Help 1st time mom! So sleep deprived - dreamfeed advice

[KaransMom]

First post so looking for help!
My baby boy has been roughly following EASY routine since around 3 weeks and we used to.dreamfeed at 10pm and he would wake at 12 or at the latest 1am. He was only having 3oz then. Then the last week or so i didnt wake him for his 10pm dreamfeed and he slept from 8 to sometimes 1.30am! Hes been toying with his feeding dropping how much he drinks to 3oz but now hes back on 5oz i thought id try him back on dreamfeed at 10pm. Total fail. He woke at 1am more wired and awake than when he sleeps from 8pm to 1am
He used to go back to sleep with some shush pat now hes just kicking about wildly in his moses basket and im just crying my eyes out with exhaustion. And he's just had 5oz!!!! I try keeping him as awake as i can daytime but if hes tired nothing can stop him catnapping.
Am i doing something wrong?
Should I not bother with dreamfeed? Or does it take a while to work?
Im so exhausted :'(
I have fibromyalgia and get zero rest with the baby daytime and i hardly sleep at night as he wakes so many times. When he slept 8pm to 1am, he would wake maybe 4ish then up at 7am. If i dreamfeed he wakes up more?! he drinks less than 4oz i only get 2 hrs between feeds!
Everyone is telling me my baby should be sleeping through now and i feel like such a failure.
Pls help this tired first time mum!!!!! I want some sleep. Sorry for long post but after 10 weeks of very little progress i really need some help :(

How old is baby??
And you say you are keeping him "as awake as possible" during the day - does that mean he is not having regular daytime naps?

Hi Op,

I had two dcs a year apart and my lifesaver was Gina Ford, The Contented Baby Book. It is not popular with many here but my premie dd who was 4lb 7oz thrived on it and slept from 10.30pm till 5.30am at 4 months old.

I never left her to cry at all, but put her in her semi dark room at 7pm and sat quietly beside her till she was sleepy and quiet after her feed, then left before she fell asleep so she learnt to self settle. The key thing is the right amount of feeds/naps during the day at the right time so that night is established as sleep time. She has gone to bed effortlessly ever since ( now 10) and it was a godsend through the toddler years, and when she started school as she is always bright in the morning.

My ds was a year later and a bigger baby, it was harder to stick to the routines with two but l made it a priority as it made my life so much better to have two that napped effortlessly and went to bed easily....my bedtime routine with two under 2 took 45 mins and was calm. l miss that time now they are older!

I cannot cope with endless sleep deprivation and chaos, so routine was important as my two were calm and happy most of the time. it is very relentless and l feel for you being so tired but it does pass.

Good luck with your dc

Ive tried Gina Ford and he fell out of that routine after 4 weeks old n its been hard to get him back into it.
He used to have regular daytime naps - morning, lunch and afternoon but hes stopped doing that. He now seems ro follow EASY routine naturally. Eats, Activity then Sleep. He is 10 weeks old.
He never slept more when i did the dreamfeed under Gina Ford either and woke up at 12/12.30am.

I would suggest that he's not getting enough sleep during the day, and is therefore over tired and unsettled by the time night time arrives - was a big problem for us at the start with my DD. I really had no idea just how much a newborn needs to sleep!! At that age, my DD could only handle being awake for about 1-1.5 hours before she would become cranky and over tired. She would be fed, winded, nappy change, a little tummy time/lay under baby gym, and then would be ready for a sleep again. She was having four or five 30-40 minute sleeps during the day. Once we figured that out, she started sleeping for longer stretched at night. She was still feeding 2-3 times in the night, but was much easier to settle back to sleep after her feeds.
My mum thought she was being helpful by saying "keep her awake during the day, she will sleep better at night!" - when actually, that's the worst thing I could possibly have done! Babies' brains don't work that way. There is nothing worse than an overtired baby! Sleep encourages more sleep

And P.S - all the people who are saying he should be sleeping through by now are nuts! He is 10 weeks old - still a newborn baby! If they say their babies slept through at that age, they were either very lucky, or lying through their teeth. My DD didn't sleep solidly 7pm-6am until 8 months old, and I have friends who's toddlers still don't sleep through.

nobody is suggesting a 10 week old will sleep through the night....more how to gently increase the length of time he sleeps at a stretch.

