Is there really no time for a cuppa with a newborn?

[feijoo]

I am due in 5 weeks with my first born and one particular question keeps going around my head.

If newborns sleep up to 17 hours a day, why am I reading everywhere that there is no time for parents to make/drink a cuppa, go to the toilet, shower etc? I can't understand it. If baby falls asleep after a feed, you put them in crib/bassinet for their nap, why can't you make a cuppa?

I am very confused and starting to second guess myself - am I being naive? I fully understand that having a newborn is a relentless cycle of feeding, nappy change and sleep but I am quite keen to have my baby and get on with my life e.g. do things while they are sleeping.

Any clarification greatly appreciated. xx

Mine cried if I put them down. They wanted to be held 24 hours a day, so all day and night. They also often wanted to breastfeed while sleeping!

It literally depends on the baby.

With DD1, she screamed and vomited every time she was put down until she was old enough to be in a very high tilted bouncer. Classic refluxer, didn’t grow out of the projectiling until she was nearly 2.

DD2 was brilliant, happy just to watch her sister and I get on with life.

Though I do have to say, re both of them, 17 hours sleep a day my arse. They’re 4 and almost 2 now respectively and still see sleep as an admittance of failure.

I agree and resonate with so many previous posts. My DD was a very hard work newborn, following the pattern described so many times in this thread, couldn’t be put down, I had to hold for hours on end on a dark room because she wouldn’t sleep in daylight etc, I was losing my mind and spent so much time on MN trying to find a way out and there was no advice here other than “enjoy the cuddles”, “they grow up so fast”, I found so many threads with mums saying they contact napped until the toddler stopped napping at 4yo! I almost lost my mind with this possibility! That is a completely madness and made me feel so guilty for hating every minute of it, I love my baby and wanted her to rest but I definitely don’t need to become a human mattress so she can do it. If I had twins, or older kids, or had some sort of disability that I couldn’t hold her she would have to get used to being put down from the get go so I really regret falling for this 4th trimester thing, cry will traumatize them forever, etc. It made me question myself it really made my first 7/8 months with my daughter a very dark period in my life that I don’t remember fondly. Because she had so many bad habits ingrained it was much harder to sleep train her as she was already so used to it and I was at my wits end so no energy to try gentler methods. I agree 100% with the previous advices: start as you wish to continue, rods for own backs are REAL in my experience! You are the mother, you know better, they will sleep where you let them sleep, end of. Of course I don’t mean sleep training a newborn, but being firm and persistent with love and patience, we will be TTC soon and I am adamant I won’t have a baby sleeping on me again for months 😂 I know I’ll be judged for this mindset but I don’t care. I see so many miserable moms and families nowadays because baby/toddler are the rulers of the house and it is a very weird dynamic that I don’t agree or subscribe anymore. This new trend is not doing motherhood any favors, honestly, and I understand why so many young and independent women run from pregnancy like crazy, the attachment parenting is terrible marketing 😬 we’re a few months down the line after sleep training and I’m the happiest and most energetic mom ever, DD is always well rested because she sleeps solid 12 hours a lunchtime nap NOT ON ME, relationship is going great, plenty of time to organize cook and clean, so yes, if you put them in a routine you’ll take so much pressure from your shoulders that there’s time to drink tea, enjoy the baby and keep your marriage afloat.

Bravo @FigAndOlive and well done on getting your life back.
I sometimes feel like a voice in the wilderness on here but I can see from this thread I am clearly not. I always smile when people say you can't spoil a newborn and they don't form bad habits because four years later, their child sleeps perfectly. FOUR YEARS!
tthink I said upthread but I think long maternity leave is the root of the issue. It is lovely to have so much time off work, but it does take away any urgency to get things sorted. When my oldest (30 now) was a baby, around 10-12 weeks off was the norm, and new mothers were obsessed with getting them to sleep through the night, with three months generally being the time it was expected (I am aware that some didn't and I am going to get posters telling me I am wrong). I went on to have two more much later but this pre-dated much of social media so I kept the same routine with them. All slept 6pm - 7am by 12-14 weeks.
I will accept there is some luck involved, but I am certain if my babies were in the sitting room with me being held all evening then taken up to our room for more faffing about all night they would not sleep as well as they did.
Whe iI first came to MN in about 2012 I honestly could not believe that babies waking 3-4 times at 18 months were considered normal and acceptable and mum's were wringing their hands over what to do because things has got out of hand and the whole family was miserable. Even then, there seemed to be a reluctance to take charge of the situation.
Then i discovered gentle and attachment parenting and knew what the problem was!

