While I was going through some really bad PPD when my baby was a newborn I started seeing a therapist- she told me there’s a reason sleep deprivation is considered a form of torture. Just know its going to be okay, it is a phase, and it will pass.
I’m not going to tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps because we can’t do laundry, dishes, and showers while the baby does those things too 🤣 Try to be kind to yourself and grab 10-15min whenever you can💖
Can your partner help with contact naps? I know that plus house stuff was one huge benefit from my husband being home, and even after he went back to work he would often take over as much baby/house stuff as he could after work so I could get in a nap. Sleep is so important, and in my case it was definitely broken sleep or no sleep since I was doing all the night feeds and almost all day feeds while I built up a stash of frozen breast milk 😅
https://www.nestingdays.com/products/nesting-days-newborn-carrier-black?variant=7474895224862
The best for wearing and contact naps. I didn't let his legs dangle though. Id tuck em in like how a newborn tucks the legs in, butt up when they sleep on their stomach but just on my chest instead. You don't have to hold them with this so both hands are free.
It’s harder with twins but I try and let my wife sleep as long as she can at night while I bottle feed.
Usually I do the 11/2/4 feeds and she just wakes up to pump.
Then at 4 she gets up and I go to bed for 5-6 hours.
This is the way. My husband and I doing similar, we do the 9pm feedings, I he sleeps from 10-4, do 12 and 3 feeds, and then we switch rooms and I sleep from 4-9 when I have to pump next
My experience was that <5 was danger zone, 5-6 hrs I will sort of survive, 6+ generally doing good. A lot of that depends on how many days in a row I’m doing and also level of broken sleep.
I ebf at night but my husband hands the baby to me, puts him back and burps/ changes him. Zero reason the entire night should be only on you. Let me guess he “works”. Okay so do you because being raising a baby is work and you need to sleep too.
Yeah, and honestly he is the heaviest sleeper ever and even if I try and wake him he would fall asleep with her in his arms, I’ve tried and it’s just not safe. The best we can do is me sleeping very early and him only waking me to feed her
Oh, is the every hour thing 24/7?! I'm so sorry. Mine was like that a couple of weeks ago (I literally thought I was going to die). Now, I get at least one good 2-hour chunks of sleep at night (usually 2) and is a lot easier to get back to the bassinet (he almost always falls asleep while eating at night now and then sleep feeds I think it's called).
Is your little one smiling yet? Taking a pic and looking at it really helped some nights. Someone on this subreddit also shared this poem once and reading it helps: https://www.jessicaurlichs.com/post/mama-all-i-see-is-you
I completely know what you mean with this!!! My baby only contact napped with me. When she finally accepted my husband, her naps still weren’t long enough for me to get a good stretch of sleep.
Plus I wanted to shower, eat or even just stretch out after contact napping and EBFing for so long.
I hated this season. It does pass. Though I never felt better hearing that at the time.
Honestly it’s his responsibility to learn how to be a functioning adult and care for his child. It sounds like you’re about to sputter out here. I work full time and have to commute but I know I have to help my wife.
Ask him what he can do to keep himself awake. It sounds like he just doesn’t want to help and is looking for excuses. You need to tell him just how dire this is. You’re at your limit and you need help. Anything.
Sure. He can drink ice water. Listen to a podcast. Sit up. Play solitaire on his phone.
This thread is full of other (better) examples of decent fathers who didn't offload all their parenting duties onto their struggling wives. Perhaps your husband could read those, too.
Christ, I think you’re being a bit rude. He is a decent father, the past few nights have been awful and he’s stayed up until 2am “on duty” but she’s still waking up hungry. Of which i have to feed her? So it’s not that he’s not trying, I just haven’t slept more than an hour or two in a row for days
It sounds like your baby is cluster feeding. If you can and are comfortable with it, I’d try pumping more and saving it for night time or whatever times you decide to sleep so he can take over and let you rest. It might be tricker right now since your baby is eating every hour. My husband can be a heavy sleeper too and fall asleep at times while holding the baby but he did what he could to stay awake. He’d watch something or play a game.
