PLEASE!...encouragement for a sleep deprived new mom!?

Question

hi, I have a three week old little baby boy. I love everything about being a new mom but I honestly feel like Im going crazy from lack of sleep. I know that it comes with the territory but I just need some encourgement that it will get better. He will not sleep alone, Ive tried putting him in his crib, swing, ect. but he just wakes up within 15 min. and screams his little head off. He will sleep with me but only very fitfully and by the time he does finally fall asleep he wakes up needing to eat again within a half hour. I just feel like it wont ever change,lol...I guess I just need to hear that Im not the only one who feels like a walking zombie and that it will get better, Thank you for any advice

Answer 1

you are NOT alone!! do you swaddle your son? my partner would always say, he's been cramped up for his whole life so let him spread out and he would never sleep. as soon as i swaddled our son he would go to sleep with no problems.

it does get better!! soon he will start sleeping longer and eventually all through the night! before you know it your sleepless nights will seem like a distant memory. hang in there and try to get some time for yourself once in awhile.

good luck and contgatulations

Answer 2

haha I think every mom goes through this. When my second son was born, my oldest son was 13 months old, and my husband was deployed. BOY was that fun! haha My newborn would only sleep with me, on my stomach, and woke up every 3 hrs. Then he would sleep 5-6 hrs during the day, of course when my oldest was awake, so needless to say, I never got any sleep either. It WILL get better. Usually by 2 or 3 months they get into a better routine. They are used to being in your belly, eating and sleeping when they want. It will get better, I promise. :-)

Answer 3

Generally by 4-8 weeks it gets easier.

Remember he doesn't need to be asleep for you to sleep -he just needs to be safe.  I slept on the floor in front of an awake baby in a swing a few times.  Or a baby playing in a crib.

However, I can not lie, my son woke every 2 hours to nurse for a very long time (at least a year) and I thought I had it bad until I met a mom whose baby nursed every 90 minutes or less.  You learn to nurse half asleep (or at least you do if you cosleep).  Another benefit of co-sleeping (which includes roomsharing not just bedsharing) is that your sleep cycles synchronize and you won't be woken from a deep sleep (which is what really kills you).

Also hubby used to be "in charge" for two-three hours a night while I slept.  Obviously if baby was really hungry I would nurse the baby (I don't do bottles of breast milk for many reasons) but otherwise he was in charge of changing, rocking, and amusing the baby.  It is so nice to be "not in charge" for a few hours.

http://www.workandpump.com/reversecyclin...

You get better rest: Wait a minute, I just said your baby would wake up more, that you would wake up more - how does this make for better rest?

The secret is that you and your baby get into similar sleep cycles. When your baby is in a separate room, he wakes up on his sleep cycles, you're on yours, and there's no coordination - so he might be waking up when you're in your deepest sleep (when it's a lot harder to wake up and harder to fall back asleep).

Also, if your baby is in another room, he has to wake up all the way and start crying before you hear him. You have to wake all the way up and get out of bed, and most likely you sit up in a chair to feed - awake the whole time. Then what? It's 2am, and you're both awake, taking longer for both of you to settle back to sleep.

If your baby is near you, you'll wake up when he makes his first noises, little half-sleeping grunts. You just reach over to feed, you can nurse lying down, the whole feeding routine is less disruptive to you and your baby's sleep. Falling back to sleep means either sliding your baby back to the co-sleeper, or just drifting off where you are.

A lot of mothers worry that sleeping in the same bed with their baby is dangerous - but the scientific evidence points to just the opposite conclusion. For breastfeeding, sober mothers who share sleep with their babies on a safe sleeping surface, SIDS rates are amazingly low and babies are healthier. More information about safe co-sleeping can be found in several locations - I found a nice article here. Dr. James McKenna has done extensive research on the safety of co-sleeping - link to his journal articles here. Dr. Jay Gordon also has information about safe co-sleeping. And even more information here.

Many working mothers swear that they will never co-sleep with their babies - but once they're back to work, start bed-sharing when they realize how much more well-rested they can be

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/normal/freque...

Both of my children seemed to spend the first 6 weeks or so in a constant growth spurt. If your child is doing the same, then hang in there... things almost always start to calm down somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks. With my second I figured that the early weeks would be easier since we already had one child, but I quickly found out that this just isn't the case. We were still adjusting to a change in family size (and the older child is having to adjust too - not just two adults), and our new baby was having to adjust to life outside of mom. After years of talking to mothers with new babies, I've discovered that the first 6-8 weeks with a new baby tends to be a combination of magic, exhaustion, and stress for any family - no matter how many children you have.

Answer 4

Hi,

I think the most important thing to start with is to get your baby into a good sleep routine.  I had massive problems with getting my 4 month old son to sleep.  He would just lie awake and cry for hours, then when he finally went to sleep he would wake every hour or two hours through the night and cry again!  Talk about pulling our hair out .... we were absolutely desperate for sleep!

It was a baby sleep audio program recommended by a friend that finally saved us. We followed the advice and began by creating a baby sleep routine which included bathtime, dimming of the lights, putting James into his crib, final nappy change and then lullabies. We also made recommended changes to his naps during the day and used some of the other recommended techniques. Within two weeks he was sleeping through the night most nights with just the odd night where he would just wake once!

Definitely start by creating a good baby sleep routine though and you could find that solves most of your baby sleep problems.

Good luck!

If you want to take a look, the audio program is at http://www.babysleepsolution.com

Answer 5

Have you tried swaddling him, getting him to sleep (rocking, etc), and then laying him down?  Also don't force him to sleep...

Answer 6

I've got an almost-5-week old and I will tell you that week 3 was the HARDEST!  I had the same sleep problems as you and I used to cry when I heard him start to wake after his uber-long 10 minute sleep. (Worse is that after 10 minute asleep he would stretch for 3 or 4 minutes with all his might, like he'd been asleep for YEARS!  My husband and I used to laugh that he had no right to stretch that way after a ten minute nap!)

I suggest reading the book The Baby Whisperer by Tracey Hogg.  One read and 3 days later and I have a new baby!  He SLEEPS!  It's amazing!  Lots of the stuff in there we found a bit 'roll your eyes' over and we don't follow her "EASY" to the letter, and many of her sleep tips I have chosen to ignore and continue doing it the way that works for us, , but even choosing just some of it has made a difference.

From my experience and what I learned from reading it, I would suggest that your son isn't sleeping because you are putting him in his crib, his swing, with you, etc etc. He's very likely overtired and for young babies that means they sleep LESS not more!  And, if you put him in the same place to sleep all the time, he will relax more and go to sleep.  The more he sleeps, the more relaxed he will be which will mean he sleeps more! It's a wonderful circle!   After a couple of weeks of getting him to sleep in the same place then you can start putting him in his pram to sleep once a day, or whatever - as he learns to sleep, he will start learning to sleep other places.  And, try to make sure you are putting him down in a quiet room with few distractions and not much going on - if you are in the room, as he does the tiny wake-ups that are a part of falling asleep, he will see you and not want to miss out on anything.

IT WILL GET BETTER!!  You may have to work at it, but the amount of sleep I have had in the last two weeks has just doubled!

Good luck - and do think about that book!

Answer 7

Hi...I am too a new mommy not as new as you are because my son is 2 months...so I know all to well what u are going through...but rest assure things will get better...he just has to be trained on his days and nights which can take some time but its bearable...