New parents - how much sleep is "no sleep"

[Nikamon]

I've been hearing that new parents get no sleep and I kind of took it literally, so when my boy was born I was feeling quite lucky to be getting 5 hours of sleep per day. But after 3 months the little one sleeps less and recently I'm down to 2-3 hours per day. I'm having mental breakdowns on a regular basis (which I also heard was normal). On the other hand I'm reading posts from mothers complaining they don't get a solid chunk of sleep through the night, while for me it's about getting any sleep at all. I have such issue to figure out how much help I'm allowed to ask for. My goal was to be able to not sleep at all, but I just feel it's not possible. So what is meant when people say it's normal not to get sleep with a new baby?

Did you tell your GP you are head-banging to relieve stress?

@rosanna19 yes that's exactly how I feel.

My partner now has to work from home as I'm sometimes unable to care for the baby. I sometimes feel like I'm not adding anything other than breast milk.

I didn't tell GP about the head, they would send me to a psychiatric clinic. I know the drill here. You don't get help only punishment once you feel bad enough. Germany is still in medieval times. I mean what can she do? She was literally googling on her phone in front of me what sleep medication is allowed while breastfeeding. She was shocked to discover that melatonin is not allowed. What good would bring me sharing such information with someone who has a lot of power and no clue.

Sorry that goes into venting. Thanks for clarifying that I need 6 hours of sleep. Will talk with my partner that we either make it happen or he takes an unpaid leave at work (benefits of Germany here).

support for women who suffer from insomnia while breastfeeding is absolutely nil. It's a joke. There is no reliable info on what sleeping pills you can take and everyone just expects you to suffer.

You do not have to suffer and you deserve help with your sleeping. Just because you are mother who is breastfeeding does not make you less of a human, and it doesn't mean you don't need sleep. I hope you find a way to structure things with your partner so you can get through this.

You struggle to sleep in the evening. When do you think would be the ideal six hours for you to sleep? Identify those, and for the next four nights they are yours, even if it means your husband gets a sleep sandwich either side of them! He can manage with expressed milk and formula if needed.
After four nights you will hopefully be able to think straight and you and he can regroup and discuss a strategy going forward.

Poor you. We’re in the trenches with our second-born (up every hour) and I feel emotionally unstable a lot of the time 😆 We each get about 4 hours sleep a night on a good night

I’m case it helps, here’s what’s helping us - I appreciate all babies are different so it might not work for you

• making literally no advance plans. I literally prioritise daytime sleep always (am on maternity leave) and make plans on the day if I fancy company
• sleep when baby sleeps. I know people loathe this advice but if I’m exhausted enough, I’ll sleep. Housework be damned! Birthday cards be damned! Sleep is literally all I care about!
• Sleeping in shifts with my partner. When he’s working away I enlist people to help - with varying degrees of success! But I always ask
• Audiobooks of Precious Little Sleep and The Baby Sleep Solution. Not that they’ve worked for us yet…
• Tracking wake windows for reliable daytime naps so I get quiet time. We’re lucky this one’s not a contact napper like our first
• Remembering that this too will pass etc. There are always unfortunate stories of kids waking hourly until the age of 3 but most kids just sleep better and better as the months pass and it’s likely that this it what will happen

Good luck to you!

I live in Germany, waiting times are 2 years regardless of your situation. I pay privately for therapy since 10 years, unfortunately it doesn't fix sleep

I don't do anything than shit eat breastfeed and try to sleep. I even don't shower sometimes. I just can't sleep. Trying to sleep takes away most of the day

I had a very colicky and now we know autistic child, so I know the pure torture that is disturbed to no sleep! Being able to take a nap is sometimes a life saver and can make you feel human again, but for us we I just had to get through it painfully.

Try and get fresh air each day, even if just sitting outside with a coffee. It re sets the body's natural rhythms and assists sleep. Try and take the baby out for a walk if you possible can, just round the block , even if only 10 mins .

Wouldn't that be nice, you'd get some proper sleep then?! Proper support and help with the baby. Sounds great, you'd have to chop your own head off in the UK before they offered any help!

Any option to add in some formula feeds as well? It sounds like the pressure on you to express/breastfeed is contributing to the situation.

Oh sympathies OP. That’s really, really shit that you have insomnia too.

Your quote that ‘I don't do anything than shit eat breastfeed and try to sleep. I even don't shower sometimes’ sounds like a standard maternity leave to me. It’s really tough for many and it’s so easy to forget this after the baby stage is over. I’m so tired at the moment that I have mouth ulcers that make it painful to eat.

I really think people quickly forget how very challenging caring for a small baby can be. I’d blocked it all out after my first child!