It's a good point about maternity leave.

It obviously isn't typical now but I made the choice to go back to work at 12 weeks which is a reason why I wanted him in a nice routine and sleeping through by that point.

I also agree that some luck is involved. Though my baby wasn't born magically self settling and sleeping through the night either which is what some people seem to think, it took time and effort to get to where we are as well as some luck.

I agree that you need a bit of urgency to motivate you perhaps. I went back to work when my eldest was 6 months and will do the same with this one. They have to be able to sleep in a bed/not on me. Luckily both sleep anywhere: bed, on me, in bouncy chair, on play mat, in pram…

I think it's a whole heap of luck. DC2 slept through at 8 weeks. We did the exact same routine as with DC1, she was just a very different child. We tried absolutely everything to get DC1 sleeping for longer than 2 hours but he just couldn't. Including after being night weaned, cry it out etc. He was just an absolutely hideous sleeper. My mum came to help - mother of 5 and grandmother to 4 at that point and even she couldn't believe how awful he was. I went back to work and wasn't getting ore than 5 hours of broken sleep at the time.

@Ungratefulorunreasonable you have my sympathies. There has always been poor sleepers and I am not saying that there are any magic spells you can cast on babies who for whatever reason just won't sleep.
But I do think there would be many, many more babies who would sleep a lot better if routine was not so disregarded now. My generation of mothers, were fed the line that babies thrive on routine, and in general, they did. I was 26 when my first was born and worked full time before flexible working was a thing. I had to leave the house at 7am five days a week. I would be demented without a routine.
I firmly believe that somewhere in the past 10-15 years the new mother's role has been demoted to that of a facilitator, with scant regard to her needs and mental health. It's a strange situation, as on the other hand, new mums seem to expect and get a weird status in society that's new as well.
So on one hand, it's all Your Baby Your Rules, Mumma Bear and shooing everyone else, away as if they didn't know anything, yet on the other hand, there's little practical support to get through the early weeks in a sensible way.
I think sites such as this don't help either, when the mantra is, always that a mum to a newborn knows more than her mother or MIL, anyone older than 40 is out to harm their baby with their dangerous and outdated ideas and encourages new mums to push away the very people who traditionally would help them through the early years.

I dont think the issue here is routine (I had one, didnt stop DD being a monumentally shit sleeper until she was 2.5) it is that we are encouraged to be more baby/child focused but without any of the support of the village. So we are setting up tuff trays and going to softplay and working full time and commuting whilst keeping on top of housework.

My mum didn't have to do any of that. She didn't need to work because it was easier to survive on one income. We had family and friends around to support her. We went where she went and were lucky if it was via a playground.

Overall I think its right to be more child-focused, but with more balance.

@feijoo of course you do! I'm crying back for these days! I have a 15 months old who's on the move now and I didn't realise how easy the newborn stage was comphare to this!

I feel a lot of time the parents are disorganised and they blame the luck of time on the baby.
You need to prepare the house, set everything up and make sure you will need all the little bits that can come useful. Fill up the freezer with cook meal, maybe even consider food delivery such as Hello Fresh. They can deliver you cooked frozen meal or decide to make it your own from the ingredients.
The hardest part that noone prepares is that the baby sleeps ONLY on you or partner. Get a carrier so you can get things done around the house while the little one is being attached to you. Get a feeding pillow! You will be glued to the coutch all day and feeding pillow will let both hands to be free while the little on is sleeping.
Yes, it's depends on the baby how smoothly things will go but newborns never sleep more then two hours in one go or in their cot/moses basket.
I breastfed the baby plus expressed after every feeding plus top up with formula (I had issues with breastfeeding and supply). We had no help at all as me an my husband both from different countries.
So I definitely had my hands full but I still feel like I had enough time to do thing as we were organised and worked well as a team.

