Struggling with newborn

[Newmama20232023]

Let me preface this by saying I love my 10-week-old. But I am struggling so much as he is just so demanding. I have great help- hubby is always keen to help & so is my mum who lives nearby. I EBF and I enjoy it. What I don’t enjoy is that my LO fights sleep constantly. He naps for maximum 30 mins at a time in the day and wakes up crying, yawning & cranky. He is always overtired. Settling him for naps takes up to 30 mins. It doesn’t help that neither hubby nor my mum can settle him. I’m the only that one that can. I am absolutely exhausted of wrangling him to sleep all day every day. I follow wake windows, feed, burp, play, nappy change etc. Swaddled, white noise, dark room. Rocking & shushing or feeding to sleep. It doesn’t matter. He won’t fall asleep in the pram or in the car and if he does he wakes as soon as the motion stops. Hates the sling and the baby bouncer. I cry daily and I just don’t know how I can continue. I’ve consulted lactation consultants to make sure I BF correctly & taken him for cranial osteopathy. Nothing works. What am I doing wrong? What else can I try?

Does he sleep longer if you contact nap?

He’s still in his 4th trimester. You may just be expecting too much.

Echoing pp. Both my children have been impossible to put down. I didn't worry about the 'rod for your own back' brigade. I rocked or fed them to sleep then let them sleep on me. In my experience the thing that makes parenting unbearable is fighting against your baby. If you just give in to it, yes it's tiring but there's also joy in just holding your little one.

Your other thread is worrying

My son wouldn't sleep longer than 30 mins in the day time unless it was a contact nap or out pushing the pram. Have you tried just letting him sleep on you for some of his naps? It helped get us out of the tired/cranky cycle.

You're not doing anything wrong, it's hard to figure out what to do for the best with a baby!

Contact nap it will help my little boy was the same and I just accepted that he needed to be close to me. He would sleep for ages with me but barely nothing on his own so I just accepted it. It won’t last forever he is now 9 months and sleeps and naps on his own cot. It was hard at times as I have an older child as well but she understood nap time was chill out time and when she was home not in pre school we just used to watch a film whilst he napped on me.

Correction: threads

Ok so my second is nearly 5 months and with my babies, I’ve learned all the rocking/pacing/feeding to get them to sleep was basically stretching it out and making it worse. I look up their awake windows for their age, keep an eye on the clock and when it’s time for a nap, I make sure they’re fed and changed then take them through to a dark room. I settle them in my arms and let them cry until they drop off. Then I usually let them contact nap during the day and transfer to cot at night. At first they’ll scream for ages but it gets shorter and shorter and now DS settles after a few minutes of grumbling.

For me, endless rocking and pacing was destroying my back and it didn’t help. I’ve come to believe babies need to cry regularly, it’s their way of letting out their frustrations and as long as they’re fed/changed and being held by mum, it’s fine.

Last thing you might want to hear but this is completely normal. Within what could be done expected for a baby that small. It will pass.

Agree with PP, I held my first for all her naps til she was over one! 🙈
Not ideal I know, and I BF her so she would only settle for me at night and used to wake a lot. But it's not forever and DD2 was a lot easier!

You aren't doing anything wrong. Some babies really just need to be close to you.
All my 14 month old DS's naps were contact naps until he was 7 months old. We had to co sleep until then too. He would literally scream the second I put him down.

It's hard, its really fucking hard. I have no advice but to just be there for baby whenever/however they need you to be.

At 8 months he started napping and sleeping in his cot just fine. I just kept trying and failing before then. When he was ready it was easy. In fact I tried to have a cuddle and a nap with him this afternoon and he was having none of it. Wanted his cot and his own space!

Thanks All, I‘ll give the contact napping a go. How do you find time to eat/drink etc though?

Before I fed her and if I thought she was likely to fall asleep, I would make sure I had been to the loo and had drink, snacks and the TV remote within reach!

Honestly I did it mostly when baby was awake. He was actually OK on the play mat or moses basket for 5 minutes while I ran and got a sandwich. Or my partner would watch him for 15 mins while I went to shower.

It feels like half a life it really does. Grabbing a sandwich and eating like a mad woman before baby went mental but it doesn't last forever. And it goes quickly.

Also it's absolutely fine for baby to cry for 5 minutes while you eat/shower. As long as baby is in a safe place (eg moses basket) it really is OK.

The best advice I could give is to just follow their lead. Don't get hung up on eat play sleep, forcing naps etc. I tried all that for the first 3 months and HATED it. I gave up and just literally followed his lead and napped with him and I found it so liberating and found myself feeling much more content. I now have a 2 year old who now has a normal 1.5 hour nap every day and a 7pm bedtime. Sure there were rough times but not focusing on getting into a perfect routine just freed me up to enjoy and relax.

Oh and honestly wake windows never worked for mine. He was staying awake for 3 hrs at 10 weeks old. Very happily. I tried for months to get him to nap to "when he should be" and it made my life shit. He would scream and scream and scream.

In the end I let him nap when he clearly wanted to. Made life 1000000 better

You’re not doing anything wrong at all. Some babies are just like that. That’s not to say it’s not fucking difficult because it really is. Slowly it will get better though.

You’re obviously having a rough time and have started quite a few threads last night and today. Support on MN is great but it sounds like you’re in a bad place so please have an honest chat with your health visitor and get some real life support.

Have you tried expressing milk for a bottle so that your DH could feed him?
If the baby will take a bottle.
That might give you a bit of breathing space and sounds like you could do with it.

Im on my second newborn. He’s not an ‘easy baby’ by societies standards at all. He will pretty much only breastfeed to sleep or nap in the carrier. Hasn’t ‘just dropped off’ in a long time. Screams murder in the pram if he’s tired. Naps are sporadic and quite a few evenings he is overtired and fractious.

You know what is liberating though? Really not having the time and space to worry about it due to having to also care for a 3 yo. I try and get him to sleep by hook or by crook every 1-1.5h and that’s usually by breastfeeding him and holding him or sticking him in the sling wherever I happen to bed. Today it was at a 3 yo birthday party. If his nap doesn’t happen or is v short I absolve myself of responsibility. I tried my best, it didn’t happen. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

You can’t change the baby you have so I’d suggest living your life a bit more and stop spending all your time fighting for 30 minute naps. Get out and do stuff you want - it can’t be any worse than the situation you have now.

What’s worrying about them? Sounds like a first time mum who is second guessing themselves and can do with advice/support.

OP if you do find yourself struggling with day to day life, make sure you reach out for real life support so the people around you can assist

It's completely normal for 10 weeks. I just grabbed food or a drink whenever I got the chance, or carried baby to the kitchen.

Making sure I ate and drank were real challenges for me during the first months. I ended up cooking quick and easy food into fridge/freezer and then plate, warm up and eat while holding my baby unless she agreed to stay in her bouncer. I had to contact nap as well as otherwise she wasn't sleeping. I found it really difficult during the first 8-9 months but then it got easier for me. I cried about pretty much anything and felt so trapped but it will get better. It's crazy hard but hang in there.

Flask and a biscuit barrell wherever you go. I also got one of those huge 2 litre bottles of water and made sure I had it wherever I went (I got one with a strap to make it easier to carry.)

Because it sounds like OP has nobody around that has a clue about babies.

Isn’t Mumsnet a ‘parenting forum?!’ If you’re unsure or struggling about something, you can seek help here. Some women know about the fourth trimester and can prepare themselves for it whereas some may have different expectations once the baby arrives.

Neither is wrong. It’s how you educate yourself and seek assistance (if you need it) which is more important