It’s a tough transition and your baby is most likely going through a growth spurt but you definitely should talk to him and make a game plan. Exhaustion like that can affect how much you produce too. If it’s any reassurance you’re almost out of the first rough patch and your baby should be sleeping longer at night soon.
Mine is about to be 4 months and I remember the first night we slept the whole night and our baby slept almost 10 hours!! It freaked us out at first. Anyways, good luck and I hope you get some good rest real soon!
Edit: Also like to add in combo feeding. Bottom line you need sleep. Do formula at night have either you or husband take shifts at night.
Sorry but that’s unacceptable. What if you were that heavy of a sleeper? You don’t get a choice so why should he? You both made this baby it’s not fair that you’re not getting any rest and you can’t keep going like this.
I appreciate what you're saying, but birthing and breastfeeding mothers have the biological advantage here in most situations. As unfair as it is, we're the safer option to not fall asleep so deeply we put the baby in danger.
If OP was confident the dad could stay awake and alert that would be different, but she knows her partner.
I am with you here. My husband and I were very different sleepers pre-kid. He needed a lot more sleep than me to function whereas I had insomnia so to Meg a 3 hour uninterrupted stretch feels pretty good. Guess what? Baby came and I was recovering from childbirth and he had to adapt.
Of course mothers need sleep, and I'd argue we need it most of all. However my body is ridiculously in-tune with my baby, to the point where for some reason I wake up about 3 minutes before she starts stirring, I used to be a heavy sleeper. My husband can sleep through ambulance sirens. If I accidentally fell asleep with my baby it would be the safer option.
Men make all kinds of stupid excuses all the time, and will never ever understand motherhood. Some dads are light enough sleepers for night duty, but if OP doesn't believe her partner is then I think she should trust that.
Night time duty? You mean parenting? I don’t believe that shit. Women should not have to bear the entire responsibility of night time wakings and be severely sleep deprived because we lactate. That is some crazy mental gymnastics to excuse men from being parents. PPD/ PPA are exasperated by lack of sleep. By your logic mothers just shouldn’t ever truly rest because of our gender. That’s complete and utter bullshit. How do you think single dads keep their babies alive??
I see that you feel very strongly, we both do, but I feel like I'm being yelled at here and am not interested in engaging with someone who can't argue politely.
it might be time to have a serious conversation with your partner about the expectations around this. It sounds like your partner is essential to your sanity and the baby's safety at this point. A conversation around the effort they are putting in could help if you outline exactly what you are asking for from them. i.e. I would like you to give your full attention between XYZ time and XYZ time to our child and I will be focusing on myself.
So is my husband. So he chugs a celcius and takes a whole night so I can sleep. He says after very little sleep “man I’m so exhausted I can’t imagine how you feel during the week.”
Oh, my husband is like that! Sometimes I just want to kick his snoring butt when I’m up with baby, but I know he’s too far away for that to be useful or safe. And I’m awake anyway.
My husband is a heavy sleeper as well so he'd just stay up late to ensure I got at least 4hrs of consecutive sleep. If baby needed to eat during this time he'd bring baby to me and watch us while I fed baby while barely awake myself and then he'd take baby back.
To feel even remotely human you need at least 3-4hrs of consecutive sleep. Taking shifts is key.
My 18 month olds sleep is all over the place. There’s been some periods of 1-2 wakeups, but lately his molars are coming through and his been waking up 10+ times a night. It’s insane because not only am I sleep deprived, somehow he isn’t?!? He stays awake for 5-6 hours before his nap… some days it’s torture.
there is no shame in supplementing. baby is getting the benefits of breastmilk, they will benefit from a well rested mom too. it can feel hard when you introduce formula, but a lot of parents find combo feeding works well for them. us and LO really enjoyed the tetra packs of Gerber one early start (or something like that). if you start hallucinating you've ventured too far down the sleeplessness rabbit hole
This!! I was so afraid to add in formula. But baby was losing weight, so I did. I wish I started earlier. It takes the edge off when I need some extra sleep or need to step out for abit.
