The great non-sleepers, newborn and beyond.

[NinaMarieP]

Thread number four (I think).

Welcome to all past posters and any new ones who are also up at all hours!

Totally agree @Ceesadoo how naive I was...
So after my great night and day (wednesday) I can confirm it was a one off, we had a rubbish night with ds only cat napping in between feeding and constantly fighting the boob this carried on into yesterday and the only break was when we took him in the pram and went Christmas shopping but that obviously didn't help my lack of sleep. Last night he continued to fight the boob, he has a little bit and then he goes mental. My thought is that my let down is slow?? We decided to give ds a bottle of ebm and I went to sleep raving d to it. Ds drank 4oz in 20 minutes and there was no bother and he then slept nearly 4 hours. His latch is very shallow despite how much we work on it. I got up at 1.15am and both ds and do were asleep in the lounge. I sent to to bed and ds woke and had a 15-20 minutes feed (no boob fighting at all) and went back to sleep. After a few attempt I managed to transfer him to his cot and he slept from 2-5am. I woke and discovered a massive leak from my left boob, when feeding ds earlier I didn't get the chance to offer him both boobs as he fell asleep so my left boob was lumpy and rock hard!! Never had leaks before. It got sorted once I fed ds and the flow seemed to be okay at the time but later it became an issue again.. I don't quite low what to do... if we weren't going abroad for Christmas I think I'd start expressing more and move on to feeding ebm only and abandon the breastfeeding as I cant see his latch improving...Any thoughts peeps?
I'm dreading going away now if he's going to fight every time I feed him....

Sorry about the typo' s...

Hey Sakura! Hmm it's a tricky one. Sorry I'm sure this has been asked but can't remember- was tongue tie eliminated as a possibility?

DS guzzles from his bottle very efficiently but is restless on the boob at night. So I know what you mean. It depends on how much of a hassle expressing is for you and if you don't mind doing it?

Got through the night, prob had about four hours of broken sleep. Took DS on my chest at 6am and we both slept for two hours. I'm very reluctant to do it but it's the only way we can get a chunk of sleep apart from the first part of the night. I'm observing all the safety rules, it's the best i can do really.

Oh and I've managed to persuade DH to cancel our plans for tonight so that's a big relief!

DS has been napping for over an hour I got my Christmas miracle!
(Although in the sling, with me pacing around the house, so, you know, not ideal, but I'll take anything at this point.)

We've had a crap day for naps, I really hope it doesn't affect tonight

Hi All,
Just saying hello to all :-) I was feeling very sorry for myself (have a bug, so feverish and achy and not at all in the mood for the lack of sleep I expect), but sounds like many of you have it worse!
1 DD, 15 months. If all is well, awake every 2 hours at night but will go back down again. Naps only 30 mins unless cuddle and breastfed, in which case usually 1hr15. I can deal with that, but she's been ill this week and has been waking more often and has been going to bed really late.
How on earth do you survive when you aren't well either?!?!? She won't settle for my DH at night and he's not usually around during the day to give me a break. I desperately want to have a hot bath and go to sleep and can't do either!

Hi @crazychemist and all newbies (sorry, this thread moves fast so am being lazy and not checking back!)

It's the absolute pits being ill but also being on night duty too, I really feel for you. My DH isn't well but there's no way I can support him - we have DS (7 weeks) and DD (2.6) both of whom are not doing much sleeping right now so I'm looking after DS and he's settling DD. Being a parent means you're just not allowed to be ill! Hope tonight is better for you.

I'm after some advice from you wise people. My DS is mostly breastfed apart from a bottle of formula we give him in the evening as his final feed before bedtime. Up till now he's been fine with both, but during the past few nights he's been throwing up immediately after the bottle. He does gulp it down fast so we feed it in stages with many pauses for burping him. Could this be an intolerance (and why would it show up just now) or is his system being confused by the combination of breast milk and formula? Has his tummy got so used to my milk that he's finding fornula too rich?

His poo is normal and he doesn't seem distressed in himself, although he's fussy on the boob at night.

We started giving him the formula because he initially didn't take well to breastfeeding and he was also a month premature so had a low birth weight. Plus it has meant (selfishly) a decent stretch of sleep at the start of the night. But I don't want to feed him something that's making him ill!

Good luck all for tonight...

I haven't checked in for a couple of days. Only because I've been last minute online shopping during feeds rather than ds sleeping through.
He's got a cold and snotty. Bless him. He's actually settled in his Snüzpod next to me so will be off to sleep soon myself now.
He's been awake most of today (yesterday) and so must he exhausted. We had some friends over today and dd and friends were noisy but they were all having fun and it was great to see the house buzzing with happiness and excitement.

I expect I'll be up again in an hour 🙄

DD slept in her Moses basket from 1am until 4:30 when she was stirring and grunting. I managed to settle her back to sleep and now the cat is asleep on my chest instead. They are now the same weight and 4.6kg can feel remarkably suffocating whether it's a baby or a cat...

Baby sleeping soundly next to me but I've been awake since 2:30, ugh. Going to pay for it in the next couple of days I think.

We did a Christmas food shop today, well, DH handled it. Then I realised he's just shopped for food we were going to eat on Christmas Day, the turkey and the trimmings and the bloody Yule log. His parents are coming tomorrow, and leaving on the 27th. What on earth are we all going to eat tomorrow, Christmas Eve and Boxing Day is beyond me. But I told him three months ago I'm not getting involved this year, with this Velcro baby stuck to me at all hours. If he insists on hosting Christmas he'll have to organise his resources, and I'm standing by it. There'll be two other adults he can employ anyway. Surely with their joint effort they'll manage not to starve. Although we may just end up eating my stash of biscuits and apples for 3 days

Awake after Dd gave me 3 hours sleep. I also got a few earlier tonight. The last two nights were so bad that I feel properly rested with 5 broken hours sleep.