Op l would stick to the 10 pm feed regardless, as your baby gets older he will rely on that to help him sleep for longer in the night.

Do you do consistant nap times in a darkened room to encourage him to nap in the day? l found that if l could stick to the same timing for feed/naps for a week or so mine fell asleep at that time really easily.

Jump to the stage of Gina ford he is most in sync with. I started her book 3 months in and had to use the 9week old stage in book.

Dragon the OP said that people in RL are telling her that he should be sleeping through by now - I wasn't saying that other MNetters had suggested it

Oh Ok sorry Eggy

He naps well during day. Yes its about getting him to sleep longer stretches. He doesnt really move on from weeks one to two in gina ford routine he just wont sleep as long as she suggests for his naps. 11.30am to 2pm hahah you are having a laugh! He falls asleep after a bit following a feed. He used to follow the routine well until about 6 weeks then he just lost it. You guys think i should try and put him back on it?

Personally, if I was back in the newborn "getting to know you" stage with DD, knowing what I know now, I would throw away every single baby book, and close every "sleep solution" website and just take a week or two to learn my baby's cues, and then figure out what works for us, rather than try and do what Gina Ford says I should be doing. Every baby is so different
Like I said up thread, at 10 weeks old, he is still a newborn baby. At that age, he still needs to feed frequently through the night - I know that's not what you want to hear, but honestly, it will get better as he gets older, I promise!! I honestly thought my DD would never sleep for longer than an hour or two at a time at night, and then one day at around 14/15 weeks, I woke up naturally when she would usually be fed, and she was still fast asleep! I'm pregnant with my second baby at the moment, and will definitely be staying away from what books and websites tell me he/she "should" be doing at what age - especially with regards to sleep.
Do you catch some sleep when he sleeps during the day if he is napping well?

I second that. If he's not fitting into all of the sleep training stuff, let it go. Naps seem really important - my daughter is mental if she doesn't get enough sleep during the day!

Are you breastfeeding or bottle feeding? Either way, is there anyone who can help with the nighttime feeds? If you're BF you could pump in the early evening so you could get a few hours sleep. If you're bottle feeding could you take the night off?

Unfortunately for new parents, babies are designed to wake through the night, it's a natural rhythm as well as a protective factor against SIDS so they dont fall into a sleep that is hard for them to rouse themselves from. Don't listen to anyone who suggests he should be sleeping through at 10 weeks - that's bullshit! The NHS don't even recommend routines till they're post 12 weeks as apparently they're too young to recognise them.

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time, the sleep thing is a fucker, really hard going. My DH has MS and I've seen how fatigued he can become with a new baby and i'm EBF so he gets much more sleep. Is there anyone helping you? If not, can you rope in a friend/mum/family member for some relief

Stick with it OP, get as much help as you can and let your little boy sleep as needs it. He will find his own groove and you'll find yours. You sound like you're doing really well, despite it being so awful.

Ditch the dream feed and go to bed yourself as soon as baby is settled so you get a chunk of decent sleep too. Naps can be hard at this stage - they need lots of daytime sleep but are more alert so harder to get to sleep, and then they wake up after one sleep cycle (40 minutes) so they are still tired. Little monkeys! It's a good job babies are cute

Thank you ladies, all the positive support is really appreciated. I dont have much of a support network and my husbands family are only too happy to help which unfortunately comes with a cost! They are quite manipulative, interfering and controlling so dont want to be around that toxicity. His mum announced by day 3 of me being a new mum that i was shit as i didnt know what i was doing and someone from his family needed to come over and teach me! Same woman who was pissed off hubby didnt call her on mothers day - he was in hospital with me as i had just given birth! And breatheeeee........ lol

I feel so lucky to have such great in-laws, I love my MIL.

Just ignore yours, you can figure out what your baby needs without unhelpful criticism!

My little girl is 18 weeks and has never really had a routine for sleeps during the day. Just as I think she's getting into 1 she decides to change it.

She has never slept over an hour during a day time nap I have a catnapper of 3 or 4 30 minute naps. She also doesn't sleep through - I don't even know what sleep is anymore so your not alone!

We tried the dream feed as it worked in with when we went to bed - it didn't work for us either she was getting up even earlier than what she had done before. So now she takes her bottle at 8pm and goes until 11/12 then 3/4 then we're up at 7/8.

Hope you find something that works for you !