Please help Newborn baby - I can't go on with no sleep.

[Jennifer48]

I am posting because my mental health is taking a battering due to sleep deprivation since I gave birth to my beautiful baby on 26 January. I have slept just a few scattered hours since then. The nights are excruciating: the baby doesn't sleep at nights, he certainly doesn't settle in the cot and just howls if he isn't at my breast/stomach or on a pillow in front of me, and obviously I can't sleep in that position.
I am, after a shaky start, breastfeeding him, which I am glad about, but if me getting sleep entails moving on to formula, I will do it but I want to make sure it will definitely result in my getting sleep because that's what's breaking me. I manage to express some milk but giving it to him at night does has no impact on the situation at all. His nappies and weight gain are all good and he is back at his birth weight so he is getting sufficient nutrition from the breast, but won't sleep anywhere other than against my chest, stomach or on a pillow in front of me for longer than five minutes- and obviously I can't fall asleep in that position. I hear parents talk about getting three or four hours or sleep with envy; I literally have got none the past two nights and was almost delirious, I nearly fell with him in my arms last night (thankfully I didn't).
I've heard that's not unusual for a baby not to stay in the cot but I've also heard this phase could go on for weeks or months.. but I am at breaking point now- imagining things, feeling extremely low. There is no joy in this.

Heart goes out to you ❤️
I was like this too and nearly had a breakdown- sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
Baby ds at the time was awake every hour and a half - nappies had green tinge - he just wasn’t getting satisfied and my exhaustion didn’t help my milk .
Personally I would swap to bottle and wish I had with ds and not put myself through it.
He will hopefully be calmer, fuller and you will get rest ❤️
Get health visitor on board , you’re in crisis .
Sending strengthxxxxx❤️

Thank you very much for your responses.

In answer to some questions asked- I am a truly sinless mother in the sense of there being no father but my mum can help out with several things. I don't have any friends in this area who could get involved although I do have a sister who can help out. I have the number of a local doula although I think she's fairly young/only recently trained with doulas of Northern Ireland so although she sounded lovely on the phone and I know she is trained, she doesn't yet have an Insta/Facebook account and I always associate doulas with antenatal supporting my mind so we shall see...

Several people have mentioned the nexttome. May I ask- is thata brand name or does it refer to any cot that has an open side? For example, this is the cot my sister got me, could this be referred to as a Nexttome: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7335204?rec=PDP[3152670]:bottomSlider:P1:OHAT:alternatives:7335204:O3bwnBopPMbbMmrnCFNp

In case the link doesn't work, it's a Red Kite Rockabye Bedside Crib.

Thank you very much for your responses.

I tried a bit of co- sleeping in the early hours of this morning and it didn't work then.

In answer to some questions asked- I am a truly single mother in the sense of there being no father but my mum can indeed help out with several things. I don't have any friends in this area who could get involved although I do have a sister who lives nearby and can help out. I have the phone number of a local doula although I think she's fairly young/only recently trained with doulas of Northern Ireland so although she sounded lovely on the phone and I know she is indeed trained with doulas of N.I., she doesn't yet have an Insta/Facebook account, plus I associate doulas more with antenatal supporting my mind so we shall see...

Several people have mentioned the Next to me. May I ask- is that a brand name or does it refer to any cot that has an open side? For example, this is the cot my sister got me, could this be referred to as a Nexttome: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7335204?rec=PDP[3152670]:bottomSlider:P1:OHAT:alternatives:7335204:O3bwnBopPMbbMmrnCFNp

In case the link doesn't work, it's a Red Kite Rockabye Bedside Crib.

The hormone fallout?
Unless you have significant medical evidence to support that quite dramatic assertion, please stop.

There is a lot of stealth, and some blatant, anti-formula feeding replies here.
No new mum needs additional anxiety provoking.

Yes that’s a next to me as size can be taken down many brands /types

sorry you haven’t met any friends - can you go rl the baby clinic for weighing and met some local mums that way - plus many sure start centres run baby massage/music /sensory classes

go to local m&t - often held in village halls or churches

so you can get to meet some mums and similar age babies

if on Facebook post on local group and say just had a baby and want to meet some mums /babies

I see this often

can you afford a night nanny even if for 1-2 nights a week for a few weeks ?

@Jennifer48 OP I’m just writing again in case you missed my post and in case it would help. Just check if you can rent a Snoo. It’s a “smart bassinet” from Harvey Karp/Happiest Baby - the guy behind the “fourth trimester” theory - and works on all those principles ie recreating the conditions of the womb. It really was the only place my baby would sleep, and I was so so desperate after getting maybe an hour or 2 of sleep every few nights for the first week. I was also struggling very much with my mental health at that point. I really feel for you and hope you can get some proper sleep soon. Big hugs.

sorry just seen you are a single parent, can you ask for help from a friend?

Can you formula feed and take shifts? This is the only way we survived the first few months. I went to bed at 7 along with baby, and my husband stayed with them until around 2am. We would then swap over and he would get a good stretch of sleep and i would get a wee bit here and there, but I managed because i’d slept 7-2. It is so, so hard with no sleep. I had my dad stay over a few times when my husband was back at work when I was struggling and he helped me do the same shifts. Please ask for help if you have it, and if formula helps you get sleep then it is worth it.

Where I live it’s completely unrecommended by all healthcare professionals

Are you sure that he is getting enough breast milk from you?

I only ask because you said you had a shaky start - I started off breast feeding, thought it was going well (he seemed to be latching and feeding) but he was constantly waking and crying. After some digging with a lactation consultant, it turned out that I actually had an under supply of milk and he wasn't getting enough, and that was one reason he was so unsettled - he was hungry.

I ended up on a horrendous regime of pumping, expressing, feeding formula and breast milk every 3 hours day and night to try and increase my supply.

That wasn't sustainable for me so we have ended up formula feeding.

Baby is now 6 months old and compared to other babies, he does seem to sleep longer stretches. He obviously wakes at night, all babies do, but its not as horrendous as it was.

Just a thought I wasn't sure if you've considered, it could be to do with feeding?

That's unusual. Safe cosleeping, following the guidelines laid out by the Lullaby Trust, is encouraged by both health visitors and midwives where I am. I think the idea behind it is that it's much better to educate parents on how to cosleep safely than for them to fall asleep whilst holding/feeding baby because they're so bloody exhausted that they can't help it.

I don't think it's recommended.

They give the advice because they know that people will do it anyway. It's more "if you must do it, here's how to do it in the least unsafe way".

The safest option is baby in their own sleep space.

To tell somepne who says "stop breastfeeding immediately and put baby on formula, that'll make them sleep" that this is terrible advice, isn't anti-formula. For one, you shouldn't stop breastfeeding cold turkey, this can be extremely painful and potentially risk mastitis and frankly, hormonally speaking is horrible for the mom. And two, there is zero evidence, and I mean scientific and statistical evidence, that formula makes baby sleep. People who blame breastfeeding for bad sleep (and all sorts of other stuff) often know nothing about breastfeeding, haven't breastfed themselves, and are anti breastfeeding (for some super weird reason).

i also recommend a side sleeper, my daughter slept holding my hand and needed to be able to smell me! So I made sure her sheet and baby sleepy bag always smelled of me.

I didn’t breast feed but have you thought of a dummy to help pacify?

thus sounds so hard!

Don’t do this. Hugely increases SIDS risk.

Another vote for safe co sleeping from me. And sending a hug to you. The first few weeks were horrendous for me and I wish I had co slept sooner x

Please ignore this poster. They are giving unsafe advice.

I don’t live in the uk and it’s not recommended due to suffocation risks. Own cot or Moses basket is the recommendation.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jesus the amount of outdated dangerous and life threatening ‘advice’ on this thread is terrifying.

Agree. My sisters both use formula and their babies sleep exactly like mine - terribly! The only difference is I don't have to also spend my time cleaning bottles, and I don't have to get up to get milk in the night and make the baby wait. Breastfeeding also has the benefit of making Mum sleepy, so it can help with getting back to sleep after a feed.

If there was a partner who could get up and share shifts, then MAYBE that's a reason for formula (though in my experience Mum still wakes up and lies there while Dad has to go prepare the bottle, and she often has a hard time going back to sleep, so it's not necessarily the rest you hope it'll be)

It COULD be that the baby sleeps better with formula, but there's no guarantee, so why mess up the breastfeeding if that's working out so far.

Some babies are just terrible at sleeping, and this is a very new baby - so sounds very normal, though horrible at the time for Mum. It might take a while for some of the suggestions here to take effect

surely everyone knows by now not to put them to sleep on their tummies.

My baby brother died of SIDS while sleeping on his tummy in the 80s. Please do not follow this advice OP.

@Jennifer48 probably best to try out co sleeping at the beginning if the 'night' as you'll be more likely to succeed. It does take a little practice. I co slept with 3 of my 4dc (the first out of desperation) and it did mean I wasn't a total zombie. Good luck! My biggest sleep stealer is now 34 and loves her sleep - she has a dd who has always slept well which proves there's no such thing as karma!

Keep trying with the co-sleeping, it is the most natural place for your baby to be right now. I realised pretty quickly, like after a few days, how much easier it was when we co-slept, but I didn’t know it was a ‘thing’. My baby always slept on the outside of the bed so there was no danger my husband rolled over on him, he once woke up and watched me and the baby sleeping together and observed that our movements were perfectly in synch. This was after about 4 months. I do remember how hard it was in those first few weeks and I did pay for a doula in the end to just help me.