Any Gina Forders? I have some questions

[roslily]

Ok, despite my best efforts at AP etc, I am giving Gina ford a go as I am losing the will to live and have started doing quite dangerous things due to lack of sleep (the other night, half asleep i took a pillow into ds,s room and put it under his head and left. I found it at 5am!)

Anyway, I am following her routine for 3-4 months (my ds is 16 weeks). The lunchtime nap is abit of a battle as he keeps waking, but I resettle using pupd, or face stroking.

He wakes every hour between 3 and 7am. I do leave him a few mins to see if he will resettle himself, but he doesn't. he will settle if I give him dummy, pick him up put down.

Should I continue doing this? Or is there something else I should try a la GF?

This isn'y growth spurt, he has been doing this for a long time now, and I have tried offering bottle, but he is not interested.

Go to your HV. Seriously they are much better nowadays with the whole reflux milk intolerance stuff.
You will get better support for the crying issus as well.
Dont believe everything that a select few on MN will have you think is gospel.
GF is not a witch, she has helped millions of families cope with a new baby.
SS are not the devil incarnate. They support and help lots of very vulnerable people.
Health Visitors are a brilliant resource. Not all are good but then not all mummys are good either.
Is there a Sure Start center near you? Look it up and phone them. They are there to help people not to judge your parenting.

Please dont give up. A mothers instinct is a very very powerful tool. Trust it and it will never let you down.

ronshar - very sensible post, couldn't agree with you more, on all counts!

There's nothing wrong with trying GF if you're having such a hard time. Never tried her myself but have friends who found her a godsend.

Ok the lack of sleep is a nightmare!

DS1 is fantastic sleeper (7-7 from 8 months) but ds2 had same kind of random sleep routine as you from about 6 weeks to around 5 months but is now more settled only waking around 3ish.

You have already had some good advice,

I would try & get reflux ruled out.

Try & teach DS to self-settle (ie put him to sleep awake) Both mine have dummies (6 months & 26 months) but I wish i had been braver & made them go cold turkey at around 4 months when they started waking-up at night looking for them!

Put DS in own room - both mine (and us) slept better in own space, even though they now share a room together.

I found life at home with baby very hard at 1st- i have worked from 16, eventually became a teacher like you so was used to being surrounded by company all day. Then i just kept myself busy with baby groups - try local churches & childrens centre & library for nursery sing-a-longs. I went to a fantastic "newbies" baby group full of other tired & emotional new mums led by a local HV, but we supported each other in turn, and we still meet up, in fact some of us are now on 2nd lot of maternity leave together!

I just try to remind myself - its not going to be like this for too much longer & I dont have twins/triplets!!

ds2 is 6 months btw

Just to throw in a bit of support, not really anything useful on the whole 3am waking thing:

Roslily, I could have written your posts when DS was tiny. As Starlight and many others will testify, I was desperate for the 'solution' to DS's various sleeping habits and problems, and found it incredibly hard to adjust to not getting any me time (despite DS being very much planned, wanted, expected and 'prepared' for)

I came at things from the other angle - I was determined to GF (with a baby that was patently not GF-able and plain old didn't need that much sleep to be perfectly happy). I perservered for months, so I admire you for recognising that what you were doing (APing) wasn't working and trying something else.

However, the big change came when I finally managed to relax when DS was about 5 months. I basically decided that
(a) I wasn't getting any me time (except the odd break when DP was there) till he was 2. I don't know why I hit on 2, but I think I decided that if all else failed we'd scrape together the money to send him to nursery a couple of days at that stage. Once I accepted that, things got a lot easier. And I actually now get plenty of me time, and have done for some time. I just accept that it sometimes comes at funny times (the odd random 2 hour nap, or a sit down at a baby-group-friend's house when he'll play happily for an hour which he won't normally, or a bath in the evening because I had a good night's sleep the night before and know I can cope that night with an hour less). A lot less than I used to have, but plenty for me to feel human.
(b) I wasn't getting a full night's sleep until DS was 2. See the reasoning above, replacing 'send to nursery' with 'controlled crying'. Again, it didn't last that long (DS started sleeping 10 hours reliably at about 10 months), but accepting it was key to relaxing about it, and knowing that I was prepared to do something drastic when the 'deadline' of 2 hit.
(c) The dream feed just didn't work. DS didn't go a minute longer than he did without it (woke at 2am with a dreamfeed, woke at 2am without it). I made myself feel better about it by offering more milk during the day, but not sure that made any difference to him. I just randomly dropped it one day and the only effect was to let me go to bed a bit earlier.
(d) I decided what I was and wasn't prepared to do. For instance, I didn't want to feed to sleep, because I wanted DS to not be reliant on me to sleep (meant a longer break for me if DP could get him to sleep!), so I just never did it. But I was happy to walk for 3 hours a day with the pram (the only way to get DS to nap for any length of time), so I did. Decide where your limits are, and stick to them. It'll save a lot of 'how do I stop BFing my 2 year old to sleep' or, 'I can't leave the house, DS will ONLY nap in his cot!' threads in the long run.