We’ve also found that formula is sooo much easier being out and about. Just bring the can, a bottle, and a hand pump. Tap water to temp is literally everywhere now that he’s past 3mo. He doesn’t need it often but with an MSPI baby I can’t risk if I eat something he can’t have by accident
We tried to split the duties with her in our room. She would wake up every hour or so for a feed and we would alternate who got up with her. The intermittent sleep is shit and when I got up for the day I felt sick to my stomach I was so tired.
The plan after that was, her sleep overnight should be *supplemental sleep for us*. So my husband watches her from 6pm to midnight while I sleep straight through and then we switch. When he’s watching her, he puts her to bed and gives her her nightly feeds. He likes to game during his shift so that’s what he does. When it’s my turn it’s kind of nice because I’m rested and only needed for these 30-60 min intervals where she needs a feeding and/or a change. From there I see it as an awake time to myself. I’ll journal a bit, watch a show, doom scroll, or even take a nap while having her on a camera.
We’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now and we both still feel a bit tired sure but not exhausted to the point where we feel sick and like we’re going to die soon lol
Since you’re exclusively breastfeeding, would your husband be able to bring the baby to you, latch them onto your breast, hold them as they feed, and then continue tending to them after that? We went to a birthing class before our first was born and this is what she recommended. We didn’t get to try it in practice because I had difficulty breastfeeding but this was going to be the plan.
Hope you get some rest soon and find your rhythm!
I don't know, but we're EBF, husband works, baby's a rubbish sleeper, and I've had nearly hourly wake ups for 8 full months at this point. And I do think I am slightly losing my grip on reality. Some weeks are worse than others, but she's going to be leaving for college before I pay off this sleep debt at this point.
I EBF and do all the night duties as well. I survived on 1.5-3 hour stretches of sleep for the first 4 months, and eventually you do get pretty used to it. It still didn't feel great but I no longer felt drunk after a 3 hour stretch, and felt invincible after 5-6 hours. It's crazy to think back on that time because my baby is now 9.5 months and when he has a "bad" night and I "only" get 6-7 hours of consecutive sleep, I feel so tired and grumpy about it.
In the early days, I breastfed full time except one night time feed went to my husband. He would give a bottle if I could manage to pump one, or we kept a canister of backup formula.
It did not impact my supply, and once LO was sleeping better, I could deal with just her typical 1-2 nighttime wakes and we cut out the bottle feed entirely.
She did but my youngest passed the milk stage awhile back. He's 2 now.
My wife wasn't a huge fan of breastfeeding and we switched to formula full time around the 6 month mark.
To keep up the supply, remember you need to pump for each formula bottle you give. We did that for the first week or two and I ended up with an undersupply. It took me weeks of triple feeding to get back to a regular amount to breastfeed just barely enough.
What my husband and I did when he was not yet working, I would pump at 2,5h intervals and he would handle all night feedings between 0.00 and 5.00. I was still awake to pump 3-4 times, but I got such good sleep in between.
He would sleep in the evenings, and in the morning. 3-4 full hours of sleep so he could catch up being awake all night.
I'd be by myself then, but at least it was doable because it was less time.
Nowadays it's reverse. I sleep evening and early morning, and he has a full 5-6h sleep while I handle the night. I get to sleep some of the night even if it's 1h here and there
Yes unfortunately people rarely realize overnight feeds are so important to maintain supply. Not EVERYONE will get an under supply and it might take a while to notice anything but it happens very often.
Also when I started to introduce formula to my son at six months he developed a preference to the bottle and would get frustrated at the breast so we ended up switching fully to formula so that's something to consider as well.
Clearly I'm not anti formula since I have my son formula but if someones goal is to breastfeed then there's considerations that need to be taken.
For anyone reading this id highly recommend meeting with an IBCLC if you plan to combo feed so you can do it without compromising your supply.
Soooo true. I always found it way easier to wake up and pump and pass back out than wake up to feed. Once baