newborn sleep nightmare, officially desperate

[ExistentialistCat]

2 week-old DD2 just won't settle in her crib at night at all. She'll sleep in her moses basket during the day quite happily, though. I've tried all the usual tricks (warming the mattress, swaddling, making a little nest out of a rolled-up blanket etc etc etc). We end up co-sleeping out of necessity but I don't want to, I don't get any sleep like that, and I'm not sure it's safe because DH and I are so extremely dopey now.

I'm averaging 2 hours sleep a night (not all in one chunk) and I just don't know how I can continue like this. I also have a 15 month-old DD1 and it's so unfair on her that I'm a permanently bf-ing zombie during the day.

Does all this settle on its own at the magic 6 week mark or is there something we could do to encourage DD2 to sleep in her crib? How do I survive the next 4 weeks? How much of an influence might bf-ing have, and could a night time bottle of formula help (I ff DD1 and don't remember the sleep issues being quite this bad in the early weeks)?

No tips, just exactly the same situation. It makes me feel SO incompetent as a mother that I can't put my baby down! And I've no patience with my insane energetic toddler.

[fed up emoticon]

AND the strike out function won't work. The world really is against me today [melodramatic sorry-for-self emoticon]!

I feel exactly the same. Everyone seems to think it's weird - clearly no other baby of my acquaintance does this.

My house is a shit hole, I feel like I am wasting my mat leave achieving nothing, and not doing anything fun with DD1.

Nope, DS is suddenly incapable of napping for more than 30 mins during the day so have had to wrestle him to sleep five times today and he's slept on or next to me for all of his naps. Sooooo frustrating - he used to be able to manage 1-1.5hrs. Can't get anything done. My house is a shithole too and I look like a minger.

Bedtime went tits up too. DH got him to sleep at 7pm. Woke up crying at 7.10pm and refused to feed for ages. Finally back down at 7.45, then woke up at 8.30 SCREAMING and refusing to feed, and has been doing so until about five minutes ago.

sigh

V fed up. Haven't left house since Sunday because of snow. DH and I only talk about sleep and poo. DS is so cute and sparky and adorable but this sleep thing is hideous.

We only talk about sleep and feeding too, constantly trying to second guess dd2, that and both repeating 'this house is a mess' in a manner that suggests it's the other's fault.

Iwas, have you tried sticking the hoover on as soon as you get home? DS generally wakes up when we get home too, occasionally get a bit more sleep from him if the hoover goes on as well.

Also if they go to sleep on you in the day, do you try transferring to car seat? That sometimes works for me (sometimes not though!)

DS wakes up as soon as I wherl him through our front gate. How? How does he do that? HOW???!

I have just managed to put him in his moses for a nap for the first time in ages. Between us, DH and I have come up with an almost foolproof way to get him to sleep. Watch out for when he starts to avoid eye contact - an earlier tired sign than yawning, I only found this out the other day. Take him to darkened bedroom, swaddle tightly (he doesn't like that bit very much) and rock in front of detuned radio. He is asleep within minutes. Getting him to stay asleep is a different matter though!

Get a bit worried at the weirdness of this method and wonder if it's sustainable, but it's the only thing that works at the moment so I'm just going to have to go with it. A far cry from the Mary Poppins fantasy of laying a drowsy baby in a perfect crib and watching his eyelids droop angelically. It's more like a massive power struggle ... am sitting here watching him like a hawk - he's wriggled twice already so doubt this nap will be any longer.

wheel him through our front gate

I used to walk dd1 for hours. She would fall asleep just as we turned into our road. Great but we lived in a 1st floor flat!

Only discovered the car seat thing yesterday. Going ti try it again in a minute. I've had enough today, of children, of my fucking house, of not being able to eat without a screaming child & dh is working till 7 sp o have to do dinner all myself. I am on the edge today.

I've had enough today, he is refusing to sleep. I just got him to sleep and someone knocked on the door and frigging well woke him up.

