Non-sleepers unite...

[Jellybean2017]

New thread for night (and daytime!) chatter for those awake more than they'd like with a non sleeping baby/child 😊

My DS is five months. First baby likely to be only baby if I don't start getting more sleep He is a nap and sleep fighter but incredibly cute so I choose to forgive him 😂

@Ratbagratty Congratulations on your precious new baby

I'm awake for no good reason. We're travelling today and have an early start, in fact we'll have to start getting ready in about half an hour. Husband and baby are asleep but I'm not :( and we've a loooong day ahead.

Thanks it's reassuring to know, trying not to think about husband going back to work!

Hopefully it will be a good and safe journey for you all.

Congratulations ratbagratty, hopefully your baby will be a good sleeper 😊 but yes all sounds very normal.

@Ratbagratty Yeah, don't worry about it yet - one thing I've learned about parenthood is you just have to take it day by day, as rules of the game change all the time.
You'll be OK though. I also dreaded the moment of being left alone with the baby and it was stressful but we managed. You surprise yourself with your own resilience. Even when I thought I really couldn't cope anymore (and I had serious baby blues)... somehow I still did.
Good luck with your little munchkin!

ratbagratty Congratulations . We used to take it in turns to sit holding our dd all night, she just refused to go down and cried all night in the first few weeks.

I'll always remember being sat on the edge of the bed with my husband and our dd just screaming at about 3am, we got so desperate we even tried a bit of enya . She wasn't a fan!!

Congratulations ratbagratty 5 days old - squee! As the others have said, perfectly normal, even my DS1 who was an excellent sleeper at night took a couple of weeks to get used to night time.

We're on feed 4 here, although it's more for comfort I think. Me and both boys have steaming colds which are not helping! DS2 is up every 1.5 hours to have a little feed and cuddle. Then between last feed and this one I was up with DS1 who had tried really hard to go back to sleep on his own but his pull ups had leaked so that needed sorting then he was cold and stuffed up and coughing so it took him a long time to drift off again. Still used the new tactics though and they still worked so some progress. DS2 is taking ages to settle after a feed because of his cold. I suspect I'll have to sit with him upright for a while. And my nose is streaming and I cannot reach the tissues! I hope this cold is short lived, we're off on holiday next weekend.

Still on my first wake up, which started 2 hours ago. She's peacefully comfort sucking but already had one failed cot transfer so not going to take her off and will wait until she falls off. Yawn.

Totally normal @Ratbagratty, bur understandably frustrating and exhausting.

A lot of people will tell you to read up on the fourth trimester and say that 's/he's so tiny they don't know how to be alone, all they know is you," etc but personally I didn't find that helped because it felt like they were saying 'yes that's normal so tough shit suck it up."

I was lucky my LO would go into his Moses basket for periods. There are things you can try because exhaustion isn't good for any of you.

Warming the Moses basket with a hot water bottle
Using one of your tshirts as a sheet so it smells like you
White noise
If you're breastfeeding there's always safe consleeping, if not you could try a dummy (they say it's best to wait a few weeks otherwise).

Whoops loads of people managed to post while I was typing that!

We are on feed one which would have been fab if he hadn't needed his dummy every hour since midnight... but you can't have it l can you!

May I join!!
LO 2 weeks old. We currently doing shifts but also dressing OH going back to work as he will sleep in spare room so whole night and day seems impossible with so little sleep.
LO doesn't settle till early morning! Which I'm hoping is true in the next few mins so can go to sleep,!

Hey guys hope everyone good?!

I'm feeling guilty last night was the most sleep I've had in 8weeks .. nearly 5hrs I accidentally slept through 2alarms to go and takeover for the shift for DH to handover DS to the point he ended up coming upstairs to get me, i obviously needed it and to be fair I have been letting DH have 5hr sleep slots where I've only allowed myself 2hrs at a time reason for this below....

Anyone else still dealing with the newborn only sleeping in your arms stage? My LO is 9weeks old and still won’t sleep any longer than 30mins max in Moses and next to me crib gets fussy and cries suspected reflux so bought wedges to go under mattress but doesn’t make a difference, tried sleeping with mattress covers so smells of us, tried warming it up with hot water bottle first and tried using grobags instead of blanket as he hates being tucked in still NADA.

I would give anything to have him to be in the crib even if he woke up every 2hrs , as working in shifts staying up and holding him is exhausting and lonely 😴

Feed #3 here, but it's been a good night as she's slept between each feed. Thankfully, because I was exhausted after yesterday and the night before.

Firstly good morning, thank you for all your kind replies! I had to put her down to go to the toilet, so put in pram came back downstairs and she was asleep ! So I had a few hrs nap on sofa next to pram. Will try some of the ideas @ninamariep I am breastfeeding but am really scared of co sleeping with someone so tiny.

@user1489931797 DS is like that too at 16 weeks, we have a next2me crib as well but he's not taken to it. It doesn't even help if half of me is in it with him, he still prefers my bed rather than his own. I guess our babies are too smart and can't be fooled easily. So I just gave in and started co-sleeping. It gets us the most sleep for all three of us.

@Ven83 I am intrigued by co sleeping but I worry about lack of space for it to be successfully done without concern and both myself and DH to remain in the bed together

Been awake since 2am now. DS2 is rubbish when he has a cold. DH had taken the boys downstairs now so I should be sleeping but I'm wired from.kerpinv myself awake.

Ratbagratty can you take the pram or the carrycot part of it to your room for overnight? We did this with DS2 and put it in the crib then after a few weeks we could switch over

Another crap night here. Big sigh.