Hahhaah YES! I am reading everything here with lots of interest, and I'm feeling encouraged. I, too, am not aligning myself with baby led attachment style parenting to be honest, so I'll go with the 'old-fashioned' routine style once baby has settled into our lives, with plenty of love and everything she needs. Updates to come.....and thanks everyone for your varied and interesting responses here.

I just want to reiterate here for the benefit of all those mums reading who are like “Wtf I didn’t subscribe to any ‘make life he’d for myself’ philosophy, I’m just trying to survive with my screaming newborn any which way I can”….. not all babies are equally easy to parent. Some are just HARD. It is not your fault. Co-sleeping because they will not sleep in the frigging cot is not the cause, it’s a makeshift solution.

I had two babies. One was super super hard, one was super, super easy. It was not parenting - attachment or otherwise. It’s just their inbuilt little personalities.

Go in peace all.

PS just in case you need to hear it again - your baby not being content is NOT YOUR FAULT.

In reality, most parents end up doing a mix of routines and baby led. Basically when the routines don't work!! They go through so many stages as they grow up, it's changing all the time too. We had routines but not in those first few weeks. I'd really emphasise that the 4th trimester is not new age mumbo jumbo, but common sense really. They need time to adjust to being in the world.

THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!

My baby didn't vomit from crying if I put her down because I did not try such ground-breaking advice such as bath, book and bed.

She was a velcro baby, that's just who she is. She is the MOST affectionate toddler now. I adapted my parenting style because of it.

@Seasonofthewitch83 exactly!

I work from home and went back to work at four weeks - so I definitely had time for a cup of tea because I had time for four hours of work a day.

That being said DD was not a good sleeper at night - she didn’t sleep through for a 7 hour stint until she was five YEARS old!

As a newborn though she was a good sleeper in 2 hour shifts - and didn’t need to sleep on me luckily so I just used those 2 hour periods to work, or nap myself.

I did outsource a lot of the cleaning and some of the cooking though as I was working - you can’t do everything but you’ll have lots of hours through the day where you can do something.

Remember these things @feijoo :

Yes, newborns can be hard work and you will be tired. BUT:

• you are allowed to put the baby down
• LETTING a baby cry for 5-10 minutes while you have a poo/shower/collect your thoughts/have a cup of tea is FINE
• YOUR mental health is worth more than trying to do everything 'right'. By this I mean - slack on the chores. Order in food where you can. Take time for yourself. If certain things aren't working for you - like breastfeeding or cloth nappies - then don't do them. Don't force yourself because of a perceived 'benefit' to your baby. Your baby honestly doesn't care, and just wants to be fed and clean and with you, they don't care about anything else

Congratulations and good luck!

This…..

What @ChiefWiggumsBoy says above is EXACTLY what I needed someone to say to me when I was pregnant. Excellent advice!

@Seasonofthewitch83 so can I ask what you would do with your 'velcro baby' (another one of those cutsie MN terms) if you had to go back to work when she was six weeks old?
I'm not arguing for a return to that, by the way, just merely pondering how parents of velcro babies who refused to sleep in their cots coped.

My velcro baby went to nursery from 9 months as I went back to work, where she slept and coped fine as she had a secure attachment to me. She slept great on a mat. Its well known babies and children will sleep and behave differently at nursery than they do at home.

Nine months is different to six weeks though, which is what I asked

Well, I cant answer because that situation does not apply to me? It's extremely unusual for women to return to work at 6 weeks.

So I am not sure I understand the question?

@Seasonofthewitch83 don't know, DD went to a childminder just after 1 for a few months before Covid and she went mute and barely ate. Then she went to nursery at 2 and managed 2 years before her MH was broken. I assume if I'd put her in childcare as a baby I'd have got a lot of called to come collect the constantly screaming or non eating baby. Ultimate Velcro baby.

Quit? Become a nanny or childminder so I could earn and keep her with me?

Sorry meant to tag @Katypp