How gutting!

My friend managed to get dd to sleep and then put her on her side and she slept for half an hour! Now I have relented & put her in the sling. It's a vicious cycle really, I put her in the sling coz I know she'll sleep but then she'll only sleep in the sling.

I know what you mean. I keep telling mysaelf each night I will keep putting him back in his basket, buit each night at 2am I cannot deal with the in out in out battle till he settles, so I end up with him in the bed again.

Lol, can I join? I am so frazzled... I have a beautiful dd who is just over two weeks old.. oMG I have never been this tired. Ever. I now think it is a good night if I managed to get 4 hours in total somewhere between when we go to bed at 7pm and 7am! And in the one occasion I got almost six hours I nearly cried with relief although I am not hopeful for that amount too often.

My dd just doesn't like being put down and will happily be held all night. And when I can get her down in her Moses basket, she grunts, shores, yelps, squeaks and makes so many weird noises I end up checking her all the time!

Help..... Seriously, although I wouldn't wish this on anyone, it is good to know it is 'normal'

Good luck for tonight everyone,

DS is in bed and has been asleep for 40 minutes now. I'm sat in the living room a complete nervous wreck. The monitor just crackled and I jumped out of my skin. It took me an hour to settle him so I would be gutted if he woke up early. This Proper Bedtime thing is like Russian roulette! We have failed miserably at it for the last couple of nights so hoping for a miracle!

Sorry for all those who feel they're losing the plot. I've had many days like that in the last week or so. It feels so shit when they just won't sleep and you seem to do nothing but battle with them.

I agree CB, definitely russian roulette. We put Artie (not real name, nn as I dreamed he was an artichoke before 12 wk scan) down early today becuase of lack of daytime sleep, he's been down since 7 and I've been up once for top up feed (I think he fell asleep too quickly to feed properly becuase he was so tired), but both times he's gone down well in the basket so that's a releif. and DH made me a G&T which I defnitely needed after today!

Hi Samraves! I wear an ipod ear phone in one ear to filter out the grunts, it really works, but I hear enough to know when she is actually waking up.

Our proper bedtime is about midnight! But DH occupies DD every evening for half an hour to an hour so I can have some space before mammoth feeding session.

I am SO envious of all of you who have a proper bedtime! I keep trying but the only way to get DD2 to sleep is sling or get into bed with her. Otherwise, we too would have a midnight bedtime, "WiseBump"!

I completely share everyone's experience of the house being a tip, feeling like a scruffbag and just being sick and tired of the relentlessness of it all. I think the cold weather and Christmas coming up really aren't helping - at a time when there's more pressure than ever to be a happy Mary Poppins family we can't even get out of the house!

It is so, so reassuring to know that others are going through all this, too. Keep posting!

EC, we've only just started doing proper bedtime thing this week after one too many evenings tramping a screaming DS round the house. We start at 5.30pm with a quick feed to keep him sweet, then bath, then massage, then white sleepsuit (as opposed to brightly coloured ones for day - trying to create 'sleep associations' though doubt it makes a blind bit of difference to DS but feels to me like we're creating a ritual of sorts). Then all the lights get dimmed, huge long feed in darkened room by about 6.30pm and amazingly he is almost always zonked when he comes off the boob. Lights out, swaddle tightly, then a bit of rocking, then into basket, then 30-minute vigil with hand on tummy 'til his breathing is almost imperceptible and he's stopped wriggling. It has failed miserably for the first few nights but he slept from 7pm to almost 10pm last night. I was gobsmacked. Friends who've done it say it can take a month for baby to 'get it' and you just have to be stubborn and plough ahead even if it feels a bit pointless. Apparently babies are biologically programmed to feel sleepy between 6 and 7pm. I never believed it would work on my hyper, constantly wired DS but he does seem to settle better at that time of day, even if for now he's not staying asleep for that long.

