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Can't cope

27 replies

mishkamoo · 09/11/2008 18:22

1st baby 5wks old tomorrow. Will fall asleep and stay asleep if being carried but will only stay asleep for what seems like maximum of 1hr in moses basket. Was going for 3hrs between feeds at night 10days ago but now can be anything from 1.5-3hrs and as it can take over an hr to feed and settle him, that doesn't leave much time for sleep in between! He is generally feeding well althoug often he will fall asleep when feeding and cannot be roused only to wake 10mins later when put in moses basket. During the day I am now trying him in a sling and he will sleep well if lying on me, but this means I can't take a shower, eat, put the washing on....
I feel like we must be doing something wrong. It seems like everyone elses babies are sleeping well, and going longer between feeds, but ours just seems to be getting worse. Am I making it worse by carrying him/letting him fall asleep on me during the day? Should we co-sleep?? I don;t really want to do this as I'm worried about causing probs later on, but is it the only way to get some sleep??
I am SO SO tired, and really struggling to cope. I sometimes regret having him, which makes me feel so guilty and like such a failure. What can I do?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
wishingchair · 11/11/2008 10:58

I have 2 DDs. The first one always slept on me, I demand fed and if she napped at all in her moses basket/cot, it was a miracle. She started napping properly at around 4-5 months, sleeping through at 6. She was then pretty much in a typical baby routine (feed in morning, short nap, feed, longer nap, feed, bath, feed, bed). With DD2 I thought right, going to have to be more organised so will start that routine from day 1. Of course that wasn't possible as babies are all different, but things I did do that made life easier was to establish nap and bedtimes early (this was easy as DD1 had a fixed bedtime so we just slotted DD2 into the same routine) and I didn't feed her till she was asleep but put her to bed at bedtime after feed but when just dozy. Despite all that, she also didn't sleep through till 6 months, but has always been much easier to settle at nap and bed times.

You do what you do to get through ultimately. I had two different approaches but with pretty much the same outcome. Both DDs are happy, contented children.

At 5 weeks, I really don't believe you can 'make a rod for your own back'. And even if you did, you can always change it later. No bad habit is totally undo-able.

Re: dummy. DD2 is a thumb sucker but she probably didn't find her thumb till she was a couple of months old. I tried a dummy but she became a crazed addict within hours, crying every time it fell out of her mouth so I banished it. I also took her to a cranial osteopath as she seemed to be suffering from wind (whatever it was, it was causing her to wake up crying every blinking hour). That seemed to help, or it may just have been a phase she would have passed through anyway.

Everyone stumbles through the first weeks/months ... you're doing a fantastic job x

potxola · 12/11/2008 19:27

MishkamoI thought about you last night. My baby was awake for 3 hrs.It happens to all of us.
I don't know if you are still interested in the Grobag swaddling blankets. I have just put them on ebay, have a look:
cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-GROBAG-SWADDLING-BLANKETS-6-NIGHTS-USE-EXC-COND_W0QQitemZ320317871226QQcmdZViewItem ?hash=item320317871226&trksid=p3286.c0.m14&trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A 1318

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