Also, at the end of the day, I just don't desperately like the newborn stage. If I could produce another one year old from under the table instead of having a newborn again, I would, happily! It was, for me, a question of simply surviving until more fun bits. And I say that as someone who loved and adored DS from the day he was born, never had any bonding issues, but just didn't 'get' the newborn thing.

Ummm.... That was a bit of a brain drain, but hope you get some reassurance from it! You're not the only person who ever felt this way by a long shot. Hope things improve soon!

"he will settle if I give him dummy, pick him up put down."

This was written in the op. I'd carry on doing that if it works. Why wouldn't you? If he settles easily with a dummy, then do it.

Some babies only sleep for 30 minute snatches during the day. You just have to accept that.

It is completely normal to feel tied to the baby and its routines, to feel restricted and bored and sometimes resentful. You don't sound selfish at all. You sound completely normal.

Motherhood is hard and you are doing well.

Thanks. Last night was a bit better. He still woke (1.30am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am) but at 4 and 5 he sort did a werid shout and by the time I got to him he was back to sleep himself.

I knwo I need to chill out and ride it out. DH has suggested that he goes to nursery one morning a week from January (I go back to work in March) so that I can rest. Just feel guilty about it!

I like the idea of working out what is acceptable. i din't wanthim rocked to sleep, as my mum was still having to do that to me when I was 18months!! But other things I am happy to do- ie I am not that bothered if he doesn't take every nap in his cot.

No particular advice from me but my sympathies - first year is hard going but it does get better. I too found it helped to surrender myself to the fact that I would be able to do nothing for a year but look after my baby. It doesn't change the baby but it makes the disruption a whole lot more bearable.

I recommend reasing a Life's Work by Rachael Cusk which is a blackly humurous account of the first year of life. I remember reading it many times over and over at 3am in the morning when I was awake but my DC, with bulging stomach of milk, was snoring loudly. It helped me to feel that I was doing quite well - esp as Rachael Cusk is an intelligent, beautiful woman as she was seemingly as bamboozled by motherhood as I.

Hang in there, Ros. You are having such a tough time and it sounds like that is partly because you are a lovely lovely person and a very good mother who always responds to your baby even when he is very unsettled over long periods, I reckon. Your son is ever so lucky to have you. You are really earning your motherhood stripes here (not sure what the f motherhood stripes are but hope you know what I mean!). I really honestly believe that it is when times are tough that we show our mettle as parents. It's absolutely wonderful when things are lovely and smooth and pleasurable but it's when everything is on edge and spikey and scary and difficult that you really prove yourself as a fabster mum. It's easy to be a good parent when babies are cooing delightfully or asleep for reasonable periods but where you REALLY make a difference to them is at the times when you don't throw them out of the window after their eighth hour of colic, when you still offer a response at the 7th night waking, even if it is a despairing, tearful, grumpy one, where you persist in helping them to feel more contented and happy even though it feels like a hopeless struggle at times. Your abundant support and love and struggle to find the right response is making a huge and valuable difference to your son, I believe. And little by little this fog WILL lift, you know, whatever methods you use or don't use, and things will start to feel better. Lots of love to you.

One other small thought, which maybe no-one has added yet?

If you can afford it you can 'buy' a little bit of me time by hiring someone to look after the baby part-time.

When my DS was (I think) 2 months I hired my neighbour's 20 something daughter to come and look after the baby for 2, 3 or 4 hours at a time a couple of days a week so I could get stuff done. It was fine with BF - I either timed it so she did her stint of looking-after between BFs, or took the baby off her in the middle of the stint and did BF for half an hour (or whatever).

At first my helper looked after DS in the house and then as we all got used to the arrangement she would trundle him down to the local shops in his pushchair (which he seemed to love, I must say).

It helped that I already knew and trusted my neighbour and her daughter (so I didn't have to hire someone unknown eg via Gumtree at that stage).

For myself I found this a really good arrangement and the baby now has a really nice ongoing relationship with neighbour and daughter - for example they had him round to play for a couple of hours earlier this week.

Hello Roslily

What a lonely, scary place to be, I remember it so well, (and with a shudder).

Adjusting to motherhood and feeling the buck stops with you and the sheer never ending care of a newborn is so tough.

I completely understand your need to sink in the bath and unwind for an hour or so after baby's bedtime. You need an arbitrary end-of-the-day for yourself otherwise you are never switching off mentally and find it hard to sleep (as you already know).

I don't really know what to suggest for your problems, my dc2 was very similar and I switched from co-sleeping (breastfed) to Gina and he sorted himself out straight away, I had to do crying down for daytime naps too so he could learn to drift to sleep on his own. He is a very good fit personality wise for the Gina Ford methods though and it sounds like your baby might appreciate it too.

Not much practical help, sorry, I just really wanted to sympathise and tell you this bit truly is hard but stick at it and it will worth it.

You are not alone my love!

Hi Roslily

Sorry to repeat what I asked earlier, only the following advice has really worked for me and lots of mothers on another site I am on.

"Did you try the split feed at 10/15.15pm last night ? How much did he take at the late feed ? Also when he woke every couple of hours, had he kicked his covers off, or was he still tucked in really well ?"

Do not be made to feel guilty about wanting some sort of routine, keep posting what is happening and I am sure you will get things sorted out.