Losing the will to live with baby’s sleep

[dontjudgemeagain]

Typing this at 1am on wake-up 3.

9 week old, EBF. He was never a good sleeper but it was always in the range of normal newborn bad sleep. For the past few weeks though, he’s started waking hourly throughout the night.

my husband is amazing and does what he can, but with baby being EBF and usually wanting to feed there’s not much he can do. We tried pumping so baby could have a bottle but a) his crying woke me up any way and b) needing to pump to replace the feed rendered it a bit pointless. When held in the day he can sleep for hours.

I know it’s normal for babies to wake frequently, I really wasn’t expecting otherwise, but even every two hours would be more manageable. I’m so exhausted that I’ve started feeling dangerously low, and I’m beginning to notice I’m hallucinating. I’m getting max 30 minutes sleep at a time.

weve tried cosleeping, capping daytime sleep, not capping daytime sleep. I’m desperate for anything that might help, because I can’t do this anymore. Or at least reassurance that it might resolve soon and not in several months or years time.

Sorry no advice but I remember this stage. In our case he would only sleep when latched. I just passed out with him latched in the end, I was so tired I was seeing things. I couldn’t sleep properly with the feeling of him feeding though. It resolved when we got his tongue tie finally recognised by the GP and got it cut. He finally felt like he was feeding properly and started sleeping through. 💐

No advice but just some sympathy. Currently awake with my newborn and posting my own thread about baby sleep 🤣 I hope we can manage some decent sleep soon

Yes get someone to help and check no tongue tie etc Teaching baby to take a formula feed from someone else is not evil either.

Bottle feeding instead

Co-sleeping? Or reduce BF and introduce formula at night so your DH can help with feeds. It is important that you’re rested and able to sleep.

This is why I would never BF.

This is both normal and not okay. If you’re feeling dangerously low and getting 30 mins sleep at a time, you need help from someone asap. Even just seeing your GP as a starting point. You have my sympathies, it’s so so hard.

Helpful… 🙄

Would you consider giving a formula feed at night with a bottle? Then your partner could do an early shift, say 8pm - 1am so you could get a solid block of sleep, he stays downstairs with baby, you put some earplugs in and go up to bed?

It's so hard in these early weeks, the only way I managed was by cosleeping so that I could feed lying down and barely wake up just to latch baby on.

Will baby take a dummy?

This is what helped me. I breastfed but DH gave baby a bottle of formula and had him 6pm-11pm so I got a good stretch of sleep. Also look into a Hakka, it will collect milk leak/drippage from one boob whilst u feed on the other so u can be building up some for the fridge for bottles too. I used to get at least a bottles worth a day by doing this.

it does get easier .. hang in there

I also had my partner give a bottle of formula so I could go to bed early. I also recommend a dummy if your baby will take one.

At 9 weeks I don’t think things like routine and day sleep matters. It’s just about survival imo, work out how you can get as much sleep as possible.
If your DH works from home or local he could take the baby from 5am for a couple of hours, if he leaves early then he takes the baby in the evening and you go to bed at 8pm for a while.
Do whatever it takes to protect this, express BM for DH to offer a bottle, if baby doesn’t take this he needs to have premade formula on hand and try that. Basically he can’t be waking you to settle the baby before midnight.
My DH would just walk the baby around the streets at 9pm if he couldn’t get them to settle.

Sounds normal, sorry. It will pass. I've been there, even the hallucinations.

I wouldn't let him.sleep quite all day.

And try to sleep when he sleeps.

It’s not normal to wake that frequently. My first did and it was partly caused by pain from CMPA. Unfortunately my first is still a bad sleeper but not that bad. A dummy did help.
It also worth making sure they haven’t got wind or reflux. But with mine it was the type of cry and pulling of the knees up and the wanting to feed again for comfort but that leading to pain again about 40 minutes later.
My second also had CMPA but diagnosed very early slept in three hour blocks unless they were ill.

I remember this with my youngest. It's hell and I was dangerously exhausted. We had to combi feed in the end...my husband gave the night time bottle feed and had DD while I slept in another room with ear plugs from 8pm-1ish, then I took over from 1am till morning. I had to look after a toddler and also drive my eldest to school, and it was becoming unsafe. We also introduced a dummy, it wasn't too bad to get rid of around 2.5 years old.