Only getting 2 hours sleep

[AnxiousAndAwkward]

I'm a new mum to a 3 week old and I'm currently surviving on about 2 hours sleep a night. Is this normal? How do people cope? I can barely get through each day.

If you have a partner, then share the nights - one of you sleeps 9 - 2 and one of you 2 - 7 or whatever works with your timetables. Yes your partner will be tired, but so are you. If you're a single parent then see if you can enlist some help whenever possible from family or friends, even if it means you sleeping partly in the daytime. It does get better I promise.

I'm breastfeeding so it's not possible for anyone else to take baby for very long. Baby won't sleep for long stretches either so the best I can get is an hour here and there.

Would it be possible for you to express milk or consider mixed feeding so that you don't have to do all the feeds (if there is a partner who can step in to do one of the night feeds)?

Hi - parent to 5w old here, it will get better! I express in the morning when I seem to have most milk and have my husband do a feed around 10pm when I go to bed, and then do the nighttime wake ups. Your baby will start sleeping longer stretches, promise

First, sending some sympathy and solidarity your way.

Secondly, a question - if your baby will sleep for 1 hour stretches then why are you only getting 2 hours in 24?

I don't mean that in a mean way, but in terms of identifying the actual issues. I did a year of hourly (+) wake ups with bottle refusing baby breastfeeding to sleep so I get the difficulty delegating, but even I got more than that, in dribs and drabs. Probably about 4 hours in chunks on 45m. You also can nap in the day potentially (sadly I was back at work when the hourly wake ups kicked in). Grab sleep whenever you can.

Which makes me think it's not JUST frequent waking. Does it take you a long time to go back? At you watching the clock thinking there's no point going back to sleep too be disturbed again shortly? Anxiety stopping you sleeping? Baby that will only sleep on you which means you have to stay awake.

The thing is, if it's one of the above then your baby sleeping longer won't actually help, so it's really important to identify the reason. There are things that sometimes can be done to improve sleep, once the reason is identified.

Ps: I have had 2 hours or less for a short while for other reasons. It's not sustainable or safe in my experience.

I want to express, so my husband can cover at least one feed. I'm struggling to use the pump I have, but I guess I just need to keep trying.

Thank you. Baby typically sleeps for 45 minutes stretches. 15 minutes of that is me waiting for him to fall into a deep enough sleep for me to put him down without waking him. It then takes me around 30 minutes to fall asleep, regardless of how tired I am, so just as I'm falling asleep, he wakes up.

Usually twice per night he'll sleep longer stretches of around 2 hours, giving me 2x 1 hour sleeps, give or take.

Are you not sleeping during the day when baby sleeps? When I breast fed (both of mine) I would sleep when they slept in the day.

On the odd occasions he sleeps a long stretch in the day I will try to nap too but he usually takes multiple short naps where it's impossible for me to sleep in that time. He'll also sometimes stay awake for hours at a time.

do you co sleep? If EBF it can be perfectly safe, just look up the recommended guidelines. And this will pass, your baby is very young still and building up their milk supply, don’t worry about the frequent feedings- it really won’t be long until they start to drop to fewer night feedings, my ebf baby starting to do longer stretches around five weeks.You will sleep again, can partner take a morning off work and let you sleep in? I often found baby settled well in the early morning so I could get a few hours .

You poor thing you must be so exhausted!!
I know because this was my life when my ds was born.
My advice is this isn't sustainable. You will end up unwell and you can't take care of your baby. I would introduce pumping or occasional combi feed and don't try to push through, rest!

I started to get burnout and would pass out during the day for hours once a fortnight. My dp only had to say 'go upstairs for a lie down' and I'd be almost crying with relief to finally get some sleep
All those wake ups and not getting more than 15-30 mins a time I am now in a very bad sleeping habit 3 years later. My max sleep isn't more than 3 hours now no matter how tired and even then I'm on edge waiting to be woken up and counting back the clock how long I'll get and if it's worth it. I'm up right now but my ds isn't - I just wake for 3/4 hours every night and go back to bed for an hour at 6 or 7am.

Please take all the advice and help you get. And congratulations! Take care of yourself, you are important too xxx

I had two awful sleepers. The only thing that helped was introducing a bottle. I did pump but ended up using some formula too so my husband could do some of the night feeds. Also, from about 5am I’d give the baby to my husband while I got a few hours sleep before he went to work.

Do you have a partner?

No other advice except solidarity. It was totally awful.

Look into co-sleeping safely. You’ll be able to get back to sleep much more quickly after each feed as you can feed lying down.

'if your baby will sleep for 1 hour stretches then why are you only getting 2 hours in 24?'

Mine was formula fed so by the time I settled the baby, sterilised the bottles, went to the toilet, and tried to get to sleep - the baby was awake again.

It was very hard to fall back asleep knowing I only have about 20-30 mins to sleep. It made me full of adrenaline.

Some nights I remember I'd get only 10 mins. It was absolute hell.

@Babyboomtastic

It does take time to get the hang of how best to do it for you. I used to express from one side whilst feeding from the other, as I had a lot of 'let down' going on.
Hope you can get some extra sleep in there and find a solution.
One thing I did do was stop worrying about the housework and just slept when the baby did. I think it just about saved my sanity.

I'd be exactly the same as you. Couldn't fall back to sleep for a few minutes. That sounds awful for you. Did you have a partner that could help?

Our bed isn't big enough for co-sleeping unless I make my husband sleep on the sofa. I've tried co-sleeping for a daytime nap, but it's not really a solution for the nights.

Husband takes him as often as he can but baby doesn't sleep for long stretches before he wants feeding again so I never get more than an hour.

That sounds awful, I'm so sorry that's how things have worked out for you. Hoping you get some relief soon.

10 minutes!!? How did you survive? 😭

I BF DD, and tbh the first few weeks didn't get much sleep, but one thing that really helped was that I would feed DD, then I'd wake DH who would get DD back to sleep while I slept.

It does get easier. I always thought every week was better than the last, and after you're out of the 'fourth trimester' (3 months old) then the baby behaves a bit more normally and sleeps more during the night.

Accept and help offered, and ask for help too. It's not safe for you to be running on so little sleep, so you need to be able to catch up at some point during the day while someone else looks after the baby xx

First 6 weeks are the hardest. Don't feel bad if you end up having a bottle feed late at night by your partner. Mine had a bottle at night and it seemed to fill them up so I could have a 4 hour stretch of sleep.

If you can't pump get yourself a haakaa which catches milk on the other boob when you're feeding. I get about 3oz a day doing this and my partner can then feed it to baby with a bottle during the night to relieve me of one feed

I expressed milk once she was 3 weeks old so my partner could give her a feed to allow me a window in the morning to sleep. But mine took both bottles and boob easily, I know it's not the case for all babies.

I went through this. It does get better

I removed my bedside table and had the cot with the side down right up by the side of my bed so I didn’t have to get out of bed when baby cried

Dd and DS remained in the living room/kitchen, with all the noise of the tv etc until I went to bed
I would get into bed, breastfeed till they were asleep and then put them back in their cot. I could never co sleep as I was too worried I would role over and suffocate them.

i found that when they got the most sleep was initially when I went to bed so I could get a full hour before they woke.

This gradually extended to 2, then 3 then 7 hours within 9 weeks and 10weeks for dd and ds respectively. Then I worked on putting them to bed gradually a little earlier every few nights

I got so tired initially on 2 hours sleep each night the world started tilting