I went through several months with one child where he’d scream manically at night, so I had to comfort him very actively all through the night, by lots of walking around and shushing and breastfeeding and changing and white noise, and music or toys to distract him from screaming, and letting him sleep vertically on me.

On average I’d get maybe one 30 minutes chunk plus a couple of 15 minute chunks of sleep. Every few nights I’d get a chunk of 2 hours sleep in one go - if I got that 2 hours target I felt amazing. I kept a record of it obsessively and I would fantasise about sleeping all the time.

Frustratingly, there were some periods when I could have slept, like if baby was sleeping on my husband or he took him out in the pram for a couple of hours, but I could never EVER get to sleep in those windows.

It felt alienating when other mums would say things like ‘he woke 3 times last night’ or ‘he’s been up since 4am’, as it felt like I was in a completely different planet of sleep deprivation.

I then had a more typical baby who woke twice a night for 20 minutes each, but was otherwise asleep from 9pm - 5am (from about 4-18 months). That was wonderful, although if I’d not been through the first experience I would have probably complained about sleep deprivation.

Feel so bad for you, it doesn’t really help but just know you will survive (not sure how the body does stay alive but it does) and this phase will end.

I went to bed at 9pm leaving dh responsible for any feeding/crying until midnight. About 2am normally baby would wake and i would feed, change settle. It was still hard.

Your situation sounds extreme. I would go to bed as soon as dh finishes work for as long as possible. You have to get some sleep. At weekends both of you should take turns napping when possible to try and recharge.

I also had a situation like this for the first few months.

I’m not sure how much was hormonal/anxiety but I found it so hard to sleep in that first ‘shift’ when my husband was with the baby.

The baby also woke loads in that period which made it harder to sleep.

A few things:

I think we were both way too stressed about me sleeping which didn’t help. You can’t control his reaction, but tell him the pressure needs to be taken off, and if he stresses about it, ignore him. Sleep is not within your conscious control.

You’re not alone. You should definitely aim for 6 hours (even if broken) but remember that loads of people really struggle to get back to sleep after settling a baby, or to nap in the daytime. I was gobsmacked the amount of my friends that said the same thing. Whilst I was berating myself for being so weird and anxious and not being able to sleep (berating yourself doesn’t help!)

It will pass. You’ll be able to sleep more easily again. The baby will sleep and get back to sleep better, which helps, but also your anxiety about this will pass.

Banging your head is concerning, I would look around for free or low cost therapists from charities etc. Or pay if money is not the issue. I get that therapy doesn’t fix everything, and certainly doesn’t cure a tendency towards insomnia overnight. But you are clearly feeling emotional pain around the tiredness, perhaps understandably this engenders feelings of hopelessness, and a good therapist would help with the emotions surrounding this.

As past posters have said, 2hrs per night etc is not enough. But everyone has those nights sometimes, try and aim for more sleep without beating yourself up.

Weirdly I started sleeping better when I started doing all night wakings because husband was sick. It took the pressure off and I went straight back to sleep even if the baby woke very frequently. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this as I did benefit from longer stretches of the ‘shift’ system, but worth considering how your mindset would change if that was the case (without actually doing the whole night yourself).

A couple of nights where he does the whole night or at least till 4 or 5am (either in a row or maybe once a week?) will really help you to reset, it did for me.

Also agree with pp - use formula for the night. I also expressed and again this contributed to the anxiety around sleep as I had to pump just to get any sleep.

Another vote for meditation as very important useful. Do this when you’re awake, and or other things you like for example reading or podcasts to take your mind off pressure to sleep.

I do remember this experience as very painful and stressful so you have my complete sympathy. I’m also a bad sleeper as a general rule pre baby.

If you did need or want to go on medication then you might need to stop breastfeeding and that is ok. Your mental and physical health is much more important. Although agree there should absolutely be more research into and awareness of medications that are safe when breastfeeding.

All the best from me

@Nikamon I’m so sorry you are going through this and your GP was so unhelpful. I had a very similar experience with sleep, partly because the baby had a lot of allergies we were unaware of but he was reacting to through my breastmilk. This is what we did at 10 weeks because i essentially had a breakdown due to lack of sleep.

1. put baby in nursery for 1 day a week - he went 10-4 and I went at lunch to BF but it gave me a break from the crying and allowed me to rest that day. In hindsight I’d probably look for a mothers help but nursery were amazing, I just called and asked could we start him (a lot earlier) one day a week. He settled well, has a great bond with his key worker, he’s 12 months now and due to start 3 days next week!

