What time to get up with 8w old… am I just lazy?

[Bellyrumble]

First time mum, DS is 8 weeks old

He is mostly breastfed but has a bottle (of either formula or expressed milk) at lunchtime and on an evening at around 10 as that works for now, he seems to settle better.

He tends to wake once overnight, sometimes twice depending on how early he goes down for the night.

If waking twice it’s around 5am which is too early to get up but then I’ll stay in bed until around 8/9am and give him a feed in bed. I feel this has created a bad habit where I’m not getting up until half 9 or half 10 some days. Then I’m not dressed etc until just before lunchtime as he’s pretty awake throughout the morning and won’t be put down.

Should I be getting myself up and ready earlier? I do feel better when I’ve done my hair/ make up/ got dressed but I’m just sooo tired on a morning. Am I just being lazy or should I be making the most of late starts with a small baby?

I see friends are up and out walking at 9 when I’m only just waking up sometimes.

I know I have it lucky compared to many as he typically only wakes once in the night but I’m still shattered all the time.

Any suggestions to make me feel better/ more energised would bd appreciated. Thank you

DH works from home and passed comment the other day about me not getting up until lunchtime which I think is why it’s on my mind :/

In fairness once I’m up I spend a lot of the day doing housework as I get a lot of anxiety if things need to be done. I’ve not had a single day “off” binge watching TV etc since the baby was born.

It’s the initial getting up I think I should be better at :/

Nooooo! You get up whenever suits at 8 weeks! Honestly, a month or two from now you'll fall into a new pattern and then you can reassess. Don't put yourself under any unnecessary pressure. There is zero reason you need to be up and out the house at 9am (assuming you're on maternity leave) so stay in bed as long as it suits you and your baby! You are not lazy! It's impossible to be lazy with a baby!

I struggled to get dressed before 3pm! Font Don’t pressure yourself.

Do whatever works for you. I know that it’s a cliche, but these months of babyhood pass so quickly. Make the most of not having the external pressures of work, school etc and enjoy morning cuddles with your baby.

Do what you need to do to get through the first few months! You need as much sleep as you can get and if your routine works for you that's the only thing that matters. Don't be pressured by what other people seem to be doing. Also, you should be having rest days where you do very little except look after your baby. The cleaning etc can wait ..or DH can do it. So no, I don't think you should be 'better' at getting up.

Fucking hell, enjoy the lie in! My daughter was a sleep-devil from Hades who woke hourly and got up at 5.30am til she was 18 months, I was only out and about pacing the pavements to stay awake/seek cake.

Unless your tiny baby needs to get up for a board meeting or milk round, stay in bed! Enjoy!

Tell your husband you GAVE BIRTH TWO MONTHS AGO and you’ll stay in bed til lunchtime for as long as you feel like doing so, bloody hell. Maternity leave is as much about recovery as it is about babycare.

Enjoy it while it lasts! Pregnancy and labour/c-section are very punishing on the body. Recover and rest. You have the rest of your life to be up early doing stuff..

Do whatever works! There’s no moral superiority in being dressed and walking at 9am

I would have been pissed off had my husband ever passed comment on my waking up/getting ready for the day/getting things done with a baby and sleep deprivation.

I suggest you tell your ‘D’H that if he thinks he can do better he’s welcome to look after the baby at night and see how he feels.

Do whatever you are comfy with. So if you feel more rested and energised by getting up later, then do that.
Whatever other people think or do has no matter on this. Babies are hard work! And you need the rest

Relax and recover while you can! Babies’ sleep is notorious for being changeable so get whatever rest you can, whenever you can. I’ve got 4 children- none of which are babies- and I’d sleep as long as possible any day of the week, given the chance!!

Tell your husband to shhh if he passes comment again. You’re recovering from pregnancy and birth!!

Thanks very much for your quick replies that’s made me feel much less pressured!

Part of me feels I spend no quality time with him when I’m doing house stuff most of the day and I never had that newborn “bubble” when he was first born (I’m really working on doing less but the anxiety I feel when jobs aren’t done just gets to me)

I’ll make the most of these morning lie ins with him whilst I can and he’s sleeping as he is. As @Aria2015 says I’ll probably be in a different pattern in a few months

One of my favourite memories from my maternity leave is the long, lazy mornings in bed with a squishy baby to snuggle. DS would wake up at 4am and then I'd co-sleep after that. I'd just wake up whenever he did and then he'd normally have a big feed in bed whilst I had a cup of tea and then he'd do some tummy time etc. We used to get up mid morning most of the time. I figured that it's likely to be the only time in my life, for the foreseeable future anyway, that I can get away with it, so I made the most of it and I'm so glad I did! It made maternity leave so much more pleasant and meant I could catch up on sleep and rest and actually heal after a crap pregnancy. I do recognise that it's not a luxury afforded to mums of newborns who already have older children, which made me even more determined to enjoy it with DS.

I didn't get dressed for days sometimes when ds was infant. There's no medals for being out and about at the crack of dawn. You're 8 weeks pp. If your baby is happy to lay in, make the most of it! And tell your dh to come back to you with his opinions when he's had a baby.

I used to love doing this with DD, she’d normally have a feed around 7am and then drop back off until around 10am and I’d go back to sleep as well. I’m glad I did it tbh as once she reached 6 months she was wide awake from 6/6.30am and has been ever since. Enjoy it while you can as you will have years of early mornings!

@Bellyrumble

Thanks very much for your quick replies that’s made me feel much less pressured!

Part of me feels I spend no quality time with him when I’m doing house stuff most of the day and I never had that newborn “bubble” when he was first born (I’m really working on doing less but the anxiety I feel when jobs aren’t done just gets to me)

I’ll make the most of these morning lie ins with him whilst I can and he’s sleeping as he is. As @Aria2015 says I’ll probably be in a different pattern in a few months

Don't do any of the jobs. Your baby's dad should be doing them. The 4th trimester is really important. Other than making sure you're clean, your hair, make up, dusting,etc is of zero importance. Bond with your baby. Make him feel that this new world is just as good as the womb world.

You're never going to get this time back again. Savour every minute

DH is really good in fairness to him- he does overnight feeds on a weekend when he’s not working the next day (we switch the 11pm bottle to boob, and DS has a middle of night bottle instead)
And he will bring me breakfast up in bed if I’m awake before he starts work at 9.

I can’t remember how he said it, but it stuck with me (he wasn’t criticising I don’t think)

I’m so used to being up for work at 6am it’s a real shift staying in bed so late but I must need to sleep if I’m sleeping (if that makes sense?!)

I’m glad I’m not being lazy, you’ve all reassured me

I used to put baby on the floor with a thick towel so he could see me shower
Then pick him up and on to the bed while I got ready

I also had one of those mobile gym things so that always kept him amused
For a few mins

There’s no laziness on maternity leave. You can spend all day in PJs holding your baby and eating chocolate if you want. Or you can do park runs with the buggy in the driving rain. Whichever makes you and your baby happy. (I am firmly in camp “cuddle your baby, read books, sleep, enjoy the lazy bit before they get mobile”.)

First of all, you have a baby so anything goes. I really don’t think you can be accused of being lazy when you’re up during the night still. I can only give advice based on what I’ve done, my little one is 13 weeks now.

I read Gina Ford, wasn’t really reading it with the intention of following it to the letter but just wanted to know what her views were on things to see if I could include any of it in my routine. It’s actually a good read if you haven’t read it, I think it gets a bad name because she suggests baby sleeping in the other room but I just ignore that part.

Anyway, when I was at the 8 week mark he was similar. We’d do bedtime routine initially at 7 then we felt 8 worked better. He gets a bath every night (I know many dont), then jammies on, starry lights in the ceiling and he has a bottle then bed. I then got him up every night for a feed between 11 and 12. I found if I could force myself to wait up til 12 he would last all night (or almost). I kept at this for weeks, even when I knew he was never waking himself but Gina said I was to do it so I did it 🤷🏼‍♀️ Eventually one night even after changing him he didn’t open his eyes. I tried offering him the bottle but he just stayed asleep. I took this as my sign to stop the late feed. From then on he went down at 8 and gets up between 8-9am.

I do vividly remember when he was quite wee I was stood in the nursery about half 9 one morning still in my jammies and I saw a mum walk past with not only a newborn in the pram but also a toddler. I thought how on earth have you managed that? 😂 I was genuinely in disbelief. Now I somehow do manage it, if I have to.

The things that helped me were:
Stopping trying to go for a shower during the day while home alone. I just have one and wash my hair at night now so there’s no stress because DH has the baby.
Sitting our clothes out on the bed the night before. Although this is a 2 second job, somehow just taking that extra step out of the morning routine really helps.
Having a bag already packed if you’re going somewhere, we have to be at a class for 9:30 one day a week so it’s just always ready to go.

Based on Gina’s routine she says you have to be up and start the day by 7am (if you’re doing a 7pm bedtime but you can adjust the times if you’re doing 8pm). I always slightly have this in the back of my mind even though he’s a great sleeper, in case I let him have too many long lies and he eventually stops being so good 🙈 we slept til 10:30 this morning though! Usually I’m up by 8:30 then aim to be out a walk with the dog and pram by an hour-an hour and a half later so he has his morning nap while we’re out. We come back, I play with him for a bit then he goes down for his lunch time nap at 12:30ish. This is when I sometimes lie in bed because I put him in the crib upstairs for this nap. It’s quite nice just to have a breather or even go down with the baby monitor and sit on the sofa for 5 minutes in peace.

Do whatever you like, ignore your husband! Mine has the habit of making some slightly snidey comments as if I’ve been sat twiddling my thumbs all day while he’s been doing a hard days work. I say every time feel free to take him for a day yourself then let me know 🙈

Nooooo! Take every lazy morning you can! And bollox to DH making a comment; he hasnt just gone through 9 months of pregnancy AND a birth AND night feeds. Enjoy this time as it is the only time you’ll have it. One he has a Wonder Week or a leap, his sleep pattern might change. And you need to really address this anxiety anoit getting jobs done… when that bubba gets on the move, that will prove much harder.

Definitely do the lying in bed thing and not all that Gina Ford stuff, I’m exhausted just reading it.

Bank all the sleep you can. With sleep regressions and leaps and all other fussy periods your baby will go through you may need it! Unless you have a mythical sleeping baby who never varies their routine...

What's the point in rushing around knackering yourself? Baby clearly needs that sleep, you're awake when baby is. Enjoy the sleep! You oh may be working from home- so are you, except your job is 24/7.

We slept in until 9.30/10 until my daughter was nearly 7months 🤣🤷‍♀️ Totally worked for us !

Now I’m on an 8-8 schedule with her this last month and I miss the lie ins

Tbh I don’t give a shit what anyone thought - you do you !! Enjoy it

Um no make the most of it! This was me 6 months ago, now we are on 5:30am get ups (we bedshare and he’s crawling as soon as he wakes up!) my other half who used to wind me up about my ‘lazy’ mornings is now getting the longer lie ins!