@Ven83, that sounds like something my Dh would do if I left him in charge. We also have family coming in today and staying until the 27th. I did tell him that he's going to have to take on a lot of the cooking responsibility, so we'll see how that goes. He's good at cooking, but gets flustered when there are multiple dishes going at once that he had to attend to.

Can I please join the (all night) party?

Have been watching this thread for ages hoping our issues were temporary and I could smugly 'unwatch' when we suddenly started getting 8 glorious unbroken hours. Not looking likely.

Six month old screams approx every hour from bedtime to midnight, and every 15-20 minutes thereafter.

@actino Small mercies like that mean the world, I know. Hopefully things continue to improve!

My DH is also a decent cook but he too gets stressed with having to do many things at once. I'm not too confident in the kitchen at the best of times and told him with the baby and everything happening this year I really can't support him through it. He insisted though. I think he banked on my mum being there to help as she's very hands on. Turns out she can't come this year. His mum is not very demanding but also not helpful. She's just unable to see past herself, same with her DP. Last time they were here when the baby was 5 wks, not only did they not help with anything practical, but they made it worse, like once they finished dinner they left the table and left all their plates there, like they're in a bloody restaurant. They couldn't even take it to the kitchen. I had to clear it all up. Who does that to brand new parents? You can tell why I'm dreading the next few days. But I refuse to get dragged into it.

At least my guests will be helpful. My FIL always did the dishes and MIL can help cook if we ask. It'll be interesting to see how Dh hands hosting, though. His mother likes to cook the whole meal by herself and won't accept help, so he is used to spending Christmas relaxing on the couch.

They visited when Dd was about 3 weeks and weren't really any help with the baby other than holding her. In contrast, my mom was just in town and did almost all the nappy changes, helped settle her early in the morning so that I could sleep, sent me upstairs for afternoon naps and watched Dd, and was really supportive and helpful when I was having problems with breastfeeding.

Good luck with your next few days. Hopefully Dh will put them to work so that you can focus on baby.

So wenl survived the flight! DD was actually the best behaved child on board She slept through the flight, thanks to the bulit in white noise coming from the plane engine. Really considering flying every day now

Glad your flight went really well @AMagdalena. We took DS on a tiny 15min flight and he fell straight asleep. They're magic white noise machines

Of course you can join our all night party @JessYouMe. Sorry your LO's sleep hasn't improved as you had hoped.

I feel so relieved our flat is too tiny to host relatives for Christmas!

We'll be going round to my parents' - DH cooks the turkey here and then we bring it over (they're 10 mins away).

DH is currently constructing DS' new cot just in time for him to not sleep in it for Christmas

We are hosting Christmas- my parents arrived this afternoon. I was all for taking a hands off approach but somehow I've ended up very much involved in the planning and delivery! Luckily my mum will be doing Christmas dinner and we'll all be taking responsibility for cooking washing up etc. My parents are great with our DD so even if they can just entertain her, that will go a long way towards helping!

I'm more worried about keeping everyone entertained over the next few days, especially as the forecast is for heavy rain.

Have to say that despite it being our first Christmas with two kids, it's still less stressful than DD's first Christmas. She was 6 months old, and very much not sleeping - we were exhausted. My aunt was hosting, she has a big house but also no kids and her place is immaculate and full of expensive items. And guess who'd just started to crawl? Yep - we spent most of the time dragging DD away from the designer lamp or expensive furnishing that she was keen to explore! In between not sleeping and just feeling at the end of our ability to cope. Pictures of me from that Christmas are awful...

Hope all of you with journeys to make have smooth travel - well done on the flying @AMagdalena!

I've just had a slice of Stollen and two chocolate buns one shared with DD. Now lying next to DS who's doing a nice long nap and using that as an excuse to avoid family small talk...

Just checking in. Our flight went really well too, ds slept loads which was great but the downside is he now not settling but I know you can't have it all. My mum took him out for a walk in the pram a as I had not had any sleep since 2 am but not until 6 pm as my brother and his family visited and everything got delayed. In fact sil suggested to my brother that they left their 8 months old son with us while they went food shopping but I was quick to point out that I needed some sleep and that my mum was taking ds out for a walk...
slightly annoyed with dp (who was the one suggesting we went in the first place) as he keeps.having a go at me for not having had more sleep as he's concerned that with no sleep it will affect my milk supply and could I just get pumping every morning. I can when things go smoothly with ds, it did yesterday morning and I expressed 4 oz in 30 minutes but things dont always go to plan so he's gone to bed in a huff (I suggested he went to bed which peed him off). I know he is concerned about me and feels frustrated that he can't help me but actually being an arse is really not what I need. I've tried to transfer ds to cot 3 times so far once it nearly worked, I got changed into pjs and approached the bedroom door and he woke up...

Still awake......

I think I might cry...

@Sakura03 I hope you get some sleep in!

I'm also not getting any sleep tonight either. I keep getting him in the cot but he wakes up as he's fidgeting awake. He's started rolling so I can't co sleep as he'll end up on the floor.

I really wanted to have a good night as it's going to be a super busy couple of days

He's now got his legs in the air, shouting and smiling...

@Meepmoop only 12 minutes + 30 minutes...