Just over two weeks in with DD2 and hit breaking point with her sleep - in short, she doesn't sleep! My first DD was also a notoriously horrific sleeper, and now at 3.5 years of age she still wakes at least once in the night, but she would at least settle in her own bed. DD2 will only do stretches of sleep on me or DH - day or night it doesn't matter, she will not go in to her next to me or pram bassinet. It's a nightmare, we are so exhausted and having a toddler during the day means there's very little time to catch up on missed sleep with naps. I'm exclusively breastfeeding which makes it trickier as even when my husband takes over for his 'shift', I still end up downstairs feeding her. She's currently refusing bottles of expressed milk but we are working on it. Things we've tried so far:
- warming the bed up with hot water bottles before putting her down.
- spraying some of my milk on the mattress
- popping one of my t-shirts in with her to smell of me
- winding/keeping her upright for 30 mins after a feed before putting her down
- white noise machine
- swaddle bag (she HATED being swaddled and was so cross and upset)
- dark room and quiet in build up to bed
- tried co-sleeping with her in our bed but she still took a very long time to settle
I feel like we're trying everything but nothing is working. She could be completely zonked, out of it on me or DH and within 2-5mins of us putting her down she's grunting and rocking and flailing her arms, then within 5 mins she's screaming and crying until we pick her up and settle her on us (usually only if I feed her again).
I know newborns are awful sleepers, I've had one who taught me well! But with my first we could at least get her in her own bed for some of the day/night. With DD2 that just isn't happening at all and I'm not sure how much longer I can function on so little sleep.
Is this all sounding normal?! What do I do?! The health visitor told us off this week for letting her sleep on us all the time due to SIDs so we feel even worse now!