slept on the sofa next to her) a hammock and pram occasionally. All naps were on the bed with me or in her pram. Meant we could be anywhere during the day rather than stuck in the house near a cot. She settled into a midnight till noon pattern after about 6 weeks or so which stuck (suited us fine - never wanted her in bed at 7pm). DH took over at weekends when he was home for me to catch up on sleep.

It feels like an age ago (5 years) but we had a cocoonababy.

Four babies have used it - really good if they won't be put down.

Both of mine slept in the cocoona on the bed next to me, it's high, so zero chance of rolling on the baby, caught in the covers etc. but not sure I'd the advice has now changed.

Good luck, the lack of sleep is crippling

We used a swaddle bag that held DD’s arms in which seemed to work.

Also, I know you said no co-sleeping. But would you consider it during the day for naps? Just you and DS on the bed, duvet on the floor, lie on your side and see if you can feed to sleep? I used to do this with DD and I don’t think I ever fell deeply asleep, her naps weren’t long enough for that. But it gave me half an hour to doze which I didn’t get while sitting up with her asleep on my chest.

Get a swaddle up sleeping bag. It's a hybrid sleep bag and swaddle and they have their hands up in it. It was a game changer for us.

I really feel for you, it's tremendously hard. I completely echo what @User527294627 advised, in particular the getting outside in daylight everyday.

Try to get 10 mins if you can, even a tiny power nap can really help. You will turn a corner soon!