Talk to me about sleep...

[tracymom1]

Most of you know we are having some...shall we say, challenges, over here.

I just want to see how things are going for you all. Are you getting nighttime sleep? Is your babe? How does the flow of your night look? Do you have a bedtime routine or do you plan on starting one?

For us, starting around 8pm, Jude will sleep for 1-1 1/2 hours at a time and then wake to nurse. I pump and DH gives a bottle for the feeding at 9-10. This way I can get in a 3 hour bit of sleep. Jude is then *awake* for the day around 4am-he will nod off here and there but needs constant attention at this point.

He is not an easy baby, thats for sure! Does anyone have any tips for me? My other 2 were soooooo much more laid back and slept for at least 2 hour stretches. Jude pretty much cries at all his waking time - he hates the ergo, hates the moby, hates the stroller and the car. I am sleepless and stuck in the house!! Ugh!!!

Help!

[Seuriu]

My girl is sleeping a lot better since we bought a sleep sack that has a swaddle around it. If we swaddle her with her arms in she sleeps for 4-5 hours at least once a day, usually around 8pm - it's really really nice! If we swaddle her with her arms out she wakes up a lot more and is fussy. She likes to have her arms out during the day though. Other than that she sleeps for 1 1/2-3 hours between feedings and I pump so my fiance can give her one bottle a day. We try to let each other get 5-6 hours of solid sleep a night.

[jshannyn519]

We're starting to fall into a routine over here. Ezrah goes down for nighttime bedtime at around 9 pm, after I nurse him. He'll sleep until around 11 to midnight and wake up to be nursed. I'll nurse him and he'll go back to sleep for anywhere from 3-5 hours before waking up to be nursed again. Regardless of what time(s) he wakes up during the night for feeding, he's awake at 6:30 (or really close to it) to nurse and then we'll both go back to sleep until around 8 am.

During the day he'll take a long nap, usually about 3 hours, in the middle of the day. Today he finally fell asleep all the way and stayed that way at 12:30ish and it's 3:30 and he's still sleeping. He was making some noises over there a second ago, but he stopped so I think he fell back asleep. He'll probably take another little nap or two this afternoon/evening before bedtime at 9ish.

I have swaddle blankets, but I don't use them as often as I used to. He's almost 6 weeks old and he likes to be squished, but not swaddled. I've also noticed that he likes to be really warm when he sleeps. Or else being really warm makes him tired and he'll sleep. Not to the point where he's hot and sweaty, but all nice and snuggly warm.

[Max'sMama]

Sleep?  What is this sleep thing of which you write?   Seriously, two nights ago was the first chunk of sleep I have experienced since Julius was born and it was a whole 3 hours!  

I haven't read the other replies, but in my experience as a LLL leader, generally a irritable baby has a source or trigger.  Often it has proven to be either dairy, soy or gluten in mom's diet that comes through the milk.   Within a couple days to 2/3 weeks following the elimination of the food offender by mom, baby is completely different.  I hate to suggest it but I would cut out dairy for the next 2 weeks and see if that is an issue.  And I mean cut it out completely.  All of the hidden stuff too!

One generally notices an improvement within a few days, but it can take longer. If dairy doesn't work then I would try gluten.  Soy I would eliminate with dairy if there is an improvement but not a marked one.

Sorry that sleep is not coming to you.  Sleep deprivation is a bummer.

[Mamatoabunch]

We are falling into a good routine. I nurse Esca around 8:30pm until 9:30-9:45pm. I then put him into a night diaper, a paper diaper w/ cloth preemie prefold inside to last until morning. I swaddle him in the muslim blanket and then offer a bottle to top him off. He is then ready to sleep in the bassinet around 10:45-11pm. He sleeps generally until 5-6am, but sometimes wakes earlier. He sleeps on a lamby on his tummy. I feed him w/ a bottle in the night, which I consider anytime before 8am, LOL. After he is fed in the night I put him back down to sleep until 8:30-9am usually. During the day he usually nurses at 10am, 1pm, naps 2-5pm, up to nurse after I eat dinner, then nurses again 8:30pm. When I try to lay him down between 10:30-11pm there is often fussing which I pick him up, offer more milk, paci or patting, etc until he accepts being laid down and stays asleep. I just keep trying, but 11pm is my max and occasionally he cries for a few minutes to settle to sleep.

[tracymom1]

Originally Posted by Max'sMama 

Sleep?  What is this sleep thing of which you write?   Seriously, two nights ago was the first chunk of sleep I have experienced since Julius was born and it was a whole 3 hours!  

I haven't read the other replies, but in my experience as a LLL leader, generally a irritable baby has a source or trigger.  Often it has proven to be either dairy, soy or gluten in mom's diet that comes through the milk.   Within a couple days to 2/3 weeks following the elimination of the food offender by mom, baby is completely different.  I hate to suggest it but I would cut out dairy for the next 2 weeks and see if that is an issue.  And I mean cut it out completely.  All of the hidden stuff too!

