newborn baby - when did it start getting easier for you?

[sotough]

our DD is five weeks old and i adore her and am thrilled to have a new baby but i'm really struggling with the lack of sleep and general exhaustion. all pretty normal, etc, but i'm trying to encourage myself with thoughts of when it starts getting easier! can you remember when you started finding it easier with your newborn? with my son it was at five weeks, when he started sleeping a bit better, but he was much bigger than she is and could go longer stretches at night. it got a lot easier when he was 11 weeks and dropped the night feeds but i don't think this little one will be at that stage by then

Certainly not till 4 months when he started sleeping a lot more in the night, it got significantly easier at a year when he also started sleeping longer than 40 minutes in the day as he wasnt nearly so tired.

People told me it would get easy at 6 weeks, it didnt for me but maybe that is a significant age for others.

When i decided i couldn't bear to hear him sounding constantly uncomfortable at night (wind, grunts, groans, retching etc) and tried co-sleeping with him on my chest! The perfect cure. That was at around 2 or 3 weeks i think. He's now 11 weeks and is back in his moses basket and doing long stretches of sleep all on his own. Co-sleeping is demonised, but providing you do it safely and don't carry on doing it for longer than absolutely necessary, it can be a life safer and a really enjoyable part of parenthood! I'm a big convert, despite the fact i used to say i'd never do it due to all the scare stories.

8 weeks - hit rock bottom and it was all up from there. 10 weeks - 16 weeks great. Then 4 month sleep regression hit and it was like going back to having a newborn. Not everyone notices it though, and nothing lasts forever!

My boy is 6 months and there was no routine until about 4 months. I remember being up with him still at midnight and asking my partner - "when will this get better??!!" You have to remember growth spurts too. They are when I got no sleep. But again, things will settle down. All babies are different, my best advice is not not expect anything and things will just change! Now my boy is 6 months, sleep by 7, feed at 11 then again at 5am and up at 7 :)

Ah I remember that feeling so well: utter joy with your new baby; utter hopelessness about ever feeling normal again.

Like carrots says, I'd been told that six weeks was the magic time when it would get easier- and it didn't! Eight weeks was a huge turning point for me- she starting sleeping a lot better and I began to truly enjoy the experience of being a mum.

There have been blips- I found the six month mark pretty stressful not just in terms of sleep (which got worse again, as it was bound to do), but in terms of the strain of breastfeeding and not feeling I had my life back. I had expected it all to get easier and easier, but as with all things parenting-related, there are ups and downs and if you can bear that in mind, you will find it easier to cope with.

But now at one year it all feels fantastic, really wonderful. It has got so much easier.

You will get there!

(sorry for essay. My lo is one tomorrow and it's making me reflect a lot!)

Congrats on your new baby!

My DS is 4mo and is just starting to sleep much better - typically 8 - 8am, with a feed at around 1am and 5/6am. He also tends to go back to sleep much easier after feeds.

Was torture up until about 9 or 10 weeks and then did start to generally get easier.

It will get better, however intense and hideous the lack of sleep is now, once your DC gets the hang of night and day (typically around 12 weeks) and sorts out the circadian rhythms!

Hello, its past midnight, and here I am in the living room awake with my little baby who is just past 3 weeks - and I was desparate so looked here to see when it starts getting better... husband is asleep in our bedroom but our little one doesn't like sleeping in our bedroom or the moses basket there.

My husband has to work away from home tomorrow and has to drive a long way so I thought I ll spend most of the night with the baby so he can get some sleep. But I was feeling quite depressed here on my own thinking it is something I am not doing... plus the world looks worse when one is absolutely exhausted - the average amount of sleep i'm getting is 3 hours a day.. and that's hardly at a stretch.

I'm also struggling with breastfeeding as there seems to be no routine in how he is feeding. When I'm absolutely tired and he needs feeding my mum who is helping me alot gives him formula milk so i can get some rest. I had him via c-section (with complications) so i really need rest.

I don't know - I'm reading your posts and trust that as most of you say: it will get better, and that it is not my fault that it is not perfect..

any words of encouragement will be much appreciated...

xx A

it's past midnight and my almost 14 week son has just gone to sleep. He's been waking me at 2, 4 and 6am for at least the last 3 weeks. I think it's a growth spurt but who knows. every baby is different and can do different things. Mine used to sleep from 11pm until 5/6am.

I felt it got better at about 14 weeks when she started to need less night feeds

am988 - you are not doing anything wrong, I am sure you are doing a fantastic job. 3 weeks is so tiny and yet it seems like the sleeplessness has gone on for ever doesn't it?! Nobodys baby is easy all the time, despite what anyone else tells you. Keep going, it does get easier. It's great that your mum is there to help. Hope you feel better soon.

For us the mists started to clear at 6 weeks (perhaps just got used to sleeping in small chunks?) and then at 11 weeks when, on chrismas night, as a special present, DS decided to drop his 11pm feed and sleep until 2am.

We still have bad nights though, he is 6 months next week and sort of alternates between nights when he sleeps through and nights when he wakes every 2-3 hours

Day time....Around 2.5 months I guess when the constant feeding was over and I realized I had lots more time in the day to do things and was relying on DH less and less. Today I was just thinking how we had done so much (he's just 5 months) and how far on we were from the early days. We also went on holiday when he was 4 months and that was great!

Night time... Not so great. It is actually worse now than it was at 12 weeks. He suddenly went from one feed a night to anything goes, and to be honest I am completely knackered. I swing from being quite resentful and thinking I must try to do something about it, to thinking "he's still little" and just go with the flow!

Congratulations! Overall though I have found the whole thing easier with DS2 than it was with DS1, despite he being a poor sleeper - just less of a shock I think and more relaxed as a parent?

am988, the feeding will get much easier - at 3 weeks you will not have a routine! Just forget the routine for now. Can you feed lying down? I am sure you have posted in the Bfing section, but you know the more formula he has at this age, the less milk you will produce for him. Not preaching to you, but it is better that your mum does everything else for you apart from feeding him. I only concentrated on the feeding for the first few weeks - DH and mum/MIL cooked, cleaned, looked after DS1, etc.

am988 I've been there, I think we all have. Hope you're ok tonight and that you managed to get some sleep today. How are you finding the bf? It didn't work out for our family, and I'm full of awe of ladies who make it work. Just don't forget that bf/ff is such a teeny tiny part of their lives. Just do what works for you and don't feel under pressure, be it to bf or to accept ff topups if that's not what you want.

For me, I found that at each growth spurt it got easier, controversially! I found that the plus points to the spurts were that his tummy grew a bit bigger each time and he was able to hold more food and therefore sleep longer. I think about 3-4 weeks, 6-7 weeks, 10 weeks were where I noticed improvements, but I have to admit I only noticed them when I looked back after a week or so! I've found that once DS did something for 2 or 3 days in a row, I took it for granted and stopped noticing it. I was always thinking ahead to the next stage like; 'oh, if only he'd drop this 2am feed', then it was 'oh, if only he'd drop the 5am feed, I'm bloody dying here'... and so on!

I wish I'd not stressed about the following:

A routine... Newborns are super-sleepy and I was desparate for a routine. Contrary to how you feel at the moment, if a routine is the way you want to go... it will happen!

Getting DS to sleep in his cot... I wish, I sodding wish I'd bought one of those moses basket thingos and had him 2 steps away from me in the living room with lights dimmed and the TV on low in the evening, with all his bottles ready to go next to me. I don't think they know where they sleep for the first couple of months, they don't even know their hands belong to them. I could've waited until his last feed and then decanted him into his cot. If you look at them sleeping in the early days, every so often you'll probably see them sneakily open a beady little eye to look for you and when they see you they'll probably drift off again.

I was ff and I wish I'd just stocked up on ready mix which you can serve at room temp, straight from the carton. You can even buy some brands in ready done, disposable bottles. Not very environmentally friendly, but needs must. (Apologies for anyone who is bf)

Housework. Nuff said. You'll get there.

Sorry about the essay, HTH though

Yes for the first 2 and a half to three months our DD slept in the moses basket in the sitting room and either me or her father slept on the sofa next to her (it is big and very comfy thank god!). It worked really well and meant that one of us could get a full nights uninterrupted sleep.

We transferred her to her big cot in her own room about 4 or five weeks ago and it was surprisingly easy.
Do what works for you in the beginning. As JazzieJeff says, when they are so little they haven't a clue where they are! The moses basket was the best thing ever and I was gutted when she grew out of it - she's got long legs so it didn't last as long as it does for some people.

My Mum works with babies and throughout the difficult early weeks kept telling me that most babies tend to settle down at 8 weeks. I kept this goal in my head to keep me going through the hard days/nights like a beacon.. miraculously, DS hit 8 weeks and has all of a sudden started feeding better during the day and self settling to sleep for 6/7/8 hour stretches at night. I am aware this could all change again, but keep the faith- it DOES get better!

3 months(ish). With DD it was a gradual thing around that time but she's never been a good sleeper, even now she's 4 years! With DS it was all of a sudden at 3 and a half months. He learnt (by himself) how to self settle and from that moment on has slept for around 11 hours or so a night. Bliss! He is, however, only coming up for 5 months now so not counting my chickens yet! Good luck, enjoy it, the hard bit doesn't last forever.

For me it's been since about 13 weeks. Until then we'd been very relaxed with DS - he'd been unwell and in hospital for a bit, and I was much more concerned about feeding than sleeping. Then I woke up and thought, time for some sort of routine. And it was surprisingly easy so he must have been ready. Now he's 16.5 weeks and goes down for about 1.5-2 hours in am, same in afternoon and had just started going 7-7 with a dream feed. He was always quite good at settling but I practiced a lot of self-settling which seems to have worked. Obviously I'm aware we're up against growth spurts etc but in some way I think it was important to just know he could do it! Oh, and he is the most contented, smiley baby!

What I meant was, and should have said, was DS was good at self-settling but we practiced a lot of resettling (so he would help himself sleep longer)

DS slept through the night from 6 weeks, going from 7pm to 5am. We now have a newborn DD who is 3 weeks. She feeds 3 hourly at night and much more freq during the day. She is still small and lost a lot of her birth weight she isn't even 7lb yet at 3 weeks. I guess she won't sleep through for a long while yet and I wouldn't want her to. I'm exhausted too, but on the plus side I've stuck with breastfeeding this time, so I try and remind myslef how far we have come and look at the positive. Having a very active 4 year old and a newborn really is challanging but I know it will get easier. What you are going through is totally normal. Congrats on your lovely little baby! X

Just to let everyone know, and to close... that yes, it all settled, and those very early weeks are gone like a dream - he occasionally still wakes up at night, because of teething.. or who knows - maybe a cuddle - but it all got better, just that with a first baby and in those early weeks one thinks that it is never going to get better & exhaustion will eventually destroy us (which it almost does). Managed to BF for 7 months with Formula top ups at times and at other times just BF. Thanks to all who had words of encouragement. It does make a big difference. xx

Hi
When did it start getting better for you?! I have a 9 week old and struggling with settling her at night and getting any decent length of sleep :( sometimes she ll go 5 hrs between feeds- well she's done it twice!
Introduced a dumy early evening to calm her and she likes it. But currently sat in bed with her screaming in Moses basket. Already fed and changed her.....

Hey everyone. First time Mum with a 3 week old who sleeps ok duration wise ( albeit a bit restless at night with noises and fidgeting) but won’t be put down in a crib or a Moses basket day or night. Tried bedsharing last few nights- first night was amazing but last two it hasn’t worked so well with him waking up for feeding seemingly constantly. I’m wondering whether my milk isn’t enough to fill him( breastfeeding and he is gaining weight and filling his nappy ok) and seems to feed normally during the day. Also VERY keen to know if and when he will start sleeping somewhere other than me or my husband as we are exhausted with it!! Please help mums out there!!

@Mackayl1 newborns feed constantly at the beginning it’s called cluster feeding - look into it. It will be a rocky up and down few weeks but it will get better. Just cuddle your baby and keep feeding - nappy outlet is key. Sleep whenever baby sleeps xx