The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Mini Money Mustaches => Topic started by: ysette9 on November 25, 2017, 10:25:03 AM
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My first baby was an appallingly bad sleeper. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sleeper. We read the books which were worthless and we hired a sleep coach who was stumped. Eventually she just figured out herself how to sleep through the night at 15 months.
Now with our second (3 months old, 1 month adjusted age), we seem to be on a path to have an even worse sleeper. At one point she gave us a 5-hour stretch at night, but then that regressed to no more than 2 hours at a time. Her best sleep is when she is being held or is sleeping on someone's chest. Napping is appalling unless she is being worn in the baby wrap/carrier (where she sleeps very well). For example, we try to lay her down in her bed, swaddled, on her back, and she wakes immediately. Or more recently, I lay her down drowsy but awake, swaddled, on her back, and she will manage to fall asleep (I think) but wake up after no more than 10 minutes. I rock her back into a calm but drowsy state, put her down again, and ten minutes later she is screaming.
We tried sleeping on her belly, which worked a bit better, but still only gave us about 2 hours at night. For the first few days I tried that she napped amazingly well during the day and was a happy baby. However, that stopped working also. Basically I am at my wit's end. I go back to work in 5 weeks and am scared of trying to function during the day after being up 6-8 times a night. Does anyone have any advice? Should be go ahead and hire another sleep coach now?
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3 months old and 8 weeks premature is a little young to be doing sleep training. She sounds like she's in the late third / "fourth" trimester stage of development where everything is unpredictable and frustrating, for you and for her. It sounds like you're making progress, with the 10 minutes at a time thing, but I totally understand the frustration.
When we hired a sleep coach around 6 months old (5 months adjusted) she said she would have told us to wait if we had contacted her earlier. They're just not ready for sleep training earlier, especially as young as your daughter is. Ours absolutely refused to sleep on her back, no matter what. Woke up instantly every single time we put her down on her back. Eventually we bought a Newton mattress (completely breathable firm open cell foam, completely washable, completely awesome and worth the money) and stopped worrying about putting her down on her belly.
I would encourage you to reach out to Pam, our sleep consultant, and see what she thinks: http://www.weebeedreaming.com
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This may not be helpful to you, but it's my story:
When my first was born he was an AWFUL sleeper. After 2-3 mos, he had projectile vomiting and through a bunch of medical stuff, it was determined he was allergic to milk. At the time he was only breastfeeding and the doctors said he was allergic to the milk I was ingesting.
I stopped eating milk and he got better but we switched him over to a soy formula. Problem solved!
My second, I nursed and at about the same time she started showing the same signs. So, again, the soy formula, and she was fine.
The third? He got soy formula at the start.
At about 2 they seemed to no longer have a milk allergy.
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Thanks for the responses. I’ve tried eliminating dairy for other problems and didn’t really see a change in the baby. She is on gas drops and an antacid for other reasons and that hasn't impacted sleep one way or the other.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion that she is too young at this point for us to do much actively. I’ll just try to power through it and hope for an improvement organically until she is old enough to do sleep training. Then again, sleep training was prettt much a total disaster with my oldest, so I’m reluctant to go down that road again. One step at a time.
Does anyone know of a bouncy chair that is mechanized to keep bouncing on its own? She does pretty well when my husband can keep his foot on her chair to keep it bouncing up and down.
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Four preemie babies in 4 years. We did arms reach cosleeper for nighttime. I could hold baby's hand while sleeping, and pull baby right on over for nursing, then right back to their bed after. I kept a couple diapers and small wipe pack right at the foot of the cosleeper and did my best MJ shot towards the trash can after nighttime diaper changes, lol.
Daytime was either on me in a wrap, or in a bouncy seat immediately next to me, or in a battery operated swing. It was many months before any of mine would sleep very long, very well, or very far from me. They have radar, I swear it. :-)
It's a survival time. Do the best you can, enlist help where you can. Don't stand for a task if you can do it sitting. Don't sit up if you can do it reclining. Don't be awake if you can be asleep! Seriously. Mothers helpers during the day or night are worth every penny once you have a couple of toddlers plus a newborn. Pre-teen and young teen girls are a godsend. Young enough to be enthralled with littles, and old enough to not let anyone die.
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Some babies respond well to loud "white noise"--louder than you would think. Apparently life in the womb approaches the volume of a vacuum cleaner. So if you try that don't be shy with the volume.
Similarly try the baby swing at high speed (or higher than you would imagine would be soothing). It's just right for some babies.
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You have my sympathy! My first was an absolutely horrible sleeper, and I went back to work at 9wks pp. We pretty much coslept and used the arms reach co sleeper because he wanted to nurse All. Night. Long. I think because I was working 12hr days, night was the only time he could spend time with me so he instinctively made the most of it. Finally at 11 mo old I said enough and we did sleep training and he became a great sleeper.
My second was an ok sleeper at night but she had reflux and NEVER let me put her down during the day. She never once took a nap in her crib, always in the baby carrier or wrap on my back. Once she was about 15 months old I realized that she napped really well in the car, the car didn't even have to be moving, so I started putting her down for naps in the car (buckled in her carseat)! Because of the reflux she had (still has) a very sensitive stomach. I think that I underestimated how much pain she was in for most of the first year of her life.
Depending on how demanding you job is and how much room you have in your budget, maybe get a night nanny a couple nights a week. Not a cheap option, but considering your baby will be only about 9wks old (adjusted) when you go back to work, that is probably still too young to sleep train and some nighttime help might be the least stressful solution for you both.
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Some babies respond well to loud "white noise"--louder than you would think. Apparently life in the womb approaches the volume of a vacuum cleaner. So if you try that don't be shy with the volume.
Similarly try the baby swing at high speed (or higher than you would imagine would be soothing). It's just right for some babies.
Yeah that's a good point. My 16 month old sleeps with loud white noise. Specifically: constant, unchanging rainfall with the White Noise app on an old Android phone we keep around just for this purpose.
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I tried the sleep sheep on the rain setting up pretty high the second time I put her down for a nap this morning. She lasted a solid ten minutes which was more than the first time I put her down this morning. Ugh.
We don’t have a swing but I am wondering if i should look for one on Craigslist. I really don’t want more crap in the house, but I would be willing to make a temporary exception for this.
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Ysette9, I followed you here from the baby & pregnancy thread. I wanted to offer my sympathies! What worked for my little guy at that age (he's now 4 months old) was a combination of the following: swaddling, using a soother, putting him to sleep in his swing, and white noise. Frequently all four at once :) We are using a Halo sleep sack with the swaddling arms. Sometimes he seemed to fight it, but he always slept better swaddled.
What is your sleep sheep like? We had one that would cut off after about 20 minutes, and inevitably the sudden silence would disturb his sleep. Eventually I replaced it with an old iPhone & a cheap speaker and streamed white noise from Youtube or an ambient noise app and that seemed to work a lot better for him.
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Yep, our sleep sheep has two settings: 23 and 45 minutes. I never understood why it didn’t have a forever setting. If I find that it seems to help I’ll just download the white noise app again.
Tonight she is swaddled and back in her bouncy chair, so sleeping up at a good angle. I emailed her doctor to ask about increasing her antacid dose. Earlier today she would not settle on my chest with me laying flat but she did fall asleep once I propped myself up a bit on pillows. I’m thinking she might have some acid problem going on.
My sympathies all around to those suffering as well. Whoever came up with the expression “sleep like a baby” deserves to be smacked silly in my opinion.
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My sympathies all around to those suffering as well. Whoever came up with the expression “sleep like a baby” deserves to be smacked silly in my opinion.
+1 Nothing to add, just found your last comment hilarious. Good luck, just remember that it get's better eventually.
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I feel for you! My first was the worst sleeper. We did use a swing and that helped, I would def pick one up off criqgsly. You can get rid of it once she’s out of it. I also second the night nanny recommendation . It’s too soon for sleep training but if you must return to work, hire someone for 3-5 nights/ week. Start looking now.
Best of luck!
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When our oldest was 3 months old, he wasn't sleeping at all. I was at my wits end because he clearly wasn't getting enough to eat. I bought a canister of formula and begged my wife to let me use it. She felt so pressured to breast feed that she wouldn't until we went to our son's 4-month checkup where they found he had not gained a SINGLE OUNCE in one month.
At that point, the doctor politely suggested we turn to formula.
We went home and our son sucked down 3 1/2 bottles of formula, belched loudly, and slept for 12 hours. So did I.
He's now 15 and I'm convinced he's still small for his age -- and six inches shorter than me - because of losing this one month of development.
Any time I hear "experts" talk about the importance of breastfeeding to a child's development, I want to point to my undersized son and tell them how little I slept in April 2003.
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All babies eventually sleep. really. I swear. Your child will not graduate high school and still be sleeping only 2 hours at a time. (And if they do it's their own choice and they don't need to wake you up)
Spend whatever money you need to to get through this stage. It's totally rough. We bought a used baby swing. Yes it took up half our living room but it was a complete godsend for about 2 months. Then we gave it to a friend who was similarly fighting a non sleeping baby.
As far as breastfeeding/formula and sleeping through the night all I can say is "Fed is best". Also the problem with even all the scientific studies on these types of things is that you don't have the statistical average baby for whom the study conclusions are valid. You have your baby. They may be an outlier in either direction. Try everything. You have my virtual support.
Also please remember YOU ARE FIRST. Do what you gotta do. The kid will not remember if you let them scream for 5 min while you finished your dinner. seriously.
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When our oldest was 3 months old, he wasn't sleeping at all. I was at my wits end because he clearly wasn't getting enough to eat. I bought a canister of formula and begged my wife to let me use it. She felt so pressured to breast feed that she wouldn't until we went to our son's 4-month checkup where they found he had not gained a SINGLE OUNCE in one month.
At that point, the doctor politely suggested we turn to formula.
We went home and our son sucked down 3 1/2 bottles of formula, belched loudly, and slept for 12 hours. So did I.
He's now 15 and I'm convinced he's still small for his age -- and six inches shorter than me - because of losing this one month of development.
Any time I hear "experts" talk about the importance of breastfeeding to a child's development, I want to point to my undersized son and tell them how little I slept in April 2003.
Oh little buddy! I'm glad y'all figured it out.
That breastfeeding pressure is absolutely unreal. My wife and I went in saying that we'd try breastfeeding but we were open to formula if it didn't work out because we had read so many stories of it just not working well for people. Lo and behold, kid wouldn't latch. We were supplementing with pumped milk for about a month but it just got to be too much so we switched to 100% formula. She never did latch right, even had problems with the bottles for a little bit until she got bigger.
The entire time this was going on, the nurses were pushing my wife so hard to figure out how to get the kid to latch, how to hold her, etc. The entire time my wife wanted to give up because the bad latch was extremely painful, but the guilt for not breastfeeding was overwhelming.
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Isn’t it incredible how hard nursing is? You would think it would be natural and easy. after all, the pigs and cats and cows don’t appear to struggle and yet almost every woman does in some form.
I had the opposite problem of a massive overproduction due to the pump (preemies). Good problem to have, all things considered, but it still is a very challenging and uncomfortable problem. Thankfully my 90th percentile, triple thigh roll baby is well fed. That leaves me wondering still why she didn’t sleep longer stretches at night. Aren’t fat babies supppsrd to sleep better earlier? She is as bad as her underweight sister was.
We put her in the bouncy chair last night and it went better: 2-3 hour stretches instead of 0.5-2 hour stretches. I’ll fire up the computer and lols for sei he on Craigslist this morning.
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Isn’t it incredible how hard nursing is? You would think it would be natural and easy. after all, the pigs and cats and cows don’t appear to struggle and yet almost every woman does in some form.
I had the opposite problem of a massive overproduction due to the pump (preemies). Good problem to have, all things considered, but it still is a very challenging and uncomfortable problem. Thankfully my 90th percentile, triple thigh roll baby is well fed. That leaves me wondering still why she didn’t sleep longer stretches at night. Aren’t fat babies supppsrd to sleep better earlier? She is as bad as her underweight sister was.
We put her in the bouncy chair last night and it went better: 2-3 hour stretches instead of 0.5-2 hour stretches. I’ll fire up the computer and lols for sei he on Craigslist this morning.
Tremendous progress! That's awesome.
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Yep, our sleep sheep has two settings: 23 and 45 minutes. I never understood why it didn’t have a forever setting. If I find that it seems to help I’ll just download the white noise app again.
Tonight she is swaddled and back in her bouncy chair, so sleeping up at a good angle. I emailed her doctor to ask about increasing her antacid dose. Earlier today she would not settle on my chest with me laying flat but she did fall asleep once I propped myself up a bit on pillows. I’m thinking she might have some acid problem going on.
My sympathies all around to those suffering as well. Whoever came up with the expression “sleep like a baby” deserves to be smacked silly in my opinion.
This is what we use - we have a sleep sheep but it is SO MUCH BETTER! https://www.toysrus.com/product?productId=89FB0E06&source=CAPLA_DF:89FB0E06:BRUS&cagpspn=plab_89FB0E06&camp=PLAPPCG-_-PID89FB0E06:BRUS&gclid=Cj0KCQiAjO_QBRC4ARIsAD2FsXPMl03lLTBL5rnmLOjYMA45IvGYYmQtkqHcUNgK1jyaUVJzqVuH1p8aApL_EALw_wcB
It's an owl and it plugs into the wall and plays continuously. We keep it on all night.
Ours was not a preemie (39 weeks) but was in NICU for a week for a pneumothorax (breathing issue) and monitoring. I had to learn breastfeeding on my own and did not much like the lack of support, but one grace of the NICU was their routine - feed baby, diaper change and cuddle, put them back in their "box" to sleep. We didn't have any kind of routine for about a month, but at around 1 month old we began an eat-play/wake-nap routine in earnest. So we would feed baby every 2-2.5 hours in the day and then at night we let him go as long as he would. We had to stretch him a little (Dad soothed back to sleep rather than Mom, because Mom = food) and we realized he often went back to sleep on his own or didn't really wake up if he made lesser noises or just fussed for 5 min. If it turned into full on crying we fed immediately.
He started off giving us a 4-5 hour stretch (then every 2 hours after that), but it progressed quickly. Around 8 weeks it was 7 hours I think, so only one wakeup to eat in the middle of the night! (It started at 7:30pm, which is my other tip - babies go to bed early, if we tried keeping him up later that only resulted in crying and waking MORE frequently, so we just went to bed at 8:30 since we were beat anyway). He slept through the night around 3 months (7:30-6/7:30). I didn't expect it for another month or two, but my midwife, who's very pro breastfeeding/natural parenting, even said by 4 months babies only need one night feeding and most can drop it by 6 months. Yours being a preemie, it may differ. Mine gained 2-3 pounds per month the first two months of life, so we were confident he was getting enough milk.
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We had two awful sleepers and also hired a sleep specialist who was able to get the wake-ups from 8-10 times a night down to 4-5.
One of the products she strongly recommended for swaddling was the woombie:
https://www.amazon.com/Woombie-Original-Swaddle-Waves-Newborn/dp/B0776L654J/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1511810292&sr=8-1-fkmr2&keywords=zipping%2Bsleep%2Bsack%2Bbabies&th=1
With my second child we used that sucker in combination with a rocker until she was almost a year old. It was the only way we got any sleep at all.