One generally notices an improvement within a few days, but it can take longer. If dairy doesn't work then I would try gluten.  Soy I would eliminate with dairy if there is an improvement but not a marked one.

Sorry that sleep is not coming to you.  Sleep deprivation is a bummer.

This is what I am thinking, too. I have been eliminating dairy slowly and just need to take the plunge and cut it out completely to see if it helps. Sigh. Soy will be hard to get rid of, too, but I have done it before and can do it again.

I think Jude is just a snacker. He much prefers small meals - even when DH gives him a bottle of pumped milk, he will only take about 2oz. I am pretty sure this is why he wakes to nurse so frequently. I just don't really know if I can do anything to change it. I am sure he will start eating mire in quantity as time goes by.

[BHappy]

here is our nighttime with little quinn. for the most part i am still in the 24 hour mode, where i try and function the same during the day and night (ha!), trying to recognize that the baby doesn't differentiate. that said, i am seeing signs and patterns that lead me to believe that quinn is starting to know. like he sleeps -- or wants to sleep -- throughout the night & more awake during the day.

between 7:30-9:00pm we are getting ready for bedtime, including bath (once per week but i might increase frequency bc it really calms him), jammies, diaper change, consoling (yoga ball bouncing, rocking, sling... he can be fussy in the evening. i think it is getting better). by 9pm he is settled and asleep and i curl up with him in bed. or take a shower. or eat... lol...

he wakes to nurse about every 2 hours. three if i'm really lucky. if he has a poop, he will wake for that and i have to rock him or nurse him back to sleep after changing him. sometimes this takes up to an hour. thankfully the pooping is getting more and more during daylight hours and less and less at 3am. even 5am is better! i also generally try and burp him after nursing, otherwise a burp might wake him or make him restless. sometimes that means i end up sleeping reclined with him on my shoulder.

we usually stay in bed until 8:00-9:00am.

he just fell asleep and so i should go........hugs!

[erigeron]

I do not understand the idea of a bedtime for a very small baby who is sharing a room with the parents. I am open to understanding it but right now it seems to make more sense to put her down when we go to bed. She doesn't seem to really engage with us much yet so I'm not sure that, say, reading a story has much value there. A bath doesn't relax her and swaddling is kind of limitedly useful with her hip harness, plus it's hot. Anyway, we put her down when we go to sleep which I am trying to get to be between 10:30-11:30--kind of hard to do sometimes since my husband and I are both addicted to our Internet. She'll eat around 11:30-12:30, then again around 3 and again around 6. Sometimes the 3:00 episode is pretty epic. Typically when she wakes we'll aim for feed, burp, change, because if we change her first then she'll poop during or right after nursing and need to be changed again. I know you aren't supposed to let a baby sit in a dirty diaper but I figure if it's been 2 hours another 20 minutes doesn't make much of a difference. We'll change her before she finishes nursing if she seems agitated and won't settle. Sometimes her feedings will turn into more like feed-burp-change-try to settle-feed again-clean spitup-change entire outfit-lather-rinse-repeat. She is 3 weeks old and we haven't introduced a bottle yet. Maybe at some point we'll try for having my husband do one feeding so I can get an uninterrupted stretch of sleep. Currently he does most of the diaper changes, so we are both up. (If I have to suffer, it's only fair to share the burden! He snoozes while I nurse, I snooze while he changes her.

During the day she feeds/snacks intermittently, sometimes more cluster-feedy (especially in the evening) and sometimes a few hours apart, and mostly does sleep otherwise. We can count on an hour or two of alertness total in a couple of randomly placed segments. I haven't gotten a good handle on her daytime feeding schedule yet, and hubby is the one who figured out what the nighttime one was, so maybe he can also figure out the daytime--I haven't been keeping track. On Monday we have to take her in for a procedure where we want to feed her right beforehand (they ideally want us to give a bottle during the procedure, but for an exclusively breastfed infant who doesn't yet take bottles, they'll settle for nursing right before) and I'm not really sure how we're going to work it out so that she's hungry then. I hate the idea of depriving her, but them's the breaks, I guess. I know she won't starve to death if I have to delay feeding her by an hour or two, but she won't be happy.

[Bald_Bull's_Mama]

I was going to suggest some eliminations, too. With DS, I ended up eliminating dairy, peanuts and citrus. I stayed off dairy, though he was able to have it starting when he was 2ish. With DD, I went light on peanuts and citrus through the pregnancy and have stayed light on them. Actually, I had citrus once and it didn't work out well for her, so I cut it. We have really avoided the serious crying that DS had. She will have small fussy periods, sometimes will be upset that there is a lot of milk there when she only wants to suck, but we're doing OK. She sleeps on top of me in a chaise in the living room, doesn't have any lengthy period of waking during the night, nursed whenever. I'm actually getting a lot of sleep! I think it will be harder when I try to transition us to the bed, with her not laying on top of me. For right now, I'm just going with what she wants to do and it's going really, really smoothly. I do swaddle her at night, in a muslin blanket. I hope you guys find what works!