Husband needs help

[Girlsdad]

Hi, my first post so i apologise if i dont use all those LOL things etc.

Really I want a womans unbiased advice about how i can make things better

My wife and i have a beautiful 5 month old little girl and she is slowly killing my wife with her constant demands.
She used to wake between 10-20 times a night and just need a cuddle.
We think it all goes back to when my wife took her into bed when the baby was ill and baby loved it !
Wife isnt getting any sleep, I work sometimes 15-20 hour days leaving the house at 8am and coming home, well when works done.

Our Routine is as follows (depending if i am home on time which i am 2-3 times a week)
I get up at 0630hrs wash etc and am there when our girl wakes, i take her downstairs, wash and dress and feed and play until i go to work then i wake my wife (or she comes down)
I come home from work, cook dinner (i Love it) , clean up and then do the first feed or until midnight and then sleep.
My wife does the rest and is awake when i do the first feed anyway but i know it helps.
I have taken a week off work this week and have made my wife sleep at her mums to get some proper rest while i do Controlled crying in an effort to sort our daughters sleep out and she is looking better for it (wife and daughter !)
What else can i do as she still looks knackered and depressed, I have managed to convince her to put our daughter in a nursery for two days a week but i'm worried the rest of our life will be like this ?

5 months old is very little.

Perfectly normal for babies that age still to be waking in the night, as frustrating as it is. Making her cot a nice place to be, using snuggly teddies, perhaps a light projector / musical thing for babies to help soothe her and give her the signal that it's nighttime now and time to sleep.

Or you may find it easier to have the baby sleep with you both, at least until it's older, when things like controlled crying / routine may be more effective.

Is there something else behind your wife not sleeping? Does your baby nap, if so is your wife able to catch up on her sleep then?

Of course this will get better in time, and to be fair young baby + broken sleep + being bloody knackered = welcome to parenthood!

does your wife see any friends or go to any baby groups/classes? I know this helped me greatly keep sane the first year. I found it very hard and my little one wasn't a bad sleeper.
Getting out really helps, even if it's just for a walk in the park.
May be worth checking with the GP if your wife is suffering from post natal depression as well.

also 10 to 20 times sounds a lot to me, could you baby be suffering from reflux/colic/teething/something that could be treated? has the controlled crying helped any?

Also what kind of contraception is she using? the first pill I was on made me depressed, any hormonal based contraception can have that kind of effect.

Your wife also could come on here and post in chat or there might be more dpecific topics where people will be able to at least make her feel like she is not on her own.

I think the nursery would definitely help give your wife some "me" time where she can rest for a start.
The rest of your life will not be like this as the baby will eventually get into a routine and sleep at night, and your wife will certainly feel better once she gets more than to or three hours sleep in one go.
The first few months are hard, it does get better, providing you arm yoursel with he right advice and help.

Have you tried your health visitor? I seem to remember there are such things as sleep clinics, don't know if they are everywhere.

Sorry, we were very lucky - dd stopped waking for a feed before she was 6 weeks old, and slept from 10-6 after then. It must be absolutely knackering, you have my heartfelt sympathy. I would be ready to kill being sleep-deprived like that.

We had the same bedtime routine every night ie bath, feed in her room (after 6 weeks), no light except for one of those that plug into the socket and that give a gently glow.

However, that excludes the evenings she cried with colic until 1am, which was for about 3 months....

Hope you manage to find a sleep clinic, or the health visitor can give you some other tips to save your sanity.

and just to add that we did do co-sleeping as well when things were bad (een though I had sownr I would never do this because I deemed it dangerous).
From personal experience it has not damaged my dd to do this for a couple of months when she had disturbed sleep. Sometimes you have to sleep too and to hell with the rule book.
With my next baby I will definitely not worry so much about feeding them in the middle of the night and sticking to routines etc, regardless of what other people/family say/think.

The rest of your life won't be like this. Soon, your daughter will be a toddler - able to walk, talk, communicate etc and play independently. After that, she'll go to school and all this baby stuff will be a distant memory. Life is tough when babies are little, particularly if they are very demanding - my 1st was, my 2nd wasn't.

Don't beat either of yourselves up for taking the baby to bed - she just wanted her mum, a natural human emotion.

Take all the help you can get for the moment, family, nursery, whatever - but remember this is a phase - she won't be a baby forever. Try to focus on this.

Re the crying etc - my son wouldn't let me put him down ever for a very long time without screaming - 5 months is pretty young for controlled crying and I am not sure if it will work - the baby will still want her mum.