This too shall pass - but it sure is tough when you are in the thick of it.
I also second a night nanny if you have the money for it. In retrospect the lack of sleep was damaging for my health and I wish I wouldn't have spent years just trying to push through it.
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Quick update: I got a free swing on Craigslist yesterday (win!) and tried it out. She rejected it throughly last night when she is at her absolute worst. I tried again this morning high and she napped in it for an hour on the maximum swing setting. Amazing! I woke really love to be able to set her down in it at dinner time which is witching hour. I’ll try again tonight. Fingers crossed.
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Quick update: I got a free swing on Craigslist yesterday (win!) and tried it out. She rejected it throughly last night when she is at her absolute worst. I tried again this morning high and she napped in it for an hour on the maximum swing setting. Amazing! I woke really love to be able to set her down in it at dinner time which is witching hour. I’ll try again tonight. Fingers crossed.
Witching hour is the worst. Nothing worked for us for very long. Shushing and patting worked for bouts of a few days, but it basically had to be constant the entire time.
Please believe me when I say that it gets better.
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My sympathies all around to those suffering as well. Whoever came up with the expression “sleep like a baby” deserves to be smacked silly in my opinion.
+1 Nothing to add, just found your last comment hilarious. Good luck, just remember that it get's better eventually.
+1. I went back to work when DS1 was 3 months and he started reverse cycling and waking every 1-2 hours. It sucked.
For me, cosleeping allowed me to make the most of what little sleep I could get. Also I avoided driving and used public transport. It was hard, but it passed.
Good luck, you are stronger than you think and this is not forever.
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I really feel for you. you're doing all the right things...
With our second, acid really seemed to be an issue. He nursed frequently more for comfort it seemed than nourishment. I eliminated all citrus, all tomatoes, and all other acidic sources from my diet while I was breastfeeding and that really helped. It also helped to have him sleep in a inclined position-- car seat, bouncy seat, even an inclined crib ( books under one side of the crib). As he grew older and his stomach developed more, the problem slowly went away.
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I tried the sleep sheep on the rain setting up pretty high the second time I put her down for a nap this morning. She lasted a solid ten minutes which was more than the first time I put her down this morning. Ugh.
We don’t have a swing but I am wondering if i should look for one on Craigslist. I really don’t want more crap in the house, but I would be willing to make a temporary exception for this.
BA-BOOM. that's not crap that's a nap!
We have the forward and sideways swings, you never know which one they will like.
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Reading this, I just remembered:
When my third was born, his middle name should have been Oops! I had a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old (planned). The third was 10 mos younger than his sister.
I had some health problems when he was 10 days old and he spent ~50% of his waking hours in a swing for 6 months. It made him fall asleep, kept me the kind of Mom I wanted to be.
It doesn't seem to have affected him negatively in any way.
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Have you tried using Evivo? (www.evivo.com) We have been using this probiotic with our three week old and he sleeps 7-10 hours straight every night! He’s also not colicky or fussy at all. It’s expensive, but seems to be worth it!
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Have you tried using Evivo? (www.evivo.com) We have been using this probiotic with our three week old and he sleeps 7-10 hours straight every night! He’s also not colicky or fussy at all. It’s expensive, but seems to be worth it!
We use a probiotic as well and it seems to help. My son woke hourly from 4 months old until about 14 months old. At 15 months, he just recently starting sleeping mostly through the night.
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Thankfully my 90th percentile, triple thigh roll baby is well fed. That leaves me wondering still why she didn’t sleep longer stretches at night. Aren’t fat babies supppsrd to sleep better earlier? She is as bad as her underweight sister was.
Unfortunately, in my (fairly limited) experience, weight has nothing to do with duration of sleep. I remember hearing "when they hit 15bs" or "X multiple of their birthweight they will sleep" and none of it worked for me. My 90%'er slept waaaayyyyy worse than my 5%'er!
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The dockatot was worth every single penny of the $200+ we paid for it. We went weeks where baby wouldn't sleep for more than ten minutes if he wasn't being held. This led to us falling asleep holding him all the time, accidental cosleeping, and switching off every two hours when he fed so each of us would get two blessed hours at a time. It was terrible. I feel for you.
The first time we put him down asleep in the dock he slept 2.5 hours. It would have been worth it just for that!! I think it mimics arms enough.
If you go this route, note that the dock is approved for sleep in Europe, but not here as the recommendations are to have nothing whatsoever in the crib/bassinet. Our analysis was that it seemed safer to use the dock than to risk falling asleep on the couch, the worst cosleeping place. Note that the dockatot seems rigorously tested for Europe, and don't buy a knockoff bed - the ones that just look like it do not have the same carbon dioxide breathable fabric and stuffing.
YMMV, but it was the biggest help for us, and doubles as a travel or cosleeping bed. We got an extra cover but not soon enough - we were being che, but one night of a leaky diaper and no replacement sheet = no sleep again, and you'd best believe we ordered that cover at 3am!
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My sympathies all around to those suffering as well. Whoever came up with the expression “sleep like a baby” deserves to be smacked silly in my opinion.
+1 Nothing to add, just found your last comment hilarious. Good luck, just remember that it get's better eventually.
+1. I went back to work when DS1 was 3 months and he started reverse cycling and waking every 1-2 hours. It sucked.
For me, cosleeping allowed me to make the most of what little sleep I could get. Also I avoided driving and used public transport. It was hard, but it passed.
Good luck, you are stronger than you think and this is not forever.
Mine did that too. I went back to work and he started waking every hour from 4 months until 8 months. Before that he would give us at least one 5 hour stretch per night.
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I got one good nap out of the swing (1 hour) and the next day she napped for only half an hour in the swing. It is like when I first tried her sleeping on her stomach: the first few times were amazing and then she adapted and got back into her terrible sleep pattern. She pretty much hasn’t slept flat on her back in two months because it just doesn’t work. She is on an antacid (what of it she doesn’t manage to spit back out, that is) and she usually sleeps in her bouncy chair. I borrowed a too-small swaddle and have a bigger one coming in two days. She slept in her swing the past two nights and did marginally better, but I am visiting relatives now and only have her bouncy chair. Ugh. Wish me luck this week because I am so incredibly tired. I feel like all of my tricks are slowly being eliminated.
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All babies eventually sleep. really. I swear. Your child will not graduate high school and still be sleeping only 2 hours at a time. (And if they do it's their own choice and they don't need to wake you up)
I love you for saying this!!! Thank you <3
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I got one good nap out of the swing (1 hour) and the next day she napped for only half an hour in the swing. It is like when I first tried her sleeping on her stomach: the first few times were amazing and then she adapted and got back into her terrible sleep pattern. She pretty much hasn’t slept flat on her back in two months because it just doesn’t work. She is on an antacid (what of it she doesn’t manage to spit back out, that is) and she usually sleeps in her bouncy chair. I borrowed a too-small swaddle and have a bigger one coming in two days. She slept in her swing the past two nights and did marginally better, but I am visiting relatives now and only have her bouncy chair. Ugh. Wish me luck this week because I am so incredibly tired. I feel like all of my tricks are slowly being eliminated.
Can you pump and give someone the bottle so that you can rest a little more one day?
I sometimes put baby in swaddle and then in swing.
She sleeps better when held some when I’m desperate I get someone to hold her.
Sometimes she sleeps while being baby worn while I sit on an exercise ball and bounce lightly.
Good luck! And solidarity.
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She sleeps really well during the day if I am walking. I have gotten in some excellent hikes with her sleeping peacefully on me. I definitely swaddle since that seems to help.
Interestingly, on the probiotic idea, I got one for myself since I didn’t find a baby one in the store (wasn’t really committed to the idea, so I went low-effort). The only change I noticed there was that she went from pooping maybe once a week to more than once a day. No change in sleep though!
One of my nurses in the hospital had recommended doc a tot. I am hesitant to try a $200 product when so many things have failed already. With my older there was no magical solution and she didn’t really sleep until 15 months no matter what we did. Maybe if I can find one cheap on Craigslist....
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Try CL, NextDoor or FB. In such an affluent area, there are bound to be more of them in circulation. Fingers crossed.
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Have you tried white noise?
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She sleeps really well during the day if I am walking. I have gotten in some excellent hikes with her sleeping peacefully on me. I definitely swaddle since that seems to help.
Interestingly, on the probiotic idea, I got one for myself since I didn’t find a baby one in the store (wasn’t really committed to the idea, so I went low-effort). The only change I noticed there was that she went from pooping maybe once a week to more than once a day. No change in sleep though!
One of my nurses in the hospital had recommended doc a tot. I am hesitant to try a $200 product when so many things have failed already. With my older there was no magical solution and she didn’t really sleep until 15 months no matter what we did. Maybe if I can find one cheap on Craigslist....
I have to be reading this wrong...
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She sleeps really well during the day if I am walking. I have gotten in some excellent hikes with her sleeping peacefully on me. I definitely swaddle since that seems to help.
Interestingly, on the probiotic idea, I got one for myself since I didn’t find a baby one in the store (wasn’t really committed to the idea, so I went low-effort). The only change I noticed there was that she went from pooping maybe once a week to more than once a day. No change in sleep though!
One of my nurses in the hospital had recommended doc a tot. I am hesitant to try a $200 product when so many things have failed already. With my older there was no magical solution and she didn’t really sleep until 15 months no matter what we did. Maybe if I can find one cheap on Craigslist....
I wasn’t talking about just any probiotic though. Look at the reviews for the Evivo: https://www.evivo.com/evivo-story/real-moms-share they have $10 off coupons and you could try their “1-month refill” to see if it works for $55. That’s what we did.
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I am so sorry you are going through this.
Want to second they will eventually sleep through the night -
My first did the week he turned two.
My second did once at two years eight months and then not again until she turned three years and a couple of days.
It is so unbelievably exhausting.
Now they are 16 and 13 and have great sleeping patterns. They don't wake us up for anything - they can even handle vomit solo or help each other out.
One thing a mom said to me that made me feel better at the time of exhaustion was - the smarter ones are always poor sleepers. I think it is true - my guys are brilliant lovely people.
I did end up quitting my job when I couldn't cope with the sleep deprivation. I also gained a lot of weight.
We coped as a family by having every room in the house set up for sleep or naps. Both kids napped better outside so we would pull the stroller or sleigh up onto the back porch and throw the sleeping bag on top and go inside and read a book by the door. The guest bed was fair game for part of the night - the sofa bed in the den was open and made up for another sleeping bunch. I went to bed at 7:30 and hubs dealt with everything until 1 am and then it was my shift. Then he would take over from 6 am to 8 while I slept some more. That is how we did it. We co-slept with one or more kids - Hell it was musical beds all over the house.
I have to confess - I am Canadian and we have a year maternity leave - I don't have a clue how you do it.
I took an extra six months with my son and quit working full time instead of going back after my daughter. My best wishes for peaceful nights, they will come.
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You are not reading it wrong on the change in pooping frequently! Though I stopped taking it and she seems to be slowing down, only two poopy diapers yesterday and none so far today.
Yes, we have tried white noise but it seems she can take it or leave it. My new, bigger swaddle should come tomorrow. I’m on travel visiting family an airplane ride from home but I can look up the dock a tot when I get home. I’ll look into the probiotic also. What is the premise behind that helping sleep?
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No dock a tots available on Craigslist in my area, which is surprising considering it is the Bay Area. I can already hear my husband protesting wildly if I brought up buying a product that is $200. He protested at the $15 swaddle! I’ll keep contemplating it. I really wish there was a way to try it before purchasing, like the free swing I got on Craigslist.
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No sleep is no fun for anyone!
That said, 1 month is too young to start hardcore sleep training. If you are interested, there is a wonderful book backed up with research on this very topic: Baby Wise. Do an amazon search or go to your library. We used this method, and it just works. Our little guy was 1 week early, and by week 11 adjusted he slept through the night (well, 6-7 hr, but that's all we need).
As for the antacid, probiotics, antigas, and other drugs you are giving the baby: if you are giving them ONLY to help with sleep, I would stop giving them (they aren't doing any good).
Feed baby every 3ish hours (wake them up if you need to). Be religious about this (seriously). And don't feed baby prior to a nap during the day.
Here's the routine: wake up, eat, have awake time. In that order, every time during the day. This gets baby on a routine that works (this is backed up with high quality medical research and rigorous statistical analysis). This isn't opinion, this is FACT.
In summary, check out Baby Wise for your questions on sleep training, and FOLLOW IT'S DIRECTIONS. This WILL get baby sleeping through the night by the time you get back to work. If you don't follow the book's advice, you're going to be tired for the next few years.
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You are not reading it wrong on the change in pooping frequently! Though I stopped taking it and she seems to be slowing down, only two poopy diapers yesterday and none so far today.
Yes, we have tried white noise but it seems she can take it or leave it. My new, bigger swaddle should come tomorrow. I’m on travel visiting family an airplane ride from home but I can look up the dock a tot when I get home. I’ll look into the probiotic also. What is the premise behind that helping sleep?
Regarding Evivo, the research came out of UC Davis and is supposed to do a lot of good things for the kids health long term. (Such as reduce risks for obesity, allergies, asthma, diabetes, etc) It helps with the child’s digestion and they are able to better digest the HMOs in breast milk. Typically eliminates colic and upset stomachs in the short term, which ends up resulting in a less fussy baby and reduces poops to about 1 per day as all the nutrients are digested.
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
What is your current sleep/wake routine? I read several books on sleep; if I knew your current routine/schedule maybe I could think of something you haven't already tried.
My heart aches for you, I remember those sleepless nights all too well and I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.
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No dock a tots available on Craigslist in my area, which is surprising considering it is the Bay Area. I can already hear my husband protesting wildly if I brought up buying a product that is $200. He protested at the $15 swaddle! I’ll keep contemplating it. I really wish there was a way to try it before purchasing, like the free swing I got on Craigslist.
My Next Door group has a lot of baby stuff. One, the items are close to home and two, you know the name of the seller and basically where they live. I think this is much easier than CL. Also, you can post an ISO ad, or even just ask to borrow one to see if it works.
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
Babies always cry when you put them down for a nap after sleeping. Always. It's OK to let them cry (for up to 15 min)! You're not a terrible parent for teaching your child how to sleep, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!
If your baby cries for more than 15 minutes, go into her room, check on her/pick her up for a minute or two, and PUT HER BACK DOWN.
Read the book. If you don't want to read the book and make the changes, you can expect more of the same.
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
Babies always cry when you put them down for a nap after sleeping. Always. It's OK to let them cry (for up to 15 min)! You're not a terrible parent for teaching your child how to sleep, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!
If your baby cries for more than 15 minutes, go into her room, check on her/pick her up for a minute or two, and PUT HER BACK DOWN.
Read the book. If you don't want to read the book and make the changes, you can expect more of the same.
This might be excellent advice, but could you please be a little more gentle with it? We're trying to get a baby to sleep here...
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
Babies always cry when you put them down for a nap after sleeping. Always. It's OK to let them cry (for up to 15 min)! You're not a terrible parent for teaching your child how to sleep, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!
