No idea what I'm doing

[KatieLily12]

Help?

My beautiful daughter is 12 weeks and pushing towards 13 fast.

We started out the first week full of hope: we swaddled, we let her sleep on us or in the crib. It was lovely. From 2 weeks she started having reflux and terrified she'd choke I put her to sleep on my chest or in a sling.

She still won't sleep any other way. All the advice says 'put them down when drowsy' but she screams blue murder and gets in such a state I have to nurse just to sooth her. At night I do the bath, massage and feed then hand her to my DP to settle but she waits till I come to bed (we co sleep).

I'd rather hoped she'd be getting the hang on self settling a little bit by now? I keep trying but she gets herself in such a state.

They say listen to your baby but mine is telling me I can't put her down.

Welcome to the velcro-baby club! Mine's just starting to sort of get the hang of self-settling at the ripe old age of 8.5 months, but given that his sleeping patterns change as often as his nappy, that could all change again by next week.

I think all you can do is go with the flow at this stage and do whatever works, because there's an awful lot of changes (not necessarily for the better called the four month sleep regression) yet to come.

Good grief! I need to start working in 4 months!!!!

My gut says roll with it, my heart loves the cuddles but my back is aching and my mind needs a rest.

Ho hum. Such is mummying

I'm back to work on Monday - full time no less - with a minimum of five wake-ups a night and no sign of let-up. It's amazing what your body can get used to

Trouble is I work from home. The plan was to work flexibly around her naps, evenings etc with a little help from Gran. Good god I hope she's in the groove by then!

Reflux is awful. DD had silent reflux and screamed constantly unless attached to me in a vaguely upright position. My advice would be just do what works. I found co-sleeping a godsend although I was paranoid about it at the time, but it was the only way that I or DD could get any sleep.

Do keep trying (slightly) new things now and then, but don't expect them to work instantly. As Elphaba says, babies change their mind about what they like so often, nothing stays the same for very long.

And I meant to add, it sounds like you are doing all the right things to help settle her.

Do you use a sling? I found it essential if I wanted to get anything done.

Hi PL reflux keeps throwing everything up in the air. Most days I just go out with her in the sling and work her nap time around errands/ groups efc. We had a bit of napping success 2 weeks ago but she went on nursing strike last week which threw everything up in the air again. She seems to have totally lost any resilience she had in the meantime so now won't even tolerate being put down v v sleepy.

I adore co sleeping. Even when she covers me in puke... Despite being predominantly silent reflux!

Working from home with a baby around?

Wow...best of luck with that but I hope you have a contingency plan! No way would I be able to work from home unless DS was elsewhere. You know they get to be a lot more work and naps get shorter and fewer as they get bigger? I didn't have my first 'evening' since he was born until about three weeks ago (sitting in the dark holding and cluster feeding until then, then collapsing into bed myself to cram sleep in prior to multiple wake-ups) and he's rarely napped longer than 30-40 minutes, which has to be on me. If it's anywhere else, the nap lasts 15-20 minutes, if that.

Maybe she'll shape up a lot better than mine has, and I've done everything and then some to try and get him napping and sleeping in some kind of routine, with little to no change. But gran might need to be on standby a lot more than you think!

I know, we'll have to see how it goes. I can work flexibly and just need to match maternity allowance rather than work all out. Dreading it....