Hi Girlsdad - how long does your DD go between feeds? And does she sleep then? By 5 months it's not too much to expect a baby to get a good few hours sleep in a row at night, and some long naps during the day too - all of which should be a chance for your wife to get some rest.

Does your wife see the Health Visitor regularly for baby weight checks, etc? It sounds to me like she could do with some help and advice from her in getting more of a routine going. That's what Health Visitors are there for, so it would definitely be worth getting some advice from yours if you haven't tried that already.

I'm also thinking the baby must be sleeping sometimes, so maybe your wife isn't using those times to sleep, but to catch up on housework and stuff, which new mums often do. If that's the case you need to make sure she doesn't feel obliged to try and keep everything neat and perfect and to really use those times to sleep herself.

Another thing is, is the situation getting worse or better? If it's recently started getting worse, it could be that your DD is getting to the age where she's struggling to satisfy herself just with bottle feeds, but that's something you would need to talk to the HV about also....

It really doesn't have to be as hard as it is for you both at the moment - with a first baby it can be hard to not let everything revolve around keeping baby happy 24 hours a day, but things will gradually get better, honestly - nobody would ever have more than one baby if not!

Hope that helps a bit anyway - sorry, I am a little bit rusty with the baby stage!

Even Gina Ford admits you shouldn't do controlled crying until a minimum of 6 months.

5 months is too young.

Why do you do 15-20 hours a day work? I would guess that you shortening your working day and spending more time with your DW and baby, would be more effective in lessening your DW's stress than convincing her to put her 5 month old tiny baby in a nursery. Does she actually want her DD to be away from her for 2 days a week?

You say she used to wake between 10-20 times a night. Does that mean she doesn't any more?

Wow - cant believe the quick answers !

Daughter has a nap at 0900 until about 0930 which my wife uses for shower food etc

Then a further nap at 1200 until 1330-1400 which she has lunch during and has a little bit of me time
Then she may sleep for 30 mins in the afternoon, bath time is at six and then feed and bed generally being asleep by seven at the latest.

CC is working i think - its been like this....
Night one - hell on earth, me crying as shes crying but keeping strong.
Night two - brilliant, down at sis fortyfive, up at 0330 for a massive feed and then awake for 10 mins at 0530 - up at seven
Night three - Rubbish, awake every two hours but refusing food most times
Night four - Good, up at 2330 for a feed and at 0340, forty five minutes each time with some crying, but had to wake her at seven and i felt ill from too much sleep.
Night Five - Bracing myself

Yes she its teething sometimes, hates Calpol but we do out best, she is teething tonight and refused her pre bed feed (which i have just given her after a battle)
Wife has been to some baby groups and likes them and we have friends 5 months in front of us, we have no help though from family who talk a good job but dont deliver unlike friends so it makes it hard to compare.
We have worked out its us agaisnt the world !

You sound like you're doing your best to support your DW, which is great.

What you haven't put in your OP are your wife's views.

I would have been devastated at being separated from my five month old for two days a week - and his sleeping patterns were similar to those you describe.

I actually found that I got more sleep with DS in the bed.

I would second the suggestion that your wife seeks support at baby groups/NCT/ drop-ins + that she talks to the HV.

This too shall pass.

X-posts.

I'm about to have my second, and have realised that it's a choice - Me-Time or enough sleep.

Having been through it once, it's a no-brainer.

There will be Me-Time in your DW's future, but right now she needs to lie down and close her eyes the minute your DD does.

Imo.

Exhaustion just turns life into shades of grey.

You sound like you're doing a great job, I promise it does get easier, just try to be consistant and just ignore comments like why do you work 15-20 hours a day!

You sound supportive and like you're pitching in.

Don;t worry there is light at the end of the tunnel and you're nearly there!

My wife is so tired that her views are cloudy and she would be the first to admit it,
She feels terribly guilty and useless about things, feels she is a wimp etc etc,
I must say she had a terrible birth with no pain relief and then got infections, baby didnt get any food from her and lost 1/3 of her weight due to HV breastfeeding nazis who also failed to realise that when we said she was awake every hour screaming we actually meant it. Also seemed to think my wife pissing blood every day and having to sit on a towel whilst wearing a maternity pad and being infected was ok, hence we dont tend to ask them for help.

I work 15-20 hours a day some days not all.
Its my work and i have done it for 16 years and am not qualified to do much else, It pays the bills and I do enjoy it.
We arent rich from it so its not the money.

