Insane bedtime routine with newborn?!

[showersandflowers]

It takes us literally 4 hours to get our newborn to sleep at night. In the day she'll doze quite happily, but when we go up to bed at 8pm she wants to feed at least 300ml (she's 2 weeks old) she's wide awake and yesterday we literally went through a whole pack of wet nappies before she finally dozed off at midnight. She seems to get hyper alert and needy at night and will easily stay up 4 hours to feed/pee/poop/ wiggle around. We've tried everything: low light, no stimulation, white noise, wind down time, swaddling, as well as all the basic things and she still goes mental as soon as we go up to bed. Any suggestions?? I'm surviving off about 3 hours sleep a night at the moment because of it!

Aren't you on mat leave OP? If you're the father I suggest you sleep in the spare room / on sofa for a while because at this age you're not going to get much sleep. We slept in shifts.

Totally normal.

It will slowly start to evolve into a sort of routine....but the baby sets the pace for that, not you! Just go with the flow, nap when you can, and enjoy your baby cuddles.

I'm not sure how you've got through a whole pack of nappies! You don't have to change after every single wee, just after it's been on a while or is getting full.

You need to share the sleeping and childcare so you both get some sleep. It sounds like she is bottle fed so this should be possible.

She doesn't really sound like she is ready for bed at 8pm yet which is to be expected so I'd just make the most of being up later on and then try and nap during the day

How often is she awake after about 11pm?

You've got two choices here:

1. you fight it, it takes 4hrs. She gets stressed, you get stressed. No one gets extra sleep.

2. you just roll with it, keep her downstairs. Go for a walk as a couple. Watch a film. Play a game. Go out for dinner with baby in a sling. You get no less sleep this way, and its a lot nicer for everyone, especially you. Or you go to bed and leave baby with your partner, and he does a late feed?

Why do you meed to get up at 6 btw?

For what it's worth, my first baby recognised that after 8pm was bedtime by about 10 days (she cluster fed in the morning instead), but she didn't go upstairs to bed until about 4m. We didnt try to get her into a routine, but that was when she started to automatically go into night mode.

My second was a good 2m before she recognised evenings as being for sleep, and before that she cluster fed till about 11pm.

Point being, they get it at some stage, but you can't force them into a routine. Its in their time, not yours.

I really wish people were advised this through the official channels (HV, I'm looking at you), I've seen and heard it so many times that people want tiny babies in a routine. Luckily I found Mumsnet before and had seen posts like these giving advice and good on you OP for embracing things and running with them in good humour!

I still tried too early with my first. We have a sort of routine with her sister in that they bath together and both get into sleepwear, but little one and I go downstairs to carry on feeding/sleeping/playing as required until the adults go to bed at 11, but that's just logistics. I'm not going to attempt to do anything else until she can go in her cot and be left on her own at around 6 months.

It's much easier to accept when you stop trying to impose a 'proper' clock-based routine and I found it helped DD relax too so she was actually easier to settle once we were doing it to her timings. Her little sister has been like a dream with sleep so I know I'm lucky this time! I do keep an eye on wake windows and she does sleep roughly the same times each day but next week the times will be different again.

My DP and I used to tag team when DS was this age. I would go to bed at around 7pm and get a few hours while DS stayed downstairs with DP in the moses basket. DP did the final feed at around 11pm and then brought him to bed. I would do the night feeds and then DP would do first feed in the morning before he went to work. That meant each of us got enough sleep to function (not well, but still function). We did get our evenings back eventually, but the first couple of months were just about survival.

Why do you need to get up at 6am? Are you not on maternity leave? Do you have other children at home?

This all sounds very normal for 2 weeks old.

Newborns are particularly weird in the evening. Witching hour/cluster feeding/whatever you want to call it. Don’t think mine started having a set bedtime until closer to 3 or 4 months.

I feel I need to offer a disclaimer that I have no helpful advice to add (I just read threads like this as I’m currently pregnant!) but is she really having at least 300ml all at once/in a very short space of time? I thought their stomachs were physically too small for that amount

I too am at a tiny newborn chugging 300ml in one sitting or short space of time.

Why do you have to be up for 6am? And you go to bed at 8pm?

It sounds like you are perhaps trying to fit the baby round your routine? Try flipping it round and fit your routine round the baby.

All normal bedtime routines with a 2 week old baby should be thrown out of the window. Establish a new routine but also be prepared to change that routine as your baby grows/bigger gaps between feeds/sleeps through etc. This will be an ever changing routine until eventually they will sleep through and you will be able to put them to bed at 7pm and get back to your 8pm bedtime.

For our 1st, me and DH found split shifts worked. Our routine at 2 weeks was something like this..

10pm DH went to bed. I stayed downstairs with baby watching TV.
1am Nappy change & bottle. Me and baby went to bed.
6am DH got up. He did nappy and bottle and put baby back to bed.
10am. Baby wakes. I do nappy and bottle
Then go for a walk/ shopping etc
2pm. Nappy, bottle & afternoon sleep.
I do housework/have a bath.
Afternoons and evenings DH was home and that was family/bathtime. More bottles and more nappy changes 🤪

OP it's hard at first but it will get better. Congratulations.

You go to bed at 8, leave Dad with baby for another couple of hours. If she needs to feed he can bring her up and take her away if she's bf. Two hours of being allowed to be perky might be enough to tire her to sleep earlier

I was lucky in that my babies both slept 10pm-2am, quick feed and back to bed until 6am, from the beginning. And 10pm-6am without a wake up or feed from about 8 weeks. So they were really, really good sleepers! But we didn’t crack the earlier bedtime until 4 months old. You’re expecting far too much! Just keep baby up with you, let them dose and try putting them to bed at 10/11 instead. You won’t be getting any less sleep than you are now but at least it would stop the stress. If you want to go to bed early as you’re knackered then leave baby with dad for a few hours and if breast feeding he can wake you when they needs a feed.

No advice really, but have a 3 week old myself and haven't even considered a bedtime routine for him! His life is basically boob, snuggle, sleep but unpredictable as to when all that will happen. I have just accepted him falling asleep on the boob whilst I nap at night. Don't think I've had much sleep but a nice shower in the morning makes me feel better!

OP do you really mean 300ml? That’s 12 fl oz or thereabouts my 2.5 week old is having 90ml per feed, with maybe some feeds being smaller and more often in the evening. Doesn’t your baby just sick it back up? Or do you mean over the 4 hours (still a lot but maybe 100ml every 2 hours 3 times?)

My four and a half month old’s bottles only hold 280

It's all abit of a shit show the newborn stage 😂
I was horrendous with the lack of sleep.
She's so young.

As annoying as it is I'm going to say it anyway, it does get easier

But wanted to add, you don't need a set time to get up with a newborn. Why do you?

300ml, is that a typo?

That early (actually the whole first 6 months) we didn't have a bed time routine, baby stayed down with me on the sofa, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake until I went up to bed and then we co-slept so we would sleep/feed on and off all night but I could stay lying down and because I was close he didn't fuss. I got a decent amount of sleep to be fair once I perfected falling straight back asleep.

A midwife came out when he was 8 days old, and I cried to her that I was so tired as the baby will only sleep in my arms and that me and dh were doing 3 hour shifts sitting in a chair holding him while the other slept, and then swap. She said although she isn't going to say to co-sleep, she was going to show me how to do it safely. It was literally just lying on the bed, no covers or pillows (baby had a sleeping bag on and I invested in warm fleece pyjamas) and lying on your side with your arm out straight in front of you (above the babies head) and your legs bent (knees up under their feet) sleeping in this position stops you being able to roll over on to the baby. Totally saved my sanity!

Naturally babies need to be alert and awake in order to cluster feed and build up supply so this is totally normal at 2 weeks old. My babies were all attached to me all night at that age.
I would stay downstairs as there's no way to have a routine at this age at all.

Thanks all. We stayed downstairs last night until 9.30pm and went upstairs, 1 nappy change, 1 bottle, a bit of snuggling and we were asleep in the Moses basket by 10.30pm! It was a miracle! I can't help but feel that taking the pressure off ourselves, as suggested, really helped.

I have to get up at 6 as we have animals that need tending to and husband goes to work really early so I get up, pump, feed her, leave her with dad to sneak a quick shower, care for animals and then back in bed by 9am. We do doze during the day but it's not quite the same as at night.

Anyway, thanks for the reassurance and tips, everyone. May you all have restful nights sleep!!!

Newborns don’t do “day and night” or “bedtime”. You need to wait a few months to start trying that to be honest.
Just let them tag along with you in your normal
Routine for a while (is hang out downstairs/sleep on you until you go to bed etc)
Overnight is just a free for all.

It's hard but normal OP. I think the sleep deprivation doesn't exactly get easier but it's less of a shock after a while as you adjust. They often don't sleep through for a year or more, so beware.

When your little one is a bit bigger, it can be useful to get out to baby groups so you hear other mums are going through the same horrors and it's not just you!

Glad to hear you had a better night OP