Baby a Noisy sleeper and Mum a light sleeper... I can’t sleep and feel like I’m losing it

[Sarahlou1994]

Hi All,
My baby girl is 5 weeks old. She was born 5 weeks early due to me having severe pre eclampsia.
Due to the condition worsening I didn’t really sleep for a week before she was born.
Now although she is not really a crier and sleeps the majority of the night, she grunts and groans and whimpers and blows raspberries etc etc all night long!
I have always been a light sleeper, to the point if someone walked onto the landing I’d wake up, but always go back to sleep again. However, now I can’t sleep! I just cannot block out her noise. The only sleep I have is about an hour and a half from 11pm and the same at 7am when my other half feeds her.
During the day she is no where near this noisy when she sleeps. We’ve tried warming the crib and Moses when she gets out to feed so it’s snuggly and warm when she goes back and putting something under her mattress so she is on a slight incline.
Nothing works and I’m really worried my lack of sleep is going to cause her harm because I am really struggling to function.
Has anybody else experienced a similar thing and any tips on what could help? x

I’m a really light sleeper and found myself waking at the slightest sound from the baby then struggling to get back to sleep. So I sympathise! Something that worked for me was white noise- I use an app called Sound Sleeper. It took a while to get used to but it helped baby settle and drowned out any little noises so I could sleep. Our baby is 15 months and in their own room, we sometimes put the white noise on for us now as so used to it!
Alternatively, could you try ear plugs? You’d still hear the baby crying but it might help to dampen the noises.
I think that it does settle and they stop being so noisy after a while.

Haven't experienced this but would white noise help to drown out the low level sounds?

I couldn’t sleep when my baby was in a cot because I was primed to respond to every little noise. I actually slept better when she was right next to me!

I had to use earplugs with mine. It felt a bit wrong to start with, but I’m such a light sleeper that I did wake when they properly woke.

We had the same situation. DH slept in one room with DS and I got sleep in the other room and DH brought DS in for feeds. Everyone got more sleep this way. I really feel for you, it's tough but it will get better.

We had this with DD,was torture. Look up grunting baby syndrome, it does pass, DD stopped doing it at 11 weeks. Hang in there!

Our boy was the same, it was like sleeping next to a baby dinosaur! They get quieter as they get older. I had to use ear plugs and still do. As PP said it felt wrong but I could still hear crying.

I wore ear plugs. Still woke when she cried but it stopped the constant waking.

In reality what happened was that she stayed in the crib in my room and I generally ended up decamping to the spare room 😬 not ideal but I did always take the baby monitor and have it on low. It made a beeping sound when she actually cried anyway.

In the end I faced facts and she went in her own room at about 3 months!

Mine did this. The grunting and snuffling and rattling around drove me demented. She started to sleep much better around 12 weeks. I find the BBC iPlayer radio app through headphones invaluable for distracting me from noisy sleepers ( DD is 1 and still in our room). Low volume so you can still hear her, but it gives you something else concentrate on. It does get a bit better, but I know your pain.

Could you use ear plugs to muffle the sounds? Assuming she’s cries properly when she wakes up I’m sure you’d still hear her if you’re a light sleeper

We do the same as jb1305uk and it works well x

I had this problem, at 4 months have moved him to his own room which had made me feel so much better, but couldn't have done that at 5 weeks, so have also found earplugs, noise cancelling headphones and white noise helpful! It's so hard though, do sympathise xx

White noise was the only thing got me back to sleep after night feeds. Initially tried it for ds but it was more useful for me. We used a Ewan the sheep but there’s loads on Spotify etc.