Oh and i am terribly proud of my wife, I love both my girls so much and i would do anything to make their lives better

Oh that's really crappy luck for you that your HV isn't much use. Could you find out if there's a National Childbirth Trust group in your area? They can be really good, not just for getting some advice re sleep but making friends whose babies are at the same stages etc - might be worth googling for anyway. Or is there a HV clinic slightly out of the area or on another day your wife could go to, with a different HV? She could just use the excuse that the day/place is more convenient to her, and could hopefully find someone a bit more helpful.

From the sounds of it your wife is getting such short bursts of sleep she's not actually getting enough to help much. I would agree with a previous poster that it might be worth trying co-sleeping again. If baby is sleeping under their own blanket or in their own gro-bag, and not under your duvet, it's perfectly safe to do that, and I found with mine that they slept for loads longer at night in my bed than in their cots.

PS - you don't need to justify yourself to anybody so don't even try - you obviously want to help your wife or you wouldn't be on here....

Girlsdad you do not need to justify your working hours!

Co sleeping worked ok, for a little bit but she kept waking my incredibly light sleeping wife with each murmur.
Its at the point we sleep apart to get some rest, My wife would love 10 hours a night without the baby !
As first parents we are treating our girl with kid gloves, probably too much and the CC thing seems to have had a massive effect of showing her - well whos the daddy !
She loves her mornings when she sees me, so i know from her smile its not affected her, and she loves my wife too.

Jesus Christ, waking 15- 20 times a night is a lot! That can't be normal.It would drive a person insane.

There is something wrong - I think, can you look into sleep clinics? or one of those cranial osteopaths which might be a load of old woo but people say it works and in your shoes quite frankly I would try anything..

your baby is too young for controlled crying but I think she needs some type of sleep training or something. The baby herself will be suffering quite badly from lack of sleep.

I hope you get something sorted.

Hi there - can see you've had a lot of good advice already.

I agree that you don't need to justify your working hours, but in honesty, the main thing DH has done when we've been struggling with our DS's horrendous sleeping is to cut back his working as much as feasible so he's at home more. He works part-time at the mo.

Now, this may not be feasible for you, but I would say do consider whether it might be possible for you to work less. With the hours you're working, you must be exhausted too.

Hope everybody's getting some more sleep soon.

But I must say that her going to her mums for the last six nights have made her feel tons better

Having just been diagnosed with depression, it does sound like your wife could do with a chat with the GP Girlsdad. Feelings of uselessness, worthlessness and guilt are signs as is:

Low mood for most of the day nearly everyday. Things always seem black
Abnormal sadness, often weepiness
Loss of enjoyment and interest in life, even for hobbies and activities that are normally enjoyed
Poor motivation. Even simple tasks seem difficult
Poor concentration. It maybe difficult to read, work etc
Sleeping problems. Sometimes difficulty getting off to sleep; sometimes waking in the early hours and unable to get back to sleep
Lacking energy; always tired
Difficulty with affection; including going off sex
Poor appetite and loss of weight. Sometimes the reverse happens with comfort eating and weight gain
Irritability, agitation and restlessness
Symptoms often seem worse first thing in the day
Physical symptoms such as headacjes, general aches and pains and palpitations

It is unusual to have them all but if she has several of the above, I really would strongly suggest she has a chat with her GP.

When mine were teething, I found rubbing bonjela on their gums before the feed helped them to enjoy the feed and take it as their gums were nice and numb and if I did this overnight then they'd sleep for 3 hrs until the bonjela wore off again. The only way I got mine to take Calpol in the early days was to mix it in with the milk in the bottle

Isitmeor - I'm fine, i look at my wife and realise i feel tons better.
I am the only one bringing money in now as SMP has stopped, so i cant do less.
We dont live it up, havent been out more than twice since girl arrival but i want to look after them.
Wife is off until Feb and then we hope only part time, three days a week so the nursery thing will make it less of a shock when it HAS to happen, ie we can cut a day if it doesnt seem right every so often until Feb so everyone is ok with it.
Some people deal with lack of sleep better than others, i have been used to it since i joined the army at 16 and I am 36 now, sleep is something that i can make up in one night.
I had a period at work that meant i was manic for five weeks, wife did most of the feeds then and i want to make it up to her now.

I dont think DW is depressed based on your description, knackered, pissed off with her mum but not depressed.

However - Can you mix CALPOL with milk ?
If so i may be the happiest man alive !

X posted with me GirlsDad

I heard a stat that 60% of new mums find the newborn baby stage very hard and feel miserable. This was on my OU course I'm doing. Sounds very high and not sure where the stat was from but it is terribly hard in the early days, especially if they're not sleeping well. I did find this book very helpful.

Well I did They drank all the milk and therefore the Calpol. Worked for me.