Lack of sleep

[Rose1999]

It's 3am and yet again I'm awake holding my 16 week old who will happily sleep in my arms but that's about it. She's definitely not getting the recommended amount of sleep for a 3 month old so on top of being massively sleep deprived, I'm stressing about how this lack of sleep will affect her long term development.

I don't understand why she just won't sleep well 😞

Every baby is different, my little one was the same and would only ever contact nap. It's exhausting, do u have any support to help you out x

Yep my 4 month old will not lie flat whatsoever so that’s why i’m also up. It’s shit and it’s these hours of the night when i despair about how much i’ve allowed my life and health to be ruined by having kids.

Hey,
I’m a first time mum and like you, was really worried about the lack of sleep for my daughter but she’s thriving at nearly a year so I wouldn’t stress massively. I know people would make jokes about it when I was pregnant but I seriously underestimated it, I remember having to sit in the middle of our bed feeding in case I fell asleep.

it’s a cliché but it does get better with sleep (she says responding at 3am). At that age I found having co naps together really beneficial as it allowed me to reset.

you really aren’t alone and your doing amazing!
best of luck 😊

Youre not alone. My ds is 4 and this is the second night we've been up ALL night! Sending solidarity ladies

With the amount of sleep- they all vary, ours has always been an hour or two under the average even once she started sleeping, she is healthy and bright, no developmental issues. I found it helpful to get Huckleberry app and pay for the sweetspot wake window calculator, then at least you know when you're following that they've had all the opportunities to sleep, whether they take them or not!

Steal every opportunity you can for a snippet of sleep yourself, I used to do things like let her start a contact nap on my lap on a stack of pillows then hand over the pillows to someone so I could nap, start a contact nap on a travel cot mattress on the lounge floor then roll away to go nap on the sofa, and walked a million miles as she learned to sleep in a moving pushchair then after a while you can push it home once they're napping and get your nap. You can always check in with health visitor about your worries. If baby seems uncomfortable or has rash or bloating try gp as allergies or digestive troubles can upset sleep. Hope you both get some sleep soon.

At 4 months my daughter was in my arms 23h a day. So unsettled of not being held and could only be put down for a few seconds to a few minutes at a time.
At 17 weeks I stopped dairy and soya and her reflux medication was put on the top dose. Within a week I could put her down for 10-15 minutes at a time and she would allow other people to hold her too.
I would be looking into silent reflux and cmpa if this has been continuous problem and not a sleep regression

I second what @Superscientist said - are there any other symptoms, or is she generally happy outside of sleep?

I have a 15 week old who did not sleep. When he reached 8 weeks old i put a lot of small symptoms together, and turns out he has CMPA. It's mild, so symptoms weren't glaring, but enough to cause him enough pain to not be able to sleep. I stopped dairy and many of the symptoms stopped but not all, and 2 weeks later he was diagnosed with silent reflux. Sleep is better but still difficult, but I think we are slowly getting there.

Neither GP nor HV diagnosed my baby - I had to figure out the issues myself both times, but when I approached them both, they agreed with me. But I'm always disappointed that no one ever seems to be forthcoming with trying to help a very sleep deprived mum, all I got told was that I had unrealistic expectations of baby sleep, and some babies just don't sleep. But I knew something more was up. I'm a STM and what motherhood has taught me is that I need to advocate for my kids as no one else will. My first had a health issue that went on for almost a year and I kept getting brushed off by GPs - but I had to push and push (and eventually get help privately) and he was finally diagnosed and got the medication he should have had a long time ago.

Chuck the recommendations out the window because they don't fit every baby.
I had a newborn that stayed awake 15 hours solid !!! No joke... he did have severe reflux.
I feel for you , it's awful in the early days and I'm not ashamed to say I really didn't enjoy the baby stage.
Sending strength and love and lots of coffee and biscuits.
Honestly you will get through this and it WILL get easier

Thank you everyone for your replies. It feels very lonely at times and I do nothing but question myself as to what I'm doing wrong, why my baby is so attached to me and won't go down in her basket etc.

It's so tough isn't it. My little one sleeps soundly in my arms, it's going in her own bed that she doesn't like 😞

You don't have to enjoy this stage (at all!). All you have to do is get through it. This stage with a clingy baby who's a poor sleeper is absolutely hellish, my first was a total horror. Don't put pressure on yourself to do anything at all other than to survive. Sleep whenever you can and accept any help. You may find there's one other random person, maybe not even close at all, whom your clingy baby is happy to go to, like an aunt or random friend, so do keep trying to hand her over!

Oh and with my first the crib was just for show for months. He would only sleep on or right next to me. Look up safe co sleeping. Much safer to do it intentionally with proper precautions than to risk falling asleep holding her.