So exhausted I can’t enjoy my baby

[Newmama20232023]

Hi all my LO is 12-weeks-old now. We are trying to ease him out of the swaddle as he can roll over onto his side now and he was constantly breaking out of it to suck his hands and waking himself up anyway. I haven’t slept in days and I am so exhausted. I EBF and can’t pump anything so an expressed bottle is not an option (he won’t take a bottle anyway). Nobody else can set him down to sleep but me so that’s not an option. He sleeps for 30 minutes 3 times a day unless I extend with a contact nap which I am loathe to do now as I have started to fall asleep during these. Can’t cosleep because my hips hurt sleeping on my side. I can’t nap when he naps because he barely naps. My questions is how can I push through this exhaustion? How can I learn to survive on barely any sleep? I want to get out and about now but just have no energy.

If you can afford it, hire a maternity nurse. Even if it's just for 1 or 2 12 hour stints a week. She'll be able to help you express enough to bottle feed him a couple of times in those stints (she'll help him learn to accept the bottle too) and you can catch up on some sleep knowing he's in safe hands.

Are you a single parent? Because if not your DP needs to percivere with settling him? It becomes a never ending circle of you having to do stuff when you just accept that you have to. It all ends up your job if you don't hand over the reins sometimes. When you're in the fog of exhaustion it's difficult to see a way out.

How often is he being fed? Can't your partner take him out in-between feeds this weekend so you can get some sleep in?
I didn't get much sleep for the first year due to colic baby and she never slept its awful but DH would take her out for a few hours so I could power nap at a weekend.

Do you have a partner / support?

if so, feed baby then ask them to take baby for a walk. You go and sleep. Baby is 12 weeks old now and will be ok without you for a couple of hours. Likely if you’re not there they will also have a nap in the pram.

Once you’ve had a sleep you can look at options that could help.

You could try putting in a rhythm to your day which might help make feeds more predictable. That might help you to get some sleep in the day / evening.

You can try a Haakaa style pump which collects milk while you feed. Baby might take the milk from an open cup rather than a bottle.

You can look up safe co sleeping to see if that helps as well.

Contact naps can work well. Ideally once you’ve got some sleep, look at doing one a day.

have a look at what your local NCT branch do. We run a bumps and babies group that might help you get some moral support. It’s a drop in session with lots of tea and sympathy. It could help for you to have other parents to just vent to.

It's so hard when you can't get sleep.
Some things I used to do were:

• Wrap their body snug in a blanket like a sausage roll- looser at the top or with arms free if they want to wave them.
• Feed them to sleep on pillows on your lap, then pass them sleeping on a pillow to a friend or family member to continue the contact nap while you run away and sleep.
• Feed to sleep with them lying on a travel cot or crib mattress on the floor if your hips can bear it then roll away once they're sleeping and get your kip somewhere comfier in the same room (if safe from pets etc).
• Get huckleberry app, track all their sleep and bang them in a pram/pushchair and walk every time it says it's naptime, or even better delegate it. Once they're sleeping, straight home and get yourself a nap too. Once they're in a nice rhythm sleeps may lengthen and come easier if they're not overtired, and if they're getting daytime daylight they may learn to sleep better at night if they're not already thanks to melatonin etc. I recall melatonin in mum also transfers in breast milk so daylight in the morning and keeping things dark at night for you too may help with that.
• Our terrible sleeper turned out to be due to cows milk protein allergy, if there's any signs of discomfort or bad digestion it could be worth looking into, also it's worth checking in with GP or health visitor in general if they're not sleeping a reasonable number of hours in 24.

Good luck, hope you get some rest soon.

Would you consider your partner giving a bottle of formula? EBF is great but not at the expense of your health. He'll likely take a bottle eventually if your partner perseveres (I had a bottle refuser too btw!).

Its normal not to 'enjoy' much of the first few months. I have almost no memory of ds first 6 months, its just an exhausted anxious fog.

Mine would fall asleep on me easily after a feed and I started to transfer into a bouncer. Ensured white noise was on to cover the sound of movement.

After a few weeks of this I could just plonk him in the bouncer and bounce it abd he would nod off at nap time.

I could curl up on the sofa at that point.