Little rascal still woke up every 2 hrs after 10pm though so can't be too smug

Just let her sleep in the basket,it must be like us trying to sleep in a strange bed at night.I tend not to jiggle or rock mine to sleep either so they learn to fall asleep without it,i also put them into their own dark quiet room at around 7ish then bring them up with me at the next feed awhere they sleep,this is great as it allows you some time in your bedroom to relax before they come up with you.I use that time to have a pamper or read a book.

"Just let her sleep in the basket"?! *"JUST LET HER SLEEP IN THE BASKET"???!!!

If she slept in her flipping basket I would be delerious with joy! I too would pamper and read! Hell, I might even sleep, or eat!!!

I don't want to be rocking or jiggling either. Fortunately, that's not a dilemma I have as it doesn't help DD anyway. She will ONLY sleep in the sling or in my arms. All else results in screaming and screaming and screaming. Sure, I could just leave her in a dark quiet room (in the next village) to get on with it but I just can't do that to a 10 week-old.

Right. Paddy over. I've been screamed at by my teething DD1 for 24 hours now, which I hope may count as a mitigating circumstance.

ledkrsbellyislike santas: at your DCs' ability to fall asleep alone in their beds. Unfortunately many of us on this thread have babies that need a bit of help to get there, or just want to be close to their mums. Though I might try putting DS in his own room for the first part of the night as you suggest, once we have bedtime established. I do have to do a fair amount of tiptoeing at the moment when he's in our room.

I am still hving the same prob also my 3week old will not sleep night or day unledd he is being held.. HE wil last a max of half hour in moses basket and that's rare!we hav resorted to sleeping with him on my chest on the sofa or I don't sleep at all coz as soon as I got him down he spends half hour (max) squeekin nd grunting I am so on edge there is no way I can sleep and then he wakes up! I do the week days and get to sleep in bed on wknds when my partner does the sofaa shift!! But I am stil not sleepin properly with him on my chest as I am terrified he is gonna suffocate or I wil forget he is there! I am also nervous reck!

Oh god, here I am again.... 3am... I am also going to have a serious word with my dh tmrw... Prob the opp to most people, he can't switch off- from the noises dd makes and from checking I am ok. I need him to get some sleep so he can watch dd during the day for me tmrw!! Instead he is so upset and distressed that he is now prob more sleep deprived than me. He also refuses to sleep in another room.

So not only am I awake hoping to god that dd actually sleeps in her basket for an hour or so this time and not wake straight back up, and I am now worried about dh and how in bits he is!!

And she's grunting and squeaking again....

sorry i didnt mean to piss off you already tired mums,i didnt read every page and i know my own didnt like to move from basket to pram and crib and with my first i stuck to the moving around cos id spent so much money on it all.He was a terrible sleeper so when i had the others i was ready to try anything and i did find that not letting them nod off on me really helped,then i had dd now 8 and she had 3 much older brothers who were only too happy to nurse her to sleep FOR ABOUT 2 WEEKS then got bored and i was stuck with a baby who refused to be put down so in time i had to re programe her to sleep alone (by this time dh had decided he preferred someone younger so it became more important! The bit about putting them up into their room early was from the baby whisperer and in theory is great as you have abit of noisy time in your room,most babies decide that is their wakefull crying time so it falls flat.
I am having my 5th and last in 8 wks so i will probably have the worst one ever and be on here begging for advice. Good luck all xx

if you read the thread led you will see we all have babies for whom this just doesn't work. I have tried and tried at "letting him go to sleep on his own" and he just doesn't get it, just screams and screams.

Anyhow, I feel like we might be getting somewhere. It may sound odd but we've been trying to put him in his basket at various times in the day when he's happy to acclimatise him and I think he's starting to like it in there a bit more. Getting him in there at night is getting much quicker. And then yesterday he fell asleep on his own twice! Both times he was sitting on DH's knee when his eyes started closing so we put him in his car seat (we were out both times once in a cafe and once at a friends house) and he just went to sleep!!