Sometimes I feel like I can handle it - I tell myself that DS1 was a terrible sleeper and it did eventually get better but sometimes it's just too much, LO is a whole lot worse than ds1 was! Feeling so deflated and powerless this morning after only one 90 min block of sleep.

Had a horrific car journey home yesterday from dropping DH off at the train station. Got stuck in traffic so the 35 minn journey home turned into nearly an hour and a half. LO was crying his heart out for most of it. Pulled over twice to see if a feed would consol him, sadly not. Other DC feeling really distressed, I felt such to my stomach. Awful.

Hope you all get the chance to do something lovely / nurturing over the weekend x

@xxrealistmumxx
Oh dear! That sounds horrible! There is nothing more distressing than having the baby crying in the back seat of the car and not being able to go comfort them.

Catscatsandmorecats
I hope you’re feeling better. I feel bad about whinging given you are doing the nights with a cold and both little ones have colds too. That absolutely sucks, it’s just another layer of torture on top of it.... hope you all feel better soon

Another bad night here! Up from 230. Didn’t really go back to sleep after that. Restless at 3, feed at 330, settled at 430, restless at 5 (burped), 545 did a poo... and that was that. DD1 awake shortly after!

Luckily DH is feeling guilty after being out on Thursday and hungover all of Friday. He was so tired he went to bed early last night... I didn’t even comment. I think he is feeling bad because for the first time since DD2 was born he has taken dd1 off my hands for breakfast (he normally sleeps in on weekends till 9) and I only have DD2 to look after... yay!!! Having a nice hot shower soon and a cup of tea without toddler shouting at me is a treat :-)

Thst sounds awful @xxrealistmumxx. I dread being stuck in traffic with both of them, hasn't happened yet but sure it's still to come! There really isn't anything you can do under those circumstances.

Know what you mean about feeling uou should handle it - my DD was also an awful sleeper. But dammit, I'd started to get used to better sleep! Being back to square one again is horrible. Did you get people saying that you wouldn't get a bad sleeper again? Well we've proved them wrong! Hard to tell if DS is following in DD'S footsteps because he's still very young, but it's not looking promising.

Night was not good. As well as DS I was having to go into settle DD DH slept through her crying. I'm incredibly grumpy today and so not in the mood for another long tedious day.

whoAteAllThePercyPigs I assumed nothing could be as bad as ds1's sleep and, yes, v that we'd had our full of sleep thievery. We have DD too, who slept well, so we assumed ds1 was the anomaly. I'm ten years older now and finding it so much harder. DS1 would at least do an initial 4-5hr stint 7/8pm - 12/1am. DS2 doesn't ever go more than two hours, though he used to with a dummy.

Also pig sick of meeting mum's with babies of similar age who are slowing beautifully!

So thankful for the support here.

Hot shower and cup of tea in peace sounds like bliss! Oh how we come to appreciate the simple things

Morning!

@user Yup. My DD still only sleeps on me during the day at nearly 6 months 😭 Sorry, it's not what you want to hear!

@WhoAteAllThePercyPigs What os it with men and sleeping through babies crying? My DH is a master at that. Or he'll briefly wake up to tell me he'll chamge DD/do whatever, fall back asleep, wale 2 hrs later and act surprised I had dealt with it!

Ok night here. We loaned a nebuliser from the pharmacy (for free!) and got prescribed nasal drops. DD has brought up phlemb a couple of times and still has a low grade fever, but no major fussing. Poor baby.

Ratbagratty congratulations. My ds is 10 weeks on Monday and I was so exhausted in the early weeks due to constant feeding but from about 5 weeks old I started feeding him lying down in the mornings once dp had got up to go to work, we would then both nodd off and ds would feed now and again. Ithas made a huge difference to my energy levels but I couldn’t co sleep all night as dp moves a lot in his sleep and I just don’t feel there is enough room for us to do it safely.
Ds sleeps in his pram, we live in a flat and as I had emergency c-sec it became a great solution as I could easily wheel him around and there was no bending down but I could easily take him into the kitchen etc. I have obviously healed from the surgery but Ive kept it this way and when he gets cranky during the night I just wheel him into the lounge and deal with him there. Not planning on setting the cot up for another couple of months.
xxrealistmumxx that sounds awful, I find it stressful when I can’t console ds on a taxi journey but I’m sitting right next to him so can only imagine how stressful it must be being in the driving seat!
I emphasise with all you mums who have had a rubbish night it really sucks! I took ds to an osteopath yesterday as part of the plan for his tongue tie. She was brilliant, he’s got a tight jaw and she felt he was a bit tight in his back/frame so did some exercises with him and told me to do some leg exercises with him as well as gaping high when playing with him and before feeding so that he is encouraged to copy me and hopefully will get a better latch. I told her that I can’t get him to sleep on his back and that he only accepts being put down on his side which I know is against guidelines, he also often arches his back. She referred to the stiffness in his back and explained the treatment could leave him a little restless or the opposite he might be more sleepy. I hoped for sleepy but thought fat chance of that. Guess what ds asleep from 10.35pm-3 am and again from 4.18-8am! OMG this is a first time ever occurrence!!! I’m so impressed with him but fully aware that this is probably a one off. I love it but my boobs not so much, he fell asleep again at 9 am so might just have to get the pump going that is of course only going to happen if I can move ds without waking as his still on my lap from his last feed.

Currently weighing up sleep training options here. I still think drowsy but awake is a myth for my baby!