2. did shifts, I passed DS to DH at 6pm after a breastfeed and went to sleep, I’d cook (microwave my ready meal before I went to sleep and DH would eat his when he had the baby) rule was I wasn’t woken unless he had been crying for over 2 hours and couldn’t settle). DH would give him a bottle of formula at 9pm (the only bottle of formula but I couldn’t pump as well as have no sleep). He’d then pass him back at midnight and I’d try to cosleep (mostly he just slept on me) DH would then sleep in the spare room until 6am and he’d have him for 45 mins so I could either have a micro nap or a shower etc before he left for work.

I think your DH using all the pumped milk is a problem as it is disrupting you, I was told by the BF warriors at the support group o went to once that giving 1 bottle at 9pm would stop my BF - it didn’t, he’s still BF at 12 months and I still give him the odd bottle of formula.

have you considered silent reflux, we had bad reflux (as well as allergies) the crying, constant wanting to feed and poor sleep could be reflux. They want to feed constantly because the milk helps neutralise the acid, but they also don’t sleep as they are in pain (and they cry).

once we were in this routine we carried it on until about 6 months when we had identified the allergies and had the reflux treated, he still wakes 2-3 times a night and I still BF but he goes back in his cot awake after a feed and falls asleep so I’m up for 10 mins and it’s fine. It will improve but you need to do some fundamental changes otherwise you will be very ill and unable to look after the baby.

Is baby unsettled in the evening? Is that partly keeping you awake?

Give baby a big feed as soon as DH gets in then you get into bed and try to rest. He needs to take the baby in the buggy for a walk for an hour so that you are completely undisturbed.

Then do your best to rest.

Given this is at stage of being a serious MH problem you need your DH to help you prioritise getting enough sleep. If that means him taking time off work he needs to do that. Unless the immediate baby need is feeding then he should be doing the care.

seriously consider moving to formula so that he can step in on that as well and you can have some sleep medication

I really struggled to get back to sleep when the baby slept or it was my 'turn' to sleep. It was like the pressure to sleep was too much. A couple of things that helped me:

Fresh air. I needed at least 20 mins of fresh air a day. Whether it was a walk with the pram or just sitting in the garden, on days I didn't get the fresh air I saw the difference

I became a little obsessed with counting hours of sleep, and that in turn added the pressure as "I must sleep I've only had 2 hours". Get rid of clocks. Stop counting. Might be the same amount of sleep, but felt psychologically better.

Ask for more help. You are not taking advantage. It doesn't matter what other people do. You are allowed to ask for help. Your baby needs a healthy mum, and sounds like you need to be looked after and supported more at the moment.

1-2 hours max in the early days. It nearly broke me after a few months. No advice apart from a bottle st 10pm helped a bit!

Thank you all. Turns out head banging can cause a concussion, but on the bright side I now had two consecutive nights of 5+2,5 hours of sleep. Feels like I can think again. We will try not to allow this to happen again. My partner has slept only 5h per night which is surprisingly long, he just shifted his working start time.. it was so simple, I was just afraid to ask and be a motherly failure. The societal pressure to perform is huge.

The baby doesn't really feed or cry excessively at night (unless left alone of course), simply can't sleep too, he's even trying to sleep but can't. And even if he occasionally manages, after 30-50 minutes he wakes up. I start wondering if it could be something in my milk that keeps both of us awake..

It sounds like you're breastfeeding in which is meant to help you and baby sleep. However sometimes it's still hard for them or you to get to sleep! Can you safely bedshare?

I did bedshare when visiting my parents, I had an impression that we kept waking each other up.. it used to work nicely before I got my sleep problems, but now it doesn't fix anything, just gets it logistically more difficult to keep both of us asleep.. btw I just got my thyroid tested, TSH at 0, could also have something to do with it, lowering the dose now.. (had the idea myself).. I wonder how much longer the baby will not sleep at night, he's totally content with it 😨

This advice used to drive me crazy, how are you supposed to sleep when your baby sleeps if they only sleep when you’re holding them and scream when you put them down? It’s really hard to sleep when your baby is screaming. Co-sleeping was the only way for me to get any decent stretch of sleep. And by a decent stretch I mean a maximum of 2 hours.

I had a strict bedtime routine and let it be more baby led during the day but I woke baby up if napping too long. Baby slept in their own room from first day home and I never let them cry for more than a minute - I exclusively breastfed too. Other than a small handful of nights when one of them might be poorly I could generally rely on one waking during the night (I gave them a sleepy feed before I went to bed).
Maybe I was lucky but I was very rarely sleep deprived. Routine routine routine and perseverance.

Hope you are doing ok OP. I really struggled with lack of sleep when my daughter was this age (she's 15) now. I thought I was losing my mind. It had such an impact on me and I never went on to have a second child. You are doing amazingly and you will get through it even though it must feel never ending atm.