If your baby cries for more than 15 minutes, go into her room, check on her/pick her up for a minute or two, and PUT HER BACK DOWN.
Read the book. If you don't want to read the book and make the changes, you can expect more of the same.
This might be excellent advice, but could you please be a little more gentle with it? We're trying to get a baby to sleep here...
It might be good advice for a much older baby.
I've mentioned before that my son is currently 15 months and went from 4 months to a year waking every hour.
OP, will the baby sleep in a car? Some advice I got was that sleep begets sleep. If baby will sleep on a car ride, then car naps are ok and necessary.
Do you have a moms group around you or at the hospital you delivered at? That would be a good start for support, ideas and possibly a lead on a dock a tot. I had the same issue as you. I really wanted one but couldn't justify the price. There is also a sleep group on faceboook called sleep for the littles or sleepy littles or something like that. Its a gentle sleep group, so they don't talk about cry it out at all.
My heart hurts for you...This experience is so recent for me. Its the worst when your kid doesn't sleep and it seems like everyone else's kid does. I used to wonder what I was doing wrong. But then i remembered, my kid was like that in the hospital at birth. I would hold him, nurse him, he would fall asleep. I would put him the basinette and try to sleep and bam, 10 minutes later he was up. He nursed like clockwork every 10 minutes for the first three weeks of his life. Its such a hard time.
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
Babies always cry when you put them down for a nap after sleeping. Always. It's OK to let them cry (for up to 15 min)! You're not a terrible parent for teaching your child how to sleep, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!
If your baby cries for more than 15 minutes, go into her room, check on her/pick her up for a minute or two, and PUT HER BACK DOWN.
Read the book. If you don't want to read the book and make the changes, you can expect more of the same.
I imagine this is meant with kindness, but just to note that it really, really depends on the kid, and it is very easy to assume you have Done It Right if your kids sleep (and to guess others may be Doing It Wrong). My (older) baby, if picked up, goes from crying to screaming bloody murder when put down. The other day he cried for 45 minutes, which is the point at which I tend to feel like I have to check diaper, crib, etc, and when put down he screamed for 5 hours every time his butt touched crib while we picked up put down, patted, rocked, lay on the floor, etc. Usually he sleeps through the night now - 7pm-6am last night, a particularly good morning hour.
Some kids just don't respond to what the books say. Mine didn't. He'd scream so hard he would vomit if he was left alone, and that just didn't feel right, so we did (and do) what we need to in order for that not to happen. My husband and I also took shifts so I got up before 2 and he got up after that when he needed us. A mom I know just publicly apologized to everyone she sleep shamed after her first baby sleep trained well and easily when her second will not sleep unless being held, not for any amount of time or after any system or sleep coach.
It's not your fault. This will pass.
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Joel- I had my sister do the research for me on the Evivo probiotic. The UC Davis study you eluded to established that the product does not harm infants. She was able to do some further research of a collection of studies which seems to show that there can be some benefits. I have ordered it to give it a try since it seems that it may be helpful. I’m pretty open to all ideas at this point!
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I d already spoken to a doctor and a nurse in her pediatrics office and she is definitely too young for any sort of sleep training/cry it out. I need to wait until she is developmentally old enough for that to be effective and not just traumatizing. She is only the equivalent of five weeks, after all.
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Thank you for the kind words and support, Misstachian. I definitely have tough babies though I certainly can learn more as well. We did the cry it out with my oldest (because going in to “soothe” her only enraged her further), and she would scream bloody murder for over an hour every single time, for weeks on end. The books didn’t work because they didn’t describe the behavior we were oberving and she didn’t respond as the books predicted. We eventually hired a sleep coach at 9 months who worked with us over several weeks, and concluded that she had never seen a baby behave that way before.
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Update for clarity: the sleep coach was not successful in helping out baby sleep better, just in case I wasn’t clear above. She told us she had been doing that a long time and had never had a baby not positively respond to her methods.
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Thank you for the kind words and support, Misstachian. I definitely have tough babies though I certainly can learn more as well. We did the cry it out with my oldest (because going in to “soothe” her only enraged her further), and she would scream bloody murder for over an hour every single time, for weeks on end. The books didn’t work because they didn’t describe the behavior we were oberving and she didn’t respond as the books predicted. We eventually hired a sleep coach at 9 months who worked with us over several weeks, and concluded that she had never seen a baby behave that way before.
I so feel for you. Exactly - once we walk in the room it is all over, enraged is the perfect word. But "crying it out", he can scream for hours. If he's just crying, we let him work it out and practice falling back asleep. If he's screaming, gagging, coughing, and vomiting will follow, so we try to get him before that point. It only took a few nights of cleaning vomit (and baby and sheets and pajamas and sleep sack) multiple times to decide that no version of cry it out or extinction would work for us the way the books described. Plus we were too freaking tired to continue trying every single sleep tactic.
And like I said - it took a year, but last night 7-6! With nary a peep! Do whatever you need to do to survive this period. (In lieu of sleep I often chose to eat another dinner in the middle of the night, which sometimes seemed to help a little.)
5 weeks is so very little. She'll get some longer stretches soon. And if you can throw money at it, I wouldn't feel ashamed to do so. You are literally talking about your sanity and ability to function, and it's hard to put a price on those.
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Joel- I had my sister do the research for me on the Evivo probiotic. The UC Davis study you eluded to established that the product does not harm infants. She was able to do some further research of a collection of studies which seems to show that there can be some benefits. I have ordered it to give it a try since it seems that it may be helpful. I’m pretty open to all ideas at this point!
Good to hear. We were recommended it by a friend and we are happy with the results. I’m curious if you have similar results. Please let me know! Hope it helps some!
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I’ll be honest, I’m skeptical of another book since the ones we’ve read haven’t helped. I suppose the next book might be the one we were looking for all along. This could also be the exhaustion speaking. We do wake, eat, and play. The problem is that sleep is supposed to follow next in that routine and it doesn’t because she screams bloody murder. I’m not interested in getting thrbbany to sleep through thrvnjght. I want her to nap and i want her to sleep for three-hour stretches at night. If she did that then I could return to being a human being.
Anyway, the screamer is finally asleep so I need to do the same. Fingers crossed that I get some to night.
Babies always cry when you put them down for a nap after sleeping. Always. It's OK to let them cry (for up to 15 min)! You're not a terrible parent for teaching your child how to sleep, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!
If your baby cries for more than 15 minutes, go into her room, check on her/pick her up for a minute or two, and PUT HER BACK DOWN.
Read the book. If you don't want to read the book and make the changes, you can expect more of the same.
I imagine this is meant with kindness, but just to note that it really, really depends on the kid, and it is very easy to assume you have Done It Right if your kids sleep (and to guess others may be Doing It Wrong). My (older) baby, if picked up, goes from crying to screaming bloody murder when put down. The other day he cried for 45 minutes, which is the point at which I tend to feel like I have to check diaper, crib, etc, and when put down he screamed for 5 hours every time his butt touched crib while we picked up put down, patted, rocked, lay on the floor, etc. Usually he sleeps through the night now - 7pm-6am last night, a particularly good morning hour.
Some kids just don't respond to what the books say. Mine didn't. He'd scream so hard he would vomit if he was left alone, and that just didn't feel right, so we did (and do) what we need to in order for that not to happen. My husband and I also took shifts so I got up before 2 and he got up after that when he needed us. A mom I know just publicly apologized to everyone she sleep shamed after her first baby sleep trained well and easily when her second will not sleep unless being held, not for any amount of time or after any system or sleep coach.
It's not your fault. This will pass.
I absolutely am sharing this advice to be helpful. Per the study the author's medical practice conducted, by week 12, 97% of babies whose parents employed the technique were sleeping through the night most nights.
You need to be consistent with its application. If after a few weeks you don't get the response you desire, you need to keep doing it! Deviating from the system too often will sabotage your efforts and sentence you to a year or two of no sleep.
Don't keep switching up your tactics, you need to do the same one for a few months straight. Using different tactics confuses your baby and robs her the opportunity to learn the skill of falling asleep.
Support groups are a wonderful idea for support. Be sure if you take advice from someone, be sure to take it from someone who had success with it. Don't follow advice that did not produce results (this is, unfortunately, common).
Use the Baby Wise method for 12 weeks. If it doesn't get your baby the skill to sleep, then she is in the 3% of babies that don't respond to it.
Good Luck!
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Thank you for the kind words and support, Misstachian. I definitely have tough babies though I certainly can learn more as well. We did the cry it out with my oldest (because going in to “soothe” her only enraged her further), and she would scream bloody murder for over an hour every single time, for weeks on end. The books didn’t work because they didn’t describe the behavior we were oberving and she didn’t respond as the books predicted. We eventually hired a sleep coach at 9 months who worked with us over several weeks, and concluded that she had never seen a baby behave that way before.
I so feel for you. Exactly - once we walk in the room it is all over, enraged is the perfect word. But "crying it out", he can scream for hours. If he's just crying, we let him work it out and practice falling back asleep. If he's screaming, gagging, coughing, and vomiting will follow, so we try to get him before that point. It only took a few nights of cleaning vomit (and baby and sheets and pajamas and sleep sack) multiple times to decide that no version of cry it out or extinction would work for us the way the books described. Plus we were too freaking tired to continue trying every single sleep tactic.
And like I said - it took a year, but last night 7-6! With nary a peep! Do whatever you need to do to survive this period. (In lieu of sleep I often chose to eat another dinner in the middle of the night, which sometimes seemed to help a little.)
5 weeks is so very little. She'll get some longer stretches soon. And if you can throw money at it, I wouldn't feel ashamed to do so. You are literally talking about your sanity and ability to function, and it's hard to put a price on those.
I just want to second Misstachian's wise words and encourage you to honor your own experience with your first. We also had a vomitter/multi hour crier/injured himself trying to crawl out of the crib way too young. One of my biggest regrets is spending months trying to sleep train my oldest. With our second child we were much more willing to just try and minimize sleep disturbances rather than try to get her sleeping through the night.
I truly get that sleep training works for lots of people and I think that is great, but it really does not work for everyone.
The Woombie, a very clean diet for me, and an extra long nursing session eventually helped us get stretches of an hour or two but we also ultimately moved to shift sleeping to ensure that each parent got a few consecutive hours of sleep. Around age 3.5 both of our children dropped to one or two wake ups a night.
I've honestly come to believe that it is genetic. I'm a HORRIBLE sleeper. It takes me ages to fall asleep and I wake up easily and often. I think my children are just the same.
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I wouldn’t be surprised about a genetic component. That would make sense with both of my babide sucking in this department.
This is the second day of only staying home and being a slate to her nap routine: keep her awake for an hour and then it is time to go down for a nap again. She seems to be able to nap flat, swaddled, by herself for maybe 30 minutes. Then she dissed, I nurse and then rock her a bit, see those eyes get droopy, and then put her down again for another 30-45 minutes. Repeat.
That seems to have helped in keeping the screaming down significantly. Unfortunately she woke up every goddamn hour last night to nurse (except for a single 2-hour stretch). I can’t describe how brutal it is for me. In addition, her grunting/straining/writhing has gotten worse, so when I would put her down at night she would grunt away and keep me from falling asleep. She is on her antacid and gas drops and I still feel there is something not right with her gut. She often pulls off and strains after the letdown occurs. Getting her to latch last night was sometimes tough because she was arching away from me. I just don’t know. Too bad I have to wait a week to try that probiotic.
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I wouldn’t be surprised about a genetic component. That would make sense with both of my babide sucking in this department.
This is the second day of only staying home and being a slate to her nap routine: keep her awake for an hour and then it is time to go down for a nap again. She seems to be able to nap flat, swaddled, by herself for maybe 30 minutes. Then she dissed, I nurse and then rock her a bit, see those eyes get droopy, and then put her down again for another 30-45 minutes. Repeat.
That seems to have helped in keeping the screaming down significantly. Unfortunately she woke up every goddamn hour last night to nurse (except for a single 2-hour stretch). I can’t describe how brutal it is for me. In addition, her grunting/straining/writhing has gotten worse, so when I would put her down at night she would grunt away and keep me from falling asleep. She is on her antacid and gas drops and I still feel there is something not right with her gut. She often pulls off and strains after the letdown occurs. Getting her to latch last night was sometimes tough because she was arching away from me. I just don’t know. Too bad I have to wait a week to try that probiotic.
Antigas drops don't do anything beneficial in newborns/infants, and may cause abdominal pain or diarrhea if anything. Probiotics are absolutely unnecessary if you are breastfeeding. Source: doctor of pharmacy degree and subsequent board certification.
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My lactation consultant recommended the gas drops and I had my sister use her university journal access to look up the probiotic that was recommended up thread. She was absolutely skeptical (okay, she told me probiotics were nonsense), but then after reviewing the papers she could find she changed her mind and noted that some studies have shown benefits. She did the research so I can’t link to anything here. If I ever get some sleep and have the energy to do so, I’ll look it up myself and share the sources.
Anecdotally it appears that when I use the gas drops regularly her grunting and straining is reduced. I have read and heard that they only work in a minority of infants which may well be why you say they are ineffective.
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Hi ysette9, might have already been checked but have you asked a doc about lactose intolerance? I thought it was super rare/ possibly not real, but my BFF's little girl couldn't breastfeed because the lactose in BFF's milk upset her belly and gave her awful gas. They switched to a lactose-free formula and now she sleeps amazingly well. I really hope the probiotic works for you.
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Poor baby! As someone who used to suffer from severe lactose intolerance I feel for that baby.
I can ask, but I doubt that is the problem. Yes, she is gassy, but not that gassy. Doing a bit of reading online
From birth, the baby would have severe diarrhea and be unable to tolerate the lactose in his mother's breast milk or in formula made from cow's milk.
. That doesn’t describe her. Her stools have been normal from the beginning.
How distressing for anyone with a baby suffering from
This intolerance. It would cause heartache to know your milk was causing the baby distress.
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Yeah, it was awful :( I'm not sure about diarrhoea, but I know she screamed after every feed and took half an hour to get the gas out & calm down. I'm glad it's not *that* bad, but still no fun for you!
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This kid is constantly evolving to be one step ahead of me. Two days ago I put her down drowsy, swaddled, and she napped for an hour. The next day it was 30 minutes. This morning she gave me 20 minutes, then ten. It is like she adapts to my methods and renders them useless within a day or two. Aren’t these sleep methods supposed to get better sleep with time, not worse?
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This kid is constantly evolving to be one step ahead of me. Two days ago I put her down drowsy, swaddled, and she napped for an hour. The next day it was 30 minutes. This morning she gave me 20 minutes, then ten. It is like she adapts to my methods and renders them useless within a day or two. Aren’t these sleep methods supposed to get better sleep with time, not worse?
So sorry! This is what ours did too (the same held true for discipline techniques as well).
Is a night nanny an option? just for a day or two? it might help you feel more sane at this point.
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She often pulls off and strains after the letdown occurs. Getting her to latch last night was sometimes tough because she was arching away from me.
My little guy did this at about 6 weeks of age (adjusted) for about two weeks, then he suddenly got over it. Hopefully yours does too.
Some of the best advice I got was trust your mom instincts. If you think it might be a genetic thing, and that sleep training won't help, then you could very well be right.
I will be honest about my probiotic experience: we used them and I will say they made the kid poop very regularly, but it didn't have much impact on his sleep.
Seconding comments to look into a night nanny or something similar, even temporarily, so you can get a bit of rest. Everything seems more overcome-able (is that a word?) with a decent night's sleep. Hugs!
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Something that has helped me is making sure I get one 2-hour block of sleep a day. At some point could you pump, give someone a bottle, and go nap with your ears blocked?
It’s helping me feel more human and sane.
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Last night when I was losing it I promised myself that when I got home I would hire a sleep coach. I also promised myself that if I didn’t see significant improvements in the next couple of weeks that I would hire a night nanny. I go back to work in January and I cannot function like this and work. I am barely functioning now. There are times for throwing money to make problems Better and his is definitely one of them in my mind.
I have to power through four more days because I am away from home without husband, pump, bottles, etc. Once home though I do want to try pumping before I go to bed and have my husband, who goes to bed later than me, give her a bottle once she starts to fuss the first time to give me that 2-4 hour stretch I need.
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Last night when I was losing it I promised myself that when I got home I would hire a sleep coach. I also promised myself that if I didn’t see significant improvements in the next couple of weeks that I would hire a night nanny. I go back to work in January and I cannot function like this and work. I am barely functioning now. There are times for throwing money to make problems Better and his is definitely one of them in my mind.
I have to power through four more days because I am away from home without husband, pump, bottles, etc. Once home though I do want to try pumping before I go to bed and have my husband, who goes to bed later than me, give her a bottle once she starts to fuss the first time to give me that 2-4 hour stretch I need.
Sounds like a great plan. The first time I tried that I slept as far away as I could, with ear plugs, and a headband over my ears too. And white noise.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m hiring a sleep consultant for $400 and making myself feel better about he cost because a) if I ever have more kids, the cost goes down! B) I have spent far more money on textbooks for school. I think my life and my baby’s life is worth more than textbooks. If it’s money well spent I would pay much more! But at this point I’ll try anything. And I need guidance. Yep.
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Last night when I was losing it I promised myself that when I got home I would hire a sleep coach. I also promised myself that if I didn’t see significant improvements in the next couple of weeks that I would hire a night nanny. I go back to work in January and I cannot function like this and work. I am barely functioning now. There are times for throwing money to make problems Better and his is definitely one of them in my mind.
I have to power through four more days because I am away from home without husband, pump, bottles, etc. Once home though I do want to try pumping before I go to bed and have my husband, who goes to bed later than me, give her a bottle once she starts to fuss the first time to give me that 2-4 hour stretch I need.
Big hugs. This is so tough. And yes, babies are all different and change regularly.
Definitely try sleeping in shifts with husband, a night nurse or whoever can help.
And since we are talking about books that might help, may I recommend one for you: "The Telomere effect". It looked into how caregiving mothers of older sick children cope and found there are strategies to cope better, mostly around mindset.
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I logged in here after a very long absence because your post really spoke to me... my heart aches for you... the sleep deprivation of having a newborn who won't sleep is TORTURE. And I don't use that word lightly. It is HELL.
Newborns generally sleep like sh!t. Older babies don't sleep much better. (Personal opinion: I suspect that the ones for whom methods like Babywise work are generally the ones that would sleep well enough had their parents followed no method at all.)
Despite the existence of a "baby sleep industry," I've yet to see any evidence that anything besides common sense really works. And even then, common sense doesn't always work! Common sense = swaddling, white noise, swinging/motion, having baby rest in an upright position a la Rock n' Play if s/he has reflux, and once baby is old enough, putting down while drowsy but awake.
When my daughter was a newborn, I wish I focused more on my own self-care and less on trying to trick her into sleeping... I would have gotten a better return on my time investment.
So here's one suggestion that has GUARANTEED returns: focus on what you CAN control, not what you CAN'T control.
It's quite possible that your baby will still be waking every 2 hours when you go back to work next month. Deep breath. (I remember how badly I was freaking out at 6 weeks, when I was thinking about my inevitable return to work.) Is there any way you can delay your return? Longer unpaid leave?
Can you shift your sleep schedule by getting additional childcare and pumping bottles, so you can get more/ better/ longer naps during the day?
Do you have someone who will listen non-judgmentally as you vent about how much this bullsh!t sucks? A caring mother figure who won't say dumb sh!t like "this too will pass," but rather will validate how it feels impossible to get through this while you're in the thick of it?
Instead of having to get out of bed, can your husband get up to retrieve the baby, so you're not standing up constantly?
Can you learn to nurse side-lying, so you can doze while baby is latched?
Think coping, not fixing. Think surviving, not thriving.
Once home though I do want to try pumping before I go to bed and have my husband, who goes to bed later than me, give her a bottle once she starts to fuss the first time to give me that 2-4 hour stretch I need.
Yes, yes, yes - a million times yes to this! This is a great idea! And then he needs to do that for a few weeks straight.
Assuming that you can't FORCE another human being to go to sleep - what else can you do to take care of YOU, and help you get the rest that you need?
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Sunflower yellow - such great advice. Good reminder for me. Any self-care that is possible is crucial.
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The first time I tried that I slept as far away as I could, with ear plugs, and a headband over my ears too. And white noise.
BTW, @lifejoy, I have done literally this exact same thing. Slept downstairs on the couch, every door between me and baby closed, ear plugs, white noise blasting next to my head, and a dose of Benadryl for good measure.
It is SO much easier to deal with a screaming, fussy, non-sleeping newborn when you yourself are not completely exhausted and on your last nerve. So do whatever you can to get to "just tired," instead of exhausted!!
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At home I sleep in the other room with earplugs and my husband sleeps next to the baby. I still wake up to her first, if he wakes at all. If he doesn’t hear her, does it count as having someone sleep in the same room as the baby for the reduced SIDS thing? ;-)
Last night she gave me four 2-hour stretches which was relatively amazing. I feel like a tired human today instead of a zombie about to be committed to a mental institution.
I am following the guideline of only having her up for an hour at a time and that really helps with her not melting down from being over tired. I am temporarily giving up on trying to have her nap by herself in a bed. She got a 2-hour nap this morning in the baby carrier while I got in a good walk. My hope is that I can get her to nap on me this afternoon so I can nap too. That may be too much to ask for, but I’ll try.
I really appreciate all of the commiseration and support. This will pass eventually, but it is tough.
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At home I sleep in the other room with earplugs and my husband sleeps next to the baby. I still wake up to her first, if he wakes at all. If he doesn’t hear her, does it count as having someone sleep in the same room as the baby for the reduced SIDS thing? ;-)
Last night she gave me four 2-hour stretches which was relatively amazing. I feel like a tired human today instead of a zombie about to be committed to a mental institution.
I am following the guideline of only having her up for an hour at a time and that really helps with her not melting down from being over tired. I am temporarily giving up on trying to have her nap by herself in a bed. She got a 2-hour nap this morning in the baby carrier while I got in a good walk. My hope is that I can get her to nap on me this afternoon so I can nap too. That may be too much to ask for, but I’ll try.
I really appreciate all of the commiseration and support. This will pass eventually, but it is tough.
It’s amazing what four 2-hour naps can do! Your description is perfect heh :)
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At home I sleep in the other room with earplugs and my husband sleeps next to the baby. I still wake up to her first, if he wakes at all. If he doesn’t hear her, does it count as having someone sleep in the same room as the baby for the reduced SIDS thing? ;-)
Last night she gave me four 2-hour stretches which was relatively amazing. I feel like a tired human today instead of a zombie about to be committed to a mental institution.
I am following the guideline of only having her up for an hour at a time and that really helps with her not melting down from being over tired. I am temporarily giving up on trying to have her nap by herself in a bed. She got a 2-hour nap this morning in the baby carrier while I got in a good walk. My hope is that I can get her to nap on me this afternoon so I can nap too. That may be too much to ask for, but I’ll try.
I really appreciate all of the commiseration and support. This will pass eventually, but it is tough.
Ysette, btw, good on ya for getting in some good walking. Great strategy to help your body heal postpartum, to help you feel more "awake," to soothe your soul, to give you a break from crying newborn noises, to maintain your physical stamina - so many good things there.
Would it be possible for dad to do a bottle at one of those wakings, so you can stretch to 4 hours?
It's incredible how frequently little babies fall asleep (before they start to consolidate their naps closer to ~3ish months old). Also incredible that their own crying will keep them awake when they really, really, really need to go to sleep because they're overtired.
Why don't babies come with an off switch? Or at least a pause button?
Of course it will pass eventually, but it sure is tough right now. You're doing the right thing by reaching out for support, new ideas, and sanity checks. Hang in there and keep taking care of yourself.
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A pause button would be GREAT :D
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Pause button would be nice, along with a MUTE button!
I am hoping that her father can give her a bottle for the first feeding after I go to bed. The trick is that he has to get her as soon as she starts fussing just a bit, which means he has to be awake and paying attention. Otherwise I will wake instantly to her little noises and defeat the whole point of the bottle.
Oh yeah, and when I get home in two days he will be home for two days beyond that before leaving the country for two weeks for work. Ugh. My father will be staying with us to help, but I can’t quite ask the same things of him. We’ll see.
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LOL yes to the mute button!!!
I can relate to your plight. My husband is away for work at times and it sucks.
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I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but perhaps you have a highly sensitive child? My 1st son what a terrible sleeper for the first 18 months. 5 years later we realize he has high sensitivities (he hates "furry" clothing, hates tags in clothes, hates others body heat/being held, semi-bright lights, and I can go on and on). I swear, if we knew then what we know now about his sensitivities I'm positive he would've slept much better. I don't post much on this forum, but I feel your pain and lived through it for almost 3 straight years in the form of unplanned back-to-back kids.
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Good point. For my oldest I don’t think she is particularly sensitive, it is just that and disturbance in life at all shows up in sleep problems. For the little one I’ll have to pay attention. She definitely does not like lights and noise in the evening, so it is a possibility.
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Joel- I had my sister do the research for me on the Evivo probiotic. The UC Davis study you eluded to established that the product does not harm infants. She was able to do some further research of a collection of studies which seems to show that there can be some benefits. I have ordered it to give it a try since it seems that it may be helpful. I’m pretty open to all ideas at this point!
The friend who recommended Evivo to us just shared the following publication on the Evivo probiotic:
https://www.evivo.com/evivo-clinical-data
Have you received it yet? Is it working?
It's hard for us to determine how much of the good sleep and lack of fussing is attributable to Evivo or just natural causes, but I found the article interesting at least.
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Sleep begets sleep. Overtired babies reject sleep. These are two facts that I learned with my two. That being said, I didn't sleep train until my youngest was 7 months old....so we basically just survived until then. He never napped longer than 20 minutes until we sleep trained him. Once sleep trained, he started sleeping all night (after three nights of training).....and then starting taking two long naps. Sleep at night = sleep during the day. At least until he was 2.5 when he gave up naps completely.....but was still sleeping 12-14 hours a night.
I didn't feel comfortable with sleep training until he was a little older.....and he was waking about 2-4 times a night until then. Hang in there!
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I haven’t received the probiotic because I go home tomorrow and am having it shipped to my house, not where I have been visiting this past week. I am looking forward to giving it a try. I hope it will do something more than just make my kid poop more frequently!
I agree that sleep begets sleep. Today she napped poorly for the first two (30 minutes, even though I wore her the first time and held her the second). Finally she napped three full hours this afternoon with my sister wearing her. She was a happy camper after that, but still put up a Massive Fight at bedtime. She is sleeping quietly beside me now. Fingers crossed for tomorrow which I predict will be a rough day. 1.5+ hours in the car followed by a 6-hour plane ride that lands 1.5 hours after she wants to go to bed. Oh well, power through tomorrow and then I will at least be home.
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For baby-induced insomnia, my life saver has been Doxylamine succinate (trading in Australia as Restavit). Some nights I had to take 0.5 tablet, close all doors, and leave DH to it until the leaking boobies woke me.
Maybe check with your doc etc. but if you need to knock yourself out on a weekend and regain your sanity that is what I did (maybe 4 times during the first year) when at breaking point.
BTW random tangent: my doc at the time mentioned there was a study that found women were more likely to wake to a crying baby than men, I think it was due to progesterone levels but I can't seem to find the study. But SIDS and co-sleeping research also shows it is an actual biological gender difference, rather than a case of uncaring male, mothers also naturally co-sleep in the protective side position, dads don't.
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For baby-induced insomnia, my life saver has been Doxylamine succinate (trading in Australia as Restavit). Some nights I had to take 0.5 tablet, close all doors, and leave DH to it until the leaking boobies woke me.
Maybe check with your doc etc. but if you need to knock yourself out on a weekend and regain your sanity that is what I did (maybe 4 times during the first year) when at breaking point.
BTW random tangent: my doc at the time mentioned there was a study that found women were more likely to wake to a crying baby than men, I think it was due to progesterone levels but I can't seem to find the study. But SIDS and co-sleeping research also shows it is an actual biological gender difference, rather than a case of uncaring male, mothers also naturally co-sleep in the protective side position, dads don't.
This is Unisom in the US and it was recommended by my midwife and by other OBs as safe to take even daily while pregnant or breastfeeding. I did, and still do. I've always had sleep problems and this exacerbated it. It's also sold by Kirkland (Costco) under the drug name.
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For baby-induced insomnia, my life saver has been Doxylamine succinate (trading in Australia as Restavit). Some nights I had to take 0.5 tablet, close all doors, and leave DH to it until the leaking boobies woke me.
Maybe check with your doc etc. but if you need to knock yourself out on a weekend and regain your sanity that is what I did (maybe 4 times during the first year) when at breaking point.
BTW random tangent: my doc at the time mentioned there was a study that found women were more likely to wake to a crying baby than men, I think it was due to progesterone levels but I can't seem to find the study. But SIDS and co-sleeping research also shows it is an actual biological gender difference, rather than a case of uncaring male, mothers also naturally co-sleep in the protective side position, dads don't.
This is Unisom in the US and it was recommended by my midwife and by other OBs as safe to take even daily while pregnant or breastfeeding. I did, and still do. I've always had sleep problems and this exacerbated it. It's also sold by Kirkland (Costco) under the drug name.
Interestingly, Unisom (doxylamine succinate, not diphenhydramine HCl) plus vitamin B6 is an effective nausea treatment for morning sickness for a lot of people. My wife used it all the way through pregnancy.
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Joel- I had my sister do the research for me on the Evivo probiotic. The UC Davis study you eluded to established that the product does not harm infants. She was able to do some further research of a collection of studies which seems to show that there can be some benefits. I have ordered it to give it a try since it seems that it may be helpful. I’m pretty open to all ideas at this point!
The friend who recommended Evivo to us just shared the following publication on the Evivo probiotic:
https://www.evivo.com/evivo-clinical-data
Have you received it yet? Is it working?
It's hard for us to determine how much of the good sleep and lack of fussing is attributable to Evivo or just natural causes, but I found the article interesting at least.
Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
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For baby-induced insomnia, my life saver has been Doxylamine succinate (trading in Australia as Restavit). Some nights I had to take 0.5 tablet, close all doors, and leave DH to it until the leaking boobies woke me.
+1 to Unisom, for both sleep assistance and in combination with vitamin B6 for morning sickness relief!
BTW random tangent: my doc at the time mentioned there was a study that found women were more likely to wake to a crying baby than men, I think it was due to progesterone levels but I can't seem to find the study. But SIDS and co-sleeping research also shows it is an actual biological gender difference, rather than a case of uncaring male, mothers also naturally co-sleep in the protective side position, dads don't.
Truth. My newborn daughter would sigh in her sleep, and INSTANTLY I bolt awake and look around. Husband (who is an incredibly caring, doting father with a very strong attachment to his daughter)? He wouldn't stir until newborn daughter was fully awake and actually mewing.
My personal random tangent: before I had a child, I was all "Oh, people conflate gender with sex, there really aren't any substantive differences between the sexes, any perceived differences can be chalked up to the social constructs of gender." Now I'm like, "Differences between the biological sexes are REAL." (Oh, I was so naive.)
Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
Man, HOW did babies survive before the advent of Science Milk (i.e. formula)? I mean, women's breasts produce the real thing - how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Per the websites of those Corporate Monsters, "It has an amount of inositol within the range found in breast milk worldwide*, and Triple Health Guard® with a Dual Prebiotics Blend designed to support immune health, 30 nutrients for growth, and brain-nourishing DHA." It must be sooooo necessary to spend upwards of $100/ month to feed your baby.
ManlyFather, I know we're on a website dedicated to living a Mustachian lifestyle. But please realize that your sarcasm might be taken poorly by a highly sleep deprived parent of a newborn who appears to be in significant discomfort. In fact, it was taken pretty poorly by a non-sleep deprived mother of a toddler who gets kinda Mama Bear when she sees other parents' parenting choices being judged.
Worst case scenario: she spends $75 and learns that probiotics don't ease her child's discomfort, so she can move on to other strategies.
Best case scenario: the probiotics ease her child's discomfort, child starts sleeping, mama starts sleeping, health of individuals and family unit improve.
In either of these scenarios, I think the cost is a SCREAMING deal.
Ysette, let us know how it goes. I'm rooting for you and your family.
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ManlyFather, I know we're on a website dedicated to living a Mustachian lifestyle. But please realize that your sarcasm might be taken poorly by a highly sleep deprived parent of a newborn who appears to be in significant discomfort. In fact, it was taken pretty poorly by a non-sleep deprived mother of a toddler who gets kinda Mama Bear when she sees other parents' parenting choices being judged.
Worst case scenario: she spends $75 and learns that probiotics don't ease her child's discomfort, so she can move on to other strategies.
Best case scenario: the probiotics ease her child's discomfort, child starts sleeping, mama starts sleeping, health of individuals and family unit improve.
In either of these scenarios, I think the cost is a SCREAMING deal.
Ysette, let us know how it goes. I'm rooting for you and your family.
^+1
As a former sleep deprived mother I would have paid $75 a night for sleep during the worst part of the sleep deprivation.
If anything helps momma meet her needs to care for her infant - be it actual symptom relief or prophylactic - it is good. Mommas do everything they can to provide for their babies and shouldn't ever be undermined with mocking. There is no room for any type of sarcasm or judgement when a new mom is sleep deprived -ever. This is the hardest and most important undertaking anyone ever does and it needs to be acknowledged and supported with respect and awe.
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Worst case scenario: she spends $75 and learns that probiotics don't ease her child's discomfort, so she can move on to other strategies.
Best case scenario: the probiotics ease her child's discomfort, child starts sleeping, mama starts sleeping, health of individuals and family unit improve.
In either of these scenarios, I think the cost is a SCREAMING deal.
Ysette, let us know how it goes. I'm rooting for you and your family.
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This is why it kills me when there are articles out there about all the baby stuff you don't need, babies don't cost much if you breastfeed and cloth diaper, babies really only need love, etc. Yes, all a baby really needs is love. But mama needs sleep. And this particular mama spent an embarassing amount of money (including probiotics-although a less expensive brand) on trying to get any amount of sleep, and felt like a total failure in the process.
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On the antacid: Ranitidine or Omeprazole? I ask because my friend's pediatrician prescribed Prilosec (omeprazole) but studies have since found it utterly ineffective under 12 months old. The Omeprazole did their baby absolutely no good. Zantac (Ranitidine) is where it's at.
What worked for us:
- Ranitidine
- Let the baby sleep inclined (car seat or held)
- White noise. LOUD white nose. I think it was actually brown noise from an online noise generator that my husband played while he wore ear plugs and I slept.
- Eliminating dairy, garlic, um I forget what else but it sucked. At 10 months we tried fancy formula for some feeds, then yogurt, then dairy and she had gotten past her dairy protein problem. Apparently the human body doesn't break down the cow protein, just passes it right through to the human milk. Weird.
- Gas drops
- Eliminating caffeine. Babies metabolize it more slowly than adults. I made the mistake of having 2 20 oz sodas on our first "Woo Hoo we're out of the house!" Five Guys outing. Man, baby was PISSED, I wanted to cry because she wanted to sleep and couldn't. I probably didn't have to fully swear it off, but I did.
We tried a different probiotic that studies had shown to work. Not sure if that did any good, but at least we felt like we were trying. I hope yours work swimmingly, and you get some much needed sleep soon. I think the above helped until ~ 4 months, when she was finally falling asleep at 10pm (at first she fell asleep at midnight!) and sleeping for 6 hours at a stretch. At 4 months she started teething and that pain would wake her. Long Live Ibuprofen.
My daughter is almost 7. She still wakes in the night sometimes and needs someone to come in and get her back to sleep. She still takes Ranitidine. We also give her Melatonin (0.25 mg) because she goes into hyperactive/overtired mode without it. Your little one is way too young for that (I think the minimum age is 3) but keep it in the back of your mind for when your poor sleeper is older.
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Yep. Pregnant ladies and sleep-deprived moms have a very narrow sense of humour, if my personal experience can tell you anything! Tread lightly, and at your own risk! ;)
As for frugality... ha. We just spent $400 on a sleep consultant and like $500 on a crib because I WILL TRY ANYTHING.
And what is money for if not to give you your life back? :)
Also I would like to give a major props to any parent in this thread that decided to have more than one child after enduring round one of sleep torture. I hope to sign up for round two, myself, but yikes. Gotta build up my courage.
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[quote author=lifejoy link=topic=82041.msg1802132#msg1802132 date=1512762994
Also I would like to give a major props to any parent in this thread that decided to have more than one child after enduring round one of sleep torture. I hope to sign up for round two, myself, but yikes. Gotta build up my courage.
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Or develop some limited amnesia such as I did.
I remember asking the pediatrician re second born. "If I asked you what an effective amount of sleeping drugs was, would you have to notify Child Protection Services" Her answer was "Yes, so don't". She had just returned from her fourth mat leave and had five children. She looked as exhausted as I felt.
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Also I would like to give a major props to any parent in this thread that decided to have more than one child after enduring round one of sleep torture. I hope to sign up for round two, myself, but yikes. Gotta build up my courage.
That is why our children are 3 years apart! But my second was a dream with sleep...at least until she was 18 months or so.
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Also I would like to give a major props to any parent in this thread that decided to have more than one child after enduring round one of sleep torture. I hope to sign up for round two, myself, but yikes. Gotta build up my courage.
That is why our children are 3 years apart! But my second was a dream with sleep...at least until she was 18 months or so.
Thanks heavens you got an 18-month reprieve!!
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Haha, my first was still not sleeping through the night when my second was born. But even on my younger one's worst nights, its nothing like the first round!
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I kept a detailed journal in the beginning of my first to make sure I would not forget and not be foolish enough to think I wanted a second. Look how that irked out!
FrugalLizard, Slappy, LifeJoy and others: thank you for the support. You have said what I would not be able. I am ignoring the posts that get under my skin because otherwise I would respond in a way that I would later not want in print.
RelaxedGal: she is on ranitidine. I am glad for that I input because the doctor offered to switch her when I sent him another angst-y email. I’ll give the probiotic a try instead (in my fridge now).
We survived the really long day of travel, including landing after our bedtime in the old timezone. The baby screamed but it wasn’t quite as ugly as I anticipated. She slept decently last night (only up four times). That is one enormous hurdle down. The next enormous hurdle is my husband’s office holiday party bash tonight that he is all excited about and really wants to go to. All I want in the world is to sleep, and instead I will get dressed up and go to a party that starts at 8:00pm this timezone/11:00pm my body’s timezone. At least he promised me we only have to stay for two hours. I don’t care for these types of events in the best of times but I’ll try to not have too bad of an attitude to not ruin his fun.
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Ysette, you are superhuman. Fingers crossed that the party goes swiftly! And that you win a prize or something. Because damn, you deserve one.
Also I am not keeping a journal for the exact reason you described - I want the amnesia to kick in reeeeeal good ;)
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For baby-induced insomnia, my life saver has been Doxylamine succinate (trading in Australia as Restavit). Some nights I had to take 0.5 tablet, close all doors, and leave DH to it until the leaking boobies woke me.
Maybe check with your doc etc. but if you need to knock yourself out on a weekend and regain your sanity that is what I did (maybe 4 times during the first year) when at breaking point.
BTW random tangent: my doc at the time mentioned there was a study that found women were more likely to wake to a crying baby than men, I think it was due to progesterone levels but I can't seem to find the study. But SIDS and co-sleeping research also shows it is an actual biological gender difference, rather than a case of uncaring male, mothers also naturally co-sleep in the protective side position, dads don't.
This is Unisom in the US and it was recommended by my midwife and by other OBs as safe to take even daily while pregnant or breastfeeding. I did, and still do. I've always had sleep problems and this exacerbated it. It's also sold by Kirkland (Costco) under the drug name.
Can you clarify, please? The non-sleeping baby made your sleeping problems worse and the drug helped? Or the drug didn't work for you and made your sleeping problems worse? I'm always looking to improve my sleep, so this is genuine curiosity, not grammar nazism.
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I'm sorry you are going through this. We also struggled with this with our child. She was two when she finally started sleeping well. I read heaps of books. I read heaps of blogs, internet info etc. I listened to doctors, nurses, friends, family. I blamed myself for not getting the routine 'right' from the beginning. Why didn't I read babywise sooner? I blamed my husband for not following the latest idea I had. I was miserable, and so was the baby. I resented becoming a parent.
Based on what I had read, or what others suggested, I would change things frequently to try to get some sleep. Eat/play/sleep, play/eat/sleep, wait so many minutes before going in, earplugs, driving around in car, walking around with stroller, carrying around in carrier (slept well but sore back and hard to do anything like wipe own bum, also can't use at night), side cosleeper, cot in same room, cot in other room, white noise, no noise, loud noise, dark room, light room, looking for sleepy signs, putting down drowsy but awake, putting down awake, putting down asleep, outside, inside, in bouncer, 2 hour cycle, 3 hour cycle, 4 hour cycle, breastfeed, pump and bottle feed etc etc etc.
Now that I am not in the sleepless thick of it, I have come to the conclusion that her (lack of) sleep behaviour was normal for her age. Some babies sleep well and others don't. It was nothing that I did, or didn't do, or read that made the difference. Nothing at all made a real difference, except the carrier and then only during the day. It was just her. And I have relieved myself of the burden of responsibility for that awful period.
If I did it again I would spend more money, get more help, take the night in shifts with husband (as I see someone else did above), drink more wine, and just try to go with the flow. The house would be messy, the washing done infrequently, microwave meals, sleep when baby sleeps. A lot of the stress was from me worrying I was doing it wrongly, and the lack of help. It may have been easier if I had just accepted it. Also, getting more scheduled time away from the baby would have been helpful too. Somebody to take the baby out of the house every day while I slept would have been ideal.
Going back to work was a huge relief for me, even despite the poor night sleeping.
As for the recommendation for a dockatot, they aren't recommended for safe sleep. They aren't marketed as a device for sleeping in. And safety should be first in my opinion, no matter how desparate you think you are.
Also I have a friend who had a baby that slept well at the time. That made it worse. She would say it was her strict routine that made the baby sleep well. She has since had a another baby who doesn't sleep, and now has some insight into how I felt.
Tldr: No device or change in what you are doing will help. Your baby is normal. Do whatever you need to for your own mental health.
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I kept a detailed journal in the beginning of my first to make sure I would not forget and not be foolish enough to think I wanted a second. Look how that irked out!
FrugalLizard, Slappy, LifeJoy and others: thank you for the support. You have said what I would not be able. I am ignoring the posts that get under my skin because otherwise I would respond in a way that I would later not want in print.
RelaxedGal: she is on ranitidine. I am glad for that I input because the doctor offered to switch her when I sent him another angst-y email. I’ll give the probiotic a try instead (in my fridge now).
We survived the really long day of travel, including landing after our bedtime in the old timezone. The baby screamed but it wasn’t quite as ugly as I anticipated. She slept decently last night (only up four times). That is one enormous hurdle down. The next enormous hurdle is my husband’s office holiday party bash tonight that he is all excited about and really wants to go to. All I want in the world is to sleep, and instead I will get dressed up and go to a party that starts at 8:00pm this timezone/11:00pm my body’s timezone. At least he promised me we only have to stay for two hours. I don’t care for these types of events in the best of times but I’ll try to not have too bad of an attitude to not ruin his fun.
Wow, even being fortunate enough to have a newborn that sleeps well I couldn't imagine traveling and going to a holiday party already. Kudos to you!
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Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
Man, HOW did babies survive before the advent of Science Milk (i.e. formula)? I mean, women's breasts produce the real thing - how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Per the websites of those Corporate Monsters, "It has an amount of inositol within the range found in breast milk worldwide*, and Triple Health Guard® with a Dual Prebiotics Blend designed to support immune health, 30 nutrients for growth, and brain-nourishing DHA." It must be sooooo necessary to spend upwards of $100/ month to feed your baby.
Formula and fancypants probiotics are not the same (you committed a logical fallacy: false equivalency). Formula works. It's not the same as breast milk - no antibodies, more microbubbles/gas in the fluid, etc., but it keeps babies alive.
Probiotics, on the other hand, do nothing at best and harm your baby at worst. There is no upside. If you are chasing a placebo effect in the parent, by all means go ahead and put your baby at risk.
I'm in the camp of NOT recommending products that do NOT work. Especially when there is a risk of intestinal infection (not to mention a lighter wallet/smaller stache).
I don't sugar coat calling dangerous snake oil exactly what it is, especially when it puts babies at risk. Call me old fashioned.
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Now that I am not in the sleepless thick of it, I have come to the conclusion that her (lack of) sleep behaviour was normal for her age. Some babies sleep well and others don't. It was nothing that I did, or didn't do, or read that made the difference. Nothing at all made a real difference, except the carrier and then only during the day. It was just her
Thank you for this. This was about my experience with my big one as well but I need to be reminded of that conclusion in the thick of things.
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Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
Man, HOW did babies survive before the advent of Science Milk (i.e. formula)? I mean, women's breasts produce the real thing - how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Per the websites of those Corporate Monsters, "It has an amount of inositol within the range found in breast milk worldwide*, and Triple Health Guard® with a Dual Prebiotics Blend designed to support immune health, 30 nutrients for growth, and brain-nourishing DHA." It must be sooooo necessary to spend upwards of $100/ month to feed your baby.
Formula and fancypants probiotics are not the same (you committed a logical fallacy: false equivalency). Formula works. It's not the same as breast milk - no antibodies, more microbubbles/gas in the fluid, etc., but it keeps babies alive.
Probiotics, on the other hand, do nothing at best and harm your baby at worst. There is no upside. If you are chasing a placebo effect in the parent, by all means go ahead and put your baby at risk.
I'm in the camp of NOT recommending products that do NOT work. Especially when there is a risk of intestinal infection (not to mention a lighter wallet/smaller stache).
I don't sugar coat calling dangerous snake oil exactly what it is, especially when it puts babies at risk. Call me old fashioned.
Are you a doctor?
I ask because we asked our pediatrician about the evivo product and she had seen their safety and tolerability paper and said she didn’t think there was a risk for any harm. She also thought the research on the microbiome that the company was doing was fascinating and the potential benefits could very much be worth it. Maybe she’s just helping them sell the “snake oil” though?
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Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
Man, HOW did babies survive before the advent of Science Milk (i.e. formula)? I mean, women's breasts produce the real thing - how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Per the websites of those Corporate Monsters, "It has an amount of inositol within the range found in breast milk worldwide*, and Triple Health Guard® with a Dual Prebiotics Blend designed to support immune health, 30 nutrients for growth, and brain-nourishing DHA." It must be sooooo necessary to spend upwards of $100/ month to feed your baby.
Formula and fancypants probiotics are not the same (you committed a logical fallacy: false equivalency). Formula works. It's not the same as breast milk - no antibodies, more microbubbles/gas in the fluid, etc., but it keeps babies alive.
Probiotics, on the other hand, do nothing at best and harm your baby at worst. There is no upside. If you are chasing a placebo effect in the parent, by all means go ahead and put your baby at risk.
I'm in the camp of NOT recommending products that do NOT work. Especially when there is a risk of intestinal infection (not to mention a lighter wallet/smaller stache).
I don't sugar coat calling dangerous snake oil exactly what it is, especially when it puts babies at risk. Call me old fashioned.
Are you a doctor?
I ask because we asked our pediatrician about the evivo product and she had seen their safety and tolerability paper and said she didn’t think there was a risk for any harm. She also thought the research on the microbiome that the company was doing was fascinating and the potential benefits could very much be worth it. Maybe she’s just helping them sell the “snake oil” though?
I'm a pharmacist with a doctor of pharmacy degree. So technically, I am a doctor, but not the type that most people associate with "doctor." In addition, I am a preceptor/teacher for pharmacy students. I am a board certified pharmacotherapist. Also, I have over 30 publications in national pharmacy journals.
I'm not a medical doctor/doctor of osteopathy, so I have no training on diagnosing disease. I am, however, an expert in how chemicals/drugs/etc. move, work, affect, and effect the human body. I also have extensive training in drug product design and manufacturing, statistical analysis, and study/methods design.
If you actually have questions about probiotics (or other drugs you give to babies), let me know. If you're looking for me to validate your opinions/feelings, I won't do it unless there is solid evidence to back it up.
As for this particular probiotic, there are no USP or GMP certifications for it. That means that from a QA perspective, there is no way to validate its production. In addition, the risk of contamination of a nutritional supplement (which are regulated differently than drugs) is EXTREMELY high. When we consider that there is lax QA due to the absence of GMP and USP certifications, for a product that contains bacteria meant to colonize/infect a baby, I am appropriately against it. Especially when there is absolutely no prospective, high quality studies available to support its use.
However, if you want to just reject these facts and follow your gut feelings, go ahead and give your baby some weird bacteria. I certainly won't be giving my baby any.
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Ah, i can finally share some of the research. This doesn’t claim to help sleep, but promote better gut health. My personal hope is it will reduce the grunting and straining and crying at feedings , which will make her more comfortable overall and more likely to sleep.
Administration of probiotics to premature infants in most of the clinical trials performed to date is associated with a decreased incidence of NEC (52,53). Routine administration of probiotics to all premature infants has been proposed and is common practice in many countries (54,55).
In the distal gut, HMOs are selectively consumed by B. infantis creating a microbiota that is limited in diversity but associated with improved growth and vaccine responsiveness in term infants and decreased NEC in premature infants. HMOs activate a variety of genes in B. infantis that allow it to dominate the gut microbiota and benefit the host by accelerating maturation of the immune response, limiting excessive inflammation, improving intestinal permeability, and increasing acetate production. This symbiotic relationship is a compelling example of coevolution of two species to temporarily protect the full term neonate and nourish a healthy gut microbiota prior to weaning. In the premature infant, this colonization is disrupted and the provision of both human milk and probiotic B. infantis appears to be both restorative and protective
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350908/
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Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
Man, HOW did babies survive before the advent of Science Milk (i.e. formula)? I mean, women's breasts produce the real thing - how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Per the websites of those Corporate Monsters, "It has an amount of inositol within the range found in breast milk worldwide*, and Triple Health Guard® with a Dual Prebiotics Blend designed to support immune health, 30 nutrients for growth, and brain-nourishing DHA." It must be sooooo necessary to spend upwards of $100/ month to feed your baby.
Formula and fancypants probiotics are not the same (you committed a logical fallacy: false equivalency). Formula works. It's not the same as breast milk - no antibodies, more microbubbles/gas in the fluid, etc., but it keeps babies alive.
Probiotics, on the other hand, do nothing at best and harm your baby at worst. There is no upside. If you are chasing a placebo effect in the parent, by all means go ahead and put your baby at risk.
I'm in the camp of NOT recommending products that do NOT work. Especially when there is a risk of intestinal infection (not to mention a lighter wallet/smaller stache).
I don't sugar coat calling dangerous snake oil exactly what it is, especially when it puts babies at risk. Call me old fashioned.
Are you a doctor?
I ask because we asked our pediatrician about the evivo product and she had seen their safety and tolerability paper and said she didn’t think there was a risk for any harm. She also thought the research on the microbiome that the company was doing was fascinating and the potential benefits could very much be worth it. Maybe she’s just helping them sell the “snake oil” though?
I'm a pharmacist with a doctor of pharmacy degree. So technically, I am a doctor, but not the type that most people associate with "doctor." In addition, I am a preceptor/teacher for pharmacy students. I am a board certified pharmacotherapist. Also, I have over 30 publications in national pharmacy journals.
I'm not a medical doctor/doctor of osteopathy, so I have no training on diagnosing disease. I am, however, an expert in how chemicals/drugs/etc. move, work, affect, and effect the human body. I also have extensive training in drug product design and manufacturing, statistical analysis, and study/methods design.
If you actually have questions about probiotics (or other drugs you give to babies), let me know. If you're looking for me to validate your opinions/feelings, I won't do it unless there is solid evidence to back it up.
As for this particular probiotic, there are no USP or GMP certifications for it. That means that from a QA perspective, there is no way to validate its production. In addition, the risk of contamination of a nutritional supplement (which are regulated differently than drugs) is EXTREMELY high. When we consider that there is lax QA due to the absence of GMP and USP certifications, for a product that contains bacteria meant to colonize/infect a baby, I am appropriately against it. Especially when there is absolutely no prospective, high quality studies available to support its use.
However, if you want to just reject these facts and follow your gut feelings, go ahead and give your baby some weird bacteria. I certainly won't be giving my baby any.
Minus the very last two sentences, you totally should have led with that dude, instead of first establishing yourself as a grade-A self-righteous asshole.
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As for this particular probiotic, there are no USP or GMP certifications for it. That means that from a QA perspective, there is no way to validate its production.
This is helpful information. Thank you for bringing it up. I would have liked to have read that two pages ago.
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Ditto what another mom said! When you are out of this you will have the clarity to see that there was nothing you could do. There is no clarity when you are sleep deprived.
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Wow, what a deal! Only $75 per month! Per their website, it establishes the baby's metabolism and immune system, how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Also per the website, 9 out of 10 babies LACK this specific bacteria! It must be necessary!
Man, HOW did babies survive before the advent of Science Milk (i.e. formula)? I mean, women's breasts produce the real thing - how did babies survive prior to this wonderful product? Per the websites of those Corporate Monsters, "It has an amount of inositol within the range found in breast milk worldwide*, and Triple Health Guard® with a Dual Prebiotics Blend designed to support immune health, 30 nutrients for growth, and brain-nourishing DHA." It must be sooooo necessary to spend upwards of $100/ month to feed your baby.
Formula and fancypants probiotics are not the same (you committed a logical fallacy: false equivalency). Formula works. It's not the same as breast milk - no antibodies, more microbubbles/gas in the fluid, etc., but it keeps babies alive.
Probiotics, on the other hand, do nothing at best and harm your baby at worst. There is no upside. If you are chasing a placebo effect in the parent, by all means go ahead and put your baby at risk.
I'm in the camp of NOT recommending products that do NOT work. Especially when there is a risk of intestinal infection (not to mention a lighter wallet/smaller stache).
I don't sugar coat calling dangerous snake oil exactly what it is, especially when it puts babies at risk. Call me old fashioned.
Are you a doctor?
I ask because we asked our pediatrician about the evivo product and she had seen their safety and tolerability paper and said she didn’t think there was a risk for any harm. She also thought the research on the microbiome that the company was doing was fascinating and the potential benefits could very much be worth it. Maybe she’s just helping them sell the “snake oil” though?
I'm a pharmacist with a doctor of pharmacy degree. So technically, I am a doctor, but not the type that most people associate with "doctor." In addition, I am a preceptor/teacher for pharmacy students. I am a board certified pharmacotherapist. Also, I have over 30 publications in national pharmacy journals.
I'm not a medical doctor/doctor of osteopathy, so I have no training on diagnosing disease. I am, however, an expert in how chemicals/drugs/etc. move, work, affect, and effect the human body. I also have extensive training in drug product design and manufacturing, statistical analysis, and study/methods design.
If you actually have questions about probiotics (or other drugs you give to babies), let me know. If you're looking for me to validate your opinions/feelings, I won't do it unless there is solid evidence to back it up.
As for this particular probiotic, there are no USP or GMP certifications for it. That means that from a QA perspective, there is no way to validate its production. In addition, the risk of contamination of a nutritional supplement (which are regulated differently than drugs) is EXTREMELY high. When we consider that there is lax QA due to the absence of GMP and USP certifications, for a product that contains bacteria meant to colonize/infect a baby, I am appropriately against it. Especially when there is absolutely no prospective, high quality studies available to support its use.
However, if you want to just reject these facts and follow your gut feelings, go ahead and give your baby some weird bacteria. I certainly won't be giving my baby any.
Minus the very last two sentences, you totally should have led with that dude, instead of first establishing yourself as a grade-A self-righteous asshole.
Agreed. Definitely something to think about.
Ysette- have you started using it yet? Any noticeable changes?
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Minus the very last two sentences, you totally should have led with that dude, instead of first establishing yourself as a grade-A self-righteous asshole.
Re-read the post I responded to in order to understand the order of my responses. Good luck!
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Ysette, I spoke with a sleep consultant today. Some first steps she suggested were white noise and a DARK (like 10/10 dark) room. I am going to try these things. I hope you’re doing ok <3
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I just got back from a week at a relative’s house where she and I shared a room with blackout shades. I didn’t notice a difference. In fact, it was there that she didn’t nap life than 30 minutes and had a stint of waking up every hour at night. I’ve tried the white noise a number of times and not noticed that it did a thing either.
I did get her to nap in her swing here at home, but only 30 minutes. She did spend a ton of time screaming bloody murder at me today though. Good thing we buy earplugs in bulk.
I’ve given her the probiotic twice now and not noticed a change. How fast should I expect anything and what could I expect? It would be awesome if she could nurse without screaming and writhing.
Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk
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Sucks that the blackout and white noise didn’t make a difference. My baby is 4 months now and those things didn’t seem to help when she was younger so I quickly gave up on them. I’m hoping to try again and to condition her over time. Shrug. I know it won’t hurt her so I’m going for the low hanging fruit first :)
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There are so many variables it is hard to know what combo might work. Swing and swaddle and white noise? Blackout shade and belly sleeping? Swaddle and bouncy chair? Cosleeping on belly? Sleeping on our chests? Swaddled on her back? Arms free on back in really warm blanket?
Everything above has been tried and worked well at least once, and then stopped working.
I’ve reached out to a sleep coach recommended by a friend to get us set up for some help.
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I just got back from a week at a relative’s house where she and I shared a room with blackout shades. I didn’t notice a difference. In fact, it was there that she didn’t nap life than 30 minutes and had a stint of waking up every hour at night. I’ve tried the white noise a number of times and not noticed that it did a thing either.
I did get her to nap in her swing here at home, but only 30 minutes. She did spend a ton of time screaming bloody murder at me today though. Good thing we buy earplugs in bulk.
I’ve given her the probiotic twice now and not noticed a change. How fast should I expect anything and what could I expect? It would be awesome if she could nurse without screaming and writhing.
Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk
Were the poops a normal yellow before? Has that changed/improves? That’s when we noticed less fussing.
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Poop seems the same so far, brown yellow and very wet. I’ll keep an eye out.
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Good luck with the sleep coach, I hope it helps! Myself I’m enjoying the support of a sleep coach. It’s a huge load to carry when you’re not getting sleep.
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We used a different probiotic (Baby Biogaia) but I would say it was 3-4 days before we noticed a difference. Hope that helps.
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I’ll keep up the hope then that something will work. She seems to be unable to go to sleep without a massive screaming fit of 30+ minutes at this point. This morning it took almost 3 hours of her crying/screaming on and off on me, her father, the bed, the swing, before she finally cooked out in my arms with the correct swinging/bouncing motion. Too bad I can’t set her down without being guaranteed of her waking up within ten minutes.
I’m pretty sure my babies come from a different planet than those for whom “put them down drowsy but awake” work.
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I’ll keep up the hope then that something will work. She seems to be unable to go to sleep without a massive screaming fit of 30+ minutes at this point. This morning it took almost 3 hours of her crying/screaming on and off on me, her father, the bed, the swing, before she finally cooked out in my arms with the correct swinging/bouncing motion. Too bad I can’t set her down without being guaranteed of her waking up within ten minutes.
I’m pretty sure my babies come from a different planet than those for whom “put them down drowsy but awake” work.
Do the exact same thing, every time, for 2-3 weeks. If you keep changing things up, you'll keep getting lackluster results. This will be hard, but it will work. You can do it!
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I am about to hire a sleep coach. She will help provide guidance on which currently-ineffective technique to repeat since I am not in a position to choose. She can also help guide me on how to respond when the baby reacts differently all the time. For example, I can’t do “put down drowsy but awake” if the baby only has two modes: screaming and (finally) submitting to nurse asleep.
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I am about to hire a sleep coach. She will help provide guidance on which currently-ineffective technique to repeat since I am not in a position to choose. She can also help guide me on how to respond when the baby reacts differently all the time. For example, I can’t do “put down drowsy but awake” if the baby only has two modes: screaming and (finally) submitting to nurse asleep.
This is an excellent reason to be mustachian. The cost won't break you, and your sanity is priceless. Dear God, I hope it works.
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Haha, yes. Thank goodness for money in the bank! I was having a laugh with my sister about that the other day. I was bummed that ThredUp didn’t sell used pajamas for babies. I never wanted to be the parent that dressed her girl baby in all pink, but golly we are doing that because those are the hand-me-downs we got and I’m not going to spend money on new clothes. However when it comes to getting this kid to sleep, take my money!
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I am about to hire a sleep coach. She will help provide guidance on which currently-ineffective technique to repeat since I am not in a position to choose. She can also help guide me on how to respond when the baby reacts differently all the time. For example, I can’t do “put down drowsy but awake” if the baby only has two modes: screaming and (finally) submitting to nurse asleep.
This is an excellent reason to be mustachian. The cost won't break you, and your sanity is priceless. Dear God, I hope it works.
+1
Yep. It is so nice to have someone help you do the thinking!
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Update: I had a phone call with a sleep coach earlier this morning. It was wonderful to speak with this warm, reassuring person. She told me several things that have really put my mind at ease. First, the baby is only two months old and so it is too early to expect her to figure out how to soothe herself alone. That combined with her prematurity means that she needs me to help her fall asleep and stay asleep for the time being. I am not setting up any bad habits and she told me I am juggling a lot with a husband gone on travel and an older kid who needs me also. She repeated the phrase "survival mode"a few times.
She also discussed how the symptoms I was describing of the baby screaming at the breast and both trying to latch and pushing away simultaneously were reflux/acid/GERD. She said that keeping her upright (wearing her) is helpful for that and also explains why she gets so upset at the breast instead of being soothed as my oldest did. She already is on an antacid which is good.
As for an action plan, she said to do whatever it takes now to help her sleep. Hold her, wear her, whatever. She needs that help now. She recommended another person wear her in the early evening when she loses her shit so she can fall asleep and I can do my evening routine with the big one. Come next month we can have the sleep coach over for the official visit and consultation to set a plan for a good sleep routine when she hits around 4 months adjusted and is developmentally able to respond well.
This is an enormous mental relief to me. I am not a bad parent and mt baby is not the spawn of the devil. She is normal and giving her what she needs may not be the easiest, but it is the right thing to do for now. I have my father on board with wearing her and taking her for a walk when things get ugly tonight and hopefully it will go more smoothly. I think I need to spend that one-on-one time with my big one. She threw the biggest epic fit this morning and I suspect part of it is her missing our special time together. Fingers crossed....
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Update: I had a phone call with a sleep coach earlier this morning. It was wonderful to speak with this warm, reassuring person. She told me several things that have really put my mind at ease. First, the baby is only two months old and so it is too early to expect her to figure out how to soothe herself alone. That combined with her prematurity means that she needs me to help her fall asleep and stay asleep for the time being. I am not setting up any bad habits and she told me I am juggling a lot with a husband gone on travel and an older kid who needs me also. She repeated the phrase "survival mode"a few times.
She also discussed how the symptoms I was describing of the baby screaming at the breast and both trying to latch and pushing away simultaneously were reflux/acid/GERD. She said that keeping her upright (wearing her) is helpful for that and also explains why she gets so upset at the breast instead of being soothed as my oldest did. She already is on an antacid which is good.
As for an action plan, she said to do whatever it takes now to help her sleep. Hold her, wear her, whatever. She needs that help now. She recommended another person wear her in the early evening when she loses her shit so she can fall asleep and I can do my evening routine with the big one. Come next month we can have the sleep coach over for the official visit and consultation to set a plan for a good sleep routine when she hits around 4 months adjusted and is developmentally able to respond well.
This is an enormous mental relief to me. I am not a bad parent and mt baby is not the spawn of the devil. She is normal and giving her what she needs may not be the easiest, but it is the right thing to do for now. I have my father on board with wearing her and taking her for a walk when things get ugly tonight and hopefully it will go more smoothly. I think I need to spend that one-on-one time with my big one. She threw the biggest epic fit this morning and I suspect part of it is her missing our special time together. Fingers crossed....
I'm so glad to read this! Practical, actionable advice is the best thing in the world.
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Sounds like money well spent!! Way to go!
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Well that was the biggest, best review I've read for hiring a sleep consultant I've heard. They sound exactly like what you need. Someone else taking her for the evening screams so older kid can have special time? Brilliant. I'm so, so glad this person can help.
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I just noticed this thread and read through it. Cheers! This sleep consultant feels worth every penny already and she's just getting started. It sounds like the reassurance is at least a big weight off your shoulders and there are some concrete ideas of things to do now to manage your sanity. What a great update.
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It did help mentally a lot. I did a ton of baby wearing and walking yesterday (17k steps) and we had little screaming until the usual evening nonsense. My father wore the little and I put the big to bed. The little slept peacefully in the carrier for several hours while I did Xmas cards. Life was good.
At 1:30 I was up to nurse little (not for the first time) and half an hour later the big one has a massive toddler screaming fit. It went on and off for an hour, with plenty of toddler stubbornness and unreasonableness. That got me to 3:00, by which time I was hating life so much I couldn’t fall back asleep, knowing little would be up again soon to nurse. So, three missed hours of sleep there. I swear, they are teaming up against me.
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((Huge hugs))
I feel your pain completely. My older had some trouble so I did cry it out at 3/4mo and it worked perfectly. I was a fab parent and wouldn't have a problem with Child #2.
Well my son showed up and absolutely NOTHING worked. He wasn't quite as bad as your little one but breastfeeding was hell and sleeping was a disaster.
I started sleep training about 3 months thinking it would go like his sister. I was strict and consistent. Over the next few years, I tried every single method under the sun (each one very consistently for a few weeks at a time - I was anal about this). Nothing worked for longer than a couple of weeks.
He didn't sleep though the night until 7/8. Thankfully, by 3/4, I had accepted my fate and no longer railed about it and mostly didn't notice the 2x a night wakings for the next few years.
At 12/13, he begged to share a room with his grandmother (after the first couple of months, he has always slept alone).
At that point, I realized that my kid simply liked cosleeping. And that we would all have gotten soooo much better sleep all those years if I had just given in and coslept. I resisted it because I get a bit claustrophobic. Knowing what I know about my son now, I wish I had sucked it up and just coslept. I didn't realize it was something he needed so much. Thankfully, at 15, he survived it and sleeps like a champ.
All this to say - every kid is different. Try the different methods but pay attention to your own kid and be flexible.
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It did help mentally a lot. I did a ton of baby wearing and walking yesterday (17k steps) and we had little screaming until the usual evening nonsense. My father wore the little and I put the big to bed. The little slept peacefully in the carrier for several hours while I did Xmas cards. Life was good.
At 1:30 I was up to nurse little (not for the first time) and half an hour later the big one has a massive toddler screaming fit. It went on and off for an hour, with plenty of toddler stubbornness and unreasonableness. That got me to 3:00, by which time I was hating life so much I couldn’t fall back asleep, knowing little would be up again soon to nurse. So, three missed hours of sleep there. I swear, they are teaming up against me.
And yes, kids LOVE to tag team. Mine were 16 months apart and were amazing at this. They usually timed it perfectly enough that the moment I laid back down after settling one, the other would start. Then I would lay back down again after an hour or so and the first would get going. I finally just had to laugh through the exhaustion. At least it was rare for them both to be at it at the same time. Maybe they knew instinctively just how far they could push Mom?
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I am SO HAPPY the sleep consultant was reassuring and you have a workable plan of action! I know it isn't pleasant right now, but you ARE a good parent and right now your baby needs you. Your baby sounds like one of my babies at that age, and she had reflux too. I also had two children under 2 - so hard! Hang in there. It WILL get better. Do whatever you have to do now to get some rest (seriously, a night nanny would be money well spend, IMO).
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So we are settling into a routine: an hour after waking my baby starts to show signs of tiredness. We then try to get her to sleep either by rocking in arms or wearing in the carrier. In either case she fights super hard, screaming bloody murder for 10-15 minutes before giving in. What a tough cookie!
I got guilted recently for her sleeping on her belly at night so I tried putting her down on her back. Attempt 1 she slept half an hour. Attempt 2 she slept half an hour. Attempt 3 she popped awake immediately and decided it was play time at 2:30 in the morning. I ignored her for half an hour and then tried nursing her back down when she fussed. It took wrestling through a screaming fit and an hour total to get her back to sleep. I did not put her on her back once she finally did get to sleep.
So I am upset that I am the bad parent but I have made peace with the risks and trade offs. I am irritated that the conversation around safe sleep is so dogmatic and does not include a realistic discussion of shades of gray. How many people cosleep or do other naughty things simply because it is the only way to stay sane? Certainly mine is not the only baby in the world who will not sleep on her back. Sigh
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Forgive me if it’s already been mentioned or tried, but the love to dream sleep sac helped my baby sleep on her back. YMMV
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I know you don't need admonishing now, but I've been reading along with this whole thread and you really need to stop thinking of yourself as a bad parent. Not loving or caring for your child and neglecting them makes people bad parents. Putting your child to sleep in a position in which she is demonstrably more comfortable does not make you a bad parent. Wanting to sleep does not make you a bad parent. Wanting five minutes peace and quiet does not make you a bad parent. Please don't buy into the "every parenting choice you make makes you a bad parent to someone" thing. Seriously, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. You love your child and want her to sleep. What's so bad about that?
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I haven’t heard of that sleep sack before. I’m a little hesitant to try it only because I have tried so many things already and I feel like I’m starting to throw my money away. It is an interesting idea though.
Lifejoy: thanks for those words. I need to hear that. It is so easy to lose perspective and I feel a bit guilty due to what I heard yesterday from the lactation consultant. Oh well though. They aren’t the ones getting woken up 6-8 times a night.
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I hear ya - even with everything I "know" intellectually, it's so hard not to feel guilty about not doing things the "right" way.
So I started analyzing the risks, looking up the whys behind recommendations, and then making the best choice for my baby and my family. It helped me feel more confident in my choices.
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PS - I would only go for the love to dream sleep sac if swaddling seems to help and you’re inexpert at swaddling :)
That’s why I got one! I suck at swaddling.
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One of the bubs in my mother's group (gov't organised) would only sleep on his belly. We gave his mum support, someone found her a free breathing monitor to help her relax and nobody thought she was a bad parent. You aren't either.
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She used to do well being swaddled and I consider myself an expert swaddler. :) we got lots of lessons in the NICU :)
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PS - I would only go for the love to dream sleep sac if swaddling seems to help and you’re inexpert at swaddling :)
That’s why I got one! I suck at swaddling.
I struggled a bit with swaddling and my second really liked it. I finally got a scarf and tied him up with a pretty bow! He stayed swaddled until morning :)
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My guys did not sleep on their backs. Not for more than 45 minutes in a stretch.
First baby slept three to four times longer on his belly. At 6 weeks I put him down for a nap in the crib and thought I would just put my hand on him while he slept to monitor that he was still breathing. After a few minutes I thought I will just sit down. And lean my head against the crib. I woke up two hours later with the slats of the crib printed into my face and not able to move my hand because it was bent into a weird position. First born was still napping away.
A few days later at Doctors we went through all the risk factors of SIDS and sleeping on the back is just one. So we did all the others - cool room, no extras in the crib, parents not smoking, good air quality. I was fairly certain that I was a greater risk to his safety in my exhaustion than sleeping on his tummy. He also had really good neck control and was getting close to rolling over at this point.
With number two we tried the back to sleep but whenever we wanted a little longer sleep, she went to sleep on her tummy.
Neither of mine liked to be swaddled - they were squirmy in utero and needed to move around ALL the time.
My number two also needed to wail a spell before sleeping - it was if she needed to release any energy that might remain before she could fall asleep.
This too shall pass. Hang in there.
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FrugalLizard - thank you for sharing. It is nice to hear similar stories.
I was told the breeze/fresh air bit and am struggling to implement because I cant keep my baby warm enough. We have forced air heat running on and off at night; perhaps that can count? By a weird quirk of our house our room gets warmer with the door closed and is fairly cold with it open.
I tried open door the other night with my fatso baby in a long-sleeved onesie, furry warm pajama, sleep sack, and the no-no blanket up to her mid-chest. Her hands were icy when I picked her up. Last night with door closed was warmer and she slept better at first (second half of the night seems to be wake up every hour regardless). I wonder if I keep my house unusually cool at night or if my babies are unusually cold, because sleep sacks are inadequate.
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When my baby was younger I would warm up the bassinet with a heating pad before transferring her into it. That way she went from my warm arms to a warm bed. Not sure if it was crucial but I don’t think it didn’t not help! ;)
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And did you keep it on during the night?
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And did you keep it on during the night?
Oh! Nope. Good thing you asked - I think it could be a danger to leave baby on a heating pad (oh but I was tempted!) so I just put it in bassinet in medium/high 10 min before I was going to attempt the transfer. Then I would remove hearing pad, and place baby onto warmed firm bed. I read about t online somewhere. Makes sense if you ask me. Who would want to sleep on a cold hard bed?? YMMV
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In our old place we rented there was no insulation nor any central heat so it got damn cold in the winter, even here in CA. I got an electric blanket and it was the most luxurious thing in the world to climb into a pre-warmed bed. so yes, I agree with you. My challenge is keeping the baby warm though. I remember with my oldest putting her in two sleep sacks at one point, which still wasn’t enough to keep her warm.
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In our old place we rented there was no insulation nor any central heat so it got damn cold in the winter, even here in CA. I got an electric blanket and it was the most luxurious thing in the world to climb into a pre-warmed bed. so yes, I agree with you. My challenge is keeping the baby warm though. I remember with my oldest putting her in two sleep sacks at one point, which still wasn’t enough to keep her warm.
Maybe post in the baby thread for ideas?
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Good call
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In our old place we rented there was no insulation nor any central heat so it got damn cold in the winter, even here in CA. I got an electric blanket and it was the most luxurious thing in the world to climb into a pre-warmed bed. so yes, I agree with you. My challenge is keeping the baby warm though. I remember with my oldest putting her in two sleep sacks at one point, which still wasn’t enough to keep her warm.
When my youngest was born, something went wrong with the thermostats and the house was overheated (once at 83 degrees!) for a few days in the winter. Baby slept REALLY well. Wonder whether babies in the tropics have as much trouble sleeping?
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[quote author=lifejoy link=topic=82041.msg1802132#msg1802132 date=1512762994
Also I would like to give a major props to any parent in this thread that decided to have more than one child after enduring round one of sleep torture. I hope to sign up for round two, myself, but yikes. Gotta build up my courage.
Or develop some limited amnesia such as I did. [/quote]
The funny thing is that the less sleep you get, the worse your memory gets! So you forget all about it until the next baby, at which point you go, "this is awful! how did I sign up for this AGAIN??" Although to be fair, my second child was a great sleeper (so great that later on this led to bedwetting because nothing wakes him up when he's down.) At which point I thought I was such a great parent because I knew all the tricks. But my third has been the worst sleeper of all. So bad, that at almost 4 she STILL wakes up in the middle of the night and crawls into bed with me. She is in my bed right now, hogging all the blankets. Maybe I should turn up the thermostat again...
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Hahahah. Not to make fun of your predicament, but I got a kick out of the visual of you losing your covers to a 4-year old. The pecking order in my house is similar. :)
What do they say about room temp and SIDS? Just hazarding a guess, I’m sure the safe thing is a temp at which my baby would be cold and wake up all the time, because every other safe sleep practice seems to discourage sleep for my littles. I swear, whoever makes these rules doesn’t actually have a small child in his/her house waking up at night.
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Hahahah. Not to make fun of your predicament, but I got a kick out of the visual of you losing your covers to a 4-year old. The pecking order in my house is similar. :)
What do they say about room temp and SIDS? Just hazarding a guess, I’m sure the safe thing is a temp at which my baby would be cold and wake up all the time, because every other safe sleep practice seems to discourage sleep for my littles. I swear, whoever makes these rules doesn’t actually have a small child in his/her house waking up at night.
probably. We keep our room (baby sleeps in a chit cot next to my bed) at 19-22°C. I think the recommendation is 16-20°C. No idea what that is in F.
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What do they say about room temp and SIDS? Just hazarding a guess, I’m sure the safe thing is a temp at which my baby would be cold and wake up all the time, because every other safe sleep practice seems to discourage sleep for my littles. I swear, whoever makes these rules doesn’t actually have a small child in his/her house waking up at night.
My understanding (and I could be completely wrong) is that some of the SIDS protective actions work at least partly by the baby sleeping more lightly - so that they will wake if something is wrong.
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16-20*C is on the cool side. I like sleeping in that kind of a temp buried under warm blankets, but since I am not supposed to bury my infant under blankets, she can’t stay warm enough in that kind of a room to sleep.
Yes, I understand as well that they sleep more lightly on their backs and that helps with the SIDS. The issue is that mine sleeps so lightly that she doesn’t sleep at all!
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Hahahah. Not to make fun of your predicament, but I got a kick out of the visual of you losing your covers to a 4-year old. The pecking order in my house is similar. :)
Yeah! The good news is that I did get the two older kids out of my bed eventually, so it can be done. I'm a wee bit more indulgent with my youngest because I know she's my last.
I don't know anything about temperature recommendations. In the end, I decided that sleeping with a fat little baby asleep on my chest was better than no sleep at all.
What seemed to work with my middle child was to co-sleep at night, but make sure that he always took a nap in his own crib. In the home where we were living then, there was no place for the crib except for a foot away from my bed, so that also made it easier to transition from cosleeping to crib. Then when he transitioned to his own bed, he was looking forward to getting the lower bunk from his big brother. Though like I said, still not sure whether his good sleeping was due to anything I did, or just because he is by nature a sound sleeper.
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Update: I have eliminated dairy from my diet and within 24 hours saw a big improvement in my baby’s daytime behavior. She no longer spends hours screaming and she doesn’t act offended when I offer her the breast. That has been a huge mental improvement because it was very taxing to see her scream in discomfort so much of the time.
Her night was still quite bad (waking up every hour) and I realized when I got her out of bed that her hands were cold. So I decided she needed to be warmer. The only way to achieve that is to, again, break the “safe sleep” rules by piling more layers on her and cranking up the thermostat so the room temperature is warmer.
It is too soon to know yet if it is a fix or I just had some luck, but last night she slept three 3-hour stretches which is amazing for us. She hadn’t done that since a newborn.
She also struggles with gas and occasionally wakes herself up to cry with a loud fart. I suspect she may be gassier when I eat raw onions, so I’ll play around with that and see if I can figure it out. Darn for all of the good foods in life being taken off my plate, but it is worth it to not wear earplugs all the time.
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Hooray!! It's also possible that better sleep will lead to better digestion, setting you off on a positive cycle.
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Let us hope so. Poor kiddo is an I happy camper today, and I believe it is related to the immunizations she got yesterday. She seems to need the breast to settle down and sleep. Oh well, I’m feeling a lot more up to it after a relatively decent night’s sleep.
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Glad to hear things are improving!
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Ysette, you are definitely not the first mom to notice a link between your diet (and dairy specifically) and your nursling's tummy aches. If it's any consolation - you could try some limited dairy in a few months, as some babies' guts seem to mature enough to handle whatever is getting created in your milk. (Disclaimer - I'm not a lactation consultant, but I'm very interested in the topic, and I have 2 friends who had to cut dairy out of their diets when they had newborns (1 of which reintroduced it successfully when her little was maybe 10-11 months old).)
Anyway, crossing my fingers and toes that you've ID'ed a way to make your baby more comfortable! And a very Mustachian one, to boot!
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Three three-hour sleeps?!!! Oh, Merry Christmas!!! I hope this is a new habit! Fingers crossed!
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Ooh, thanks for the update, especially one that reports progress. I hope you're on the way to solid sleep in the near future.
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Fingers crossed this keep working for you. Giving up dairy isn't fun, but a baby who doesn't sleep is a whole other level.
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I read the article but it seems more geared to older kids than young babies, unless I missed something. We are waiting for that four-month adjusted age to really do anything.
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The super early stage is really hard. I remember visiting my family doctor, convinced that my son was teething / ill / whatever and being told... no, they're just like that.
I'm sorry that you're feeling so frazzled, but it will pass. Each day feels like a year at times, so that probably doesn't sound very helpful. I found the baby whisperer (as I said in my article) super helpful. The idea is basically to separate feeding from sleeping: feed, a little activity, then sleep. That's all you can really do and roll with the punches / avoid the pitfalls and get into the good habits I outlined until they're a tiny bit older. Once their tummies are a bit bigger and they can take on more food, then they have the ability to sleep for longer stretches / you'll feel less guilty for any sleep training that you decide to do. Some parents get lucky and have less hungry babies, which is why I think they sleep through from a younger age. I have no concrete evidence of this though, just anecdotal. A lot of the "easy" babies didn't turn into easy toddlers, so don't worry about that aspect of things.
My son was a milk monster! I had to breastfeed him hourly for most of that hour for his "cluster feed" in the early days. I think that's why he slept so badly. Once he was eating solids after 6 months it really helped a lot, with how long he would sleep at night plus the baby whisperer sleep training worked well. In hindsight in my own particular situation, I should have started weaning at 5 months. There was a huge dip in his weight chart and he was a nightmare! I dutifully followed the NHS advice, but one size definitely does not fit all.
Really good luck with it. Try to stick with the good habits, avoid the bad and it should come right for you eventually.
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I totally jinxed myself by posting about that one good night of three 3-hour sleep stretches. I haven’t had anything so good since. I’m lucky to get one 3-hour stretch and a handful of 2-hour stretches. Damn kid. I can’t get mad at the baby because she is a baby, but the 3.5 year old is waking multiple times a night to scream as well. Thank god her father is home so I am sending him in to soothe her instead.
Mid February is when the baby will be four months developmentally and we can start sleep training. I’ll be setting up an appointment with the sleep coach to come over soon to set up a strategy for when we get there. I need to nip this at the bud and not wait for nine months out of desperation when we finally hired a sleep coach with the oldest. I only hope the littlest will actually respond to sleep training, unlike the big one.
All I want for Christmas is good sleep!
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Best wishes, ysette. I am sleep training soon. My baby is nearly five months old and doesn’t sleep more than 2 hours and often only sleeps 1 hour at a time.
I am nervous about sleep training but also can’t go on like this. Yep.
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((Hugs))
On the subject of diet, what about trying to adjust it even more?
One time when DS was about a month old, my mother made me a cabbage soup with an insane amount of cabbage. My DS was a nightmare when I nurses him after that. So I decided to try eliminating all dairy and all gassy foods after that. No milk or cheese and no cabbage, garlic, onions, etc etc. I can't remember everything on my "no" list but it was very very extensive.
He was better after that though and I stayed off everything for about 2 weeks and then gradually reintroduced everything slowly. It seemed to make a big enough difference (even if it was just psychologically lol) that I would do it again.
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Your story sounds sooo much like my son. He's 14 months old now and was born 6 weeks preemie. When I went back to work (10 weeks old/4 weeks adjusted) I was still exclusively breastfeeding and getting up every 2-3 hours at night. It was brutal. I did that til he was 4 months when we hired a sleep consultant (who's also a pediatric nurse and lactation consultant). Then my son started sleeping through the night.
For my son, the issue turned out to be very simple: gas. In retrospect, a lot of our struggles (colic, bedtime meltdowns, short naps, night wakings) were because he needed a burp or to release gas. We always thought he was hungry before. He'd need to burp an hour later sometimes. This video about baby language is AMAZING - this is how we learned to tell the difference between his cries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgkZf6jVdVg&t=11s
Our sleep consultant suggested burping for 5 mins (even after breastfeeding - which I wasn't doing before). That alone doubled his stretches of sleep. She had a technique of squeezing just above the hips on the back that worked brilliantly. We also did gas exercises before every nap and bedtime. We had to lift his knees to his shoulders and put a bit of pressure on his thighs. I'll try to find a Youtube video but most infant massage videos are way too gentle and don't really do anything.
Unfortunately my son quit sleeping through the night a few months later... took about 6 months to figure out he's sensitive to dairy (but not allergic). Even a few oz of "dairy free" formulas like Alimentum would cause night wakings so we eventually went to soy.
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It has been a little while since I posted here so I may as well give an update. I continue to avoid all dairy and my baby is a much happier creature as a result. We are following the sleep consultant and we are on our second plan that seems to be making progress. We have given up on trying to get her to sleep on her back because that was a total failure. I nurse her and put her down on her belly. If she wakes and fusses, we let her cry. She has been putting herself back to sleep within five minutes and tonight she barely cried at all.
At night when she wakes I give her five minutes to fuss/cry. If it has been at least three hours then I nurse her. If not, I let her continue to fuss until she puts herself back to sleep.
This method would have never worked with my oldest. She went straight to screaming bloody murder and would never let up. The younger one miraculously is responding and figuring out how to go back to sleep, more or less.
The one big challenge is that I have gone back to work and she is home with my husband, and she refuses to take a bottle. So, she only really eats from when I get home late in the afternoon until I leave early in the morning. That puts a crimp in getting her to go for longer stretches at night. However, as long as I get to sleep in at least 1.5-hour increments I can function, so this works for now.
Fingers crossed tonight also goes well. It is amazing how many variables there at and how many things like gas or food allergies or whatnot can keep babies from sleeping. Little mysteries!
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Whew! My hat is off to you, 'cuz I don't know how you're managing all of this. Here's to continued improvement. ♡♡♡♡♡
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Wishes for peaceful sleep are being sent your way.
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Thanks for the good thoughts. Nights are going pretty well overall. Unfortunately days are tough as she won’t nap for more than 30 min in bed AND she is still refusing the bottle. Stubborn little one!
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So glad that stuff is working with baby!
I also have a "difficult" first child when it comes to sleep and life and I have to remind myself to try strategies with my second child even though they didn't work with kiddo#1. It can be so easy to get into a mind frame of "but that didn't work the first time." Each kid is totally different.
Good luck on the bottle!
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And good luck being back at work! I hope it's a smooth transition.
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Good point. Things are working with the second one which would have never worked with the first.
Work has been going okay so far! I am better rested this time and that makes a big difference. I had less anxiety about going back the second time around, partially because I had done it before and partially because my husband has a much longer paternity leave this time. Being at work has been a peaceful break from the noise of caring for a baby. :)
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Sooooo happy things are going better!!!!
For the bottle, I imagine you have tried all different nipples. Oddly enough, my oldest didn't care about different nipples (I tried a bunch)... what she cared about was a different bottle. When I switched to the cheap straight bottle, she started chowing down.
Didn't make a difference to my son though. He refused everything until I gave him a sippy cup at 6 months.
Another thought is a small open cup. They even make tiny open cups specifically for babies. My son would drink from those even though refused the bottle.
My conclusion? Babies are just weird. Good thing they are cute.
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TRUTH about then being weird, and good thing they are cute. :)
We had a bit of a setback at night but still overalll things are going much better than they were. My husband had a breakthrough yesterday with some fancy new nipple that has a lot higher flow rate. She chowed down on that whereas she would have a fit and act offended if you tried to offer one of the other nipples. Progress! If she can eat during the day then I can push the envelope a bit more at night.
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Good point. Things are working with the second one which would have never worked with the first.
Work has been going okay so far! I am better rested this time and that makes a big difference. I had less anxiety about going back the second time around, partially because I had done it before and partially because my husband has a much longer paternity leave this time. Being at work has been a peaceful break from the noise of caring for a baby. :)
That's the best perspective for going back to work, getting to appreciate the quiet! Going back after my second was much better as well. I took off longer and I had more gentle expectations about the transition.
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Ysette9, I hope you don't mind me asking my own question on this thread.
My 9 month old wakes anywhere between twice a night or every 2 hours. He's a happy, chunky boy. I just had 2 nights of 2 hours and I'm shattered. Food issue or sleep issue? I'm trying to decide if I need a sleep consultant or a feeding consultant (lactation consultant?) Or, do I just chalk it up to teething and a mental/physical growth spurt and continue as per normal? He's never slept any better than this, it's his normal.
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I am far from an expert here but I can share what I have been told from the two sleep consultants we have hired. They tend to agree that by 9 months the babies don’t NEED to eat at night. I kept nursing my oldest at that age because she was struggling to stay on the 10 percentile growth curve and her doctor was concerned about her weight gain. That is pretty rare though.
With my youngest we were advised to give her five to ten minutes to cry and try to settle herself back to sleep. If she is still upset after that, pick her up, ca her down for a few minutes, then put her back to bed. Give her another 5-10 to see if she can settle herself. A few weeks ago she was settling herself back down. Right now she was going on for a good 25 minutes and suckling her fist with these wet smacking noises. The sleep coach told us it sounded like she really was hungry and unable to go back to sleep because of it. So for now I am resetting and feeding her. If I were you I would recommmend letting your baby do some crying to see if he can learn to self soothe. I suspect based on what my babies went through/are going through that he needs you to go back to sleep. Does he eat well during the day? The week that my little one starved herself while I was at work because she refused the bottle she still wasn’t waking up every two hours all night long.
I feel for you. This is so rough.
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Thanks ysette9. Yeah, if he was struggling with weight I would have gone with a feeding issue and been taking to a food person of some sort. He eats well during daytime, and I suspect he snacks.
Sounds like the little guy is about to get a lot of cuddles from "not-milk" (ie his dad can try to re-settle him first if he needs it).
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Having another “not-milk” parent is so handy for situations like this! Good luck with that. I am sure he will protest initially so give it a good 3-4 nights before deciding if a new method is effective or not.
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I feel for you! My first was the worst sleeper. We did use a swing and that helped, I would def pick one up off criqgsly. You can get rid of it once she’s out of it. I also second the night nanny recommendation . It’s too soon for sleep training but if you must return to work, hire someone for 3-5 nights/ week. Start looking now.
Best of luck!
thanks for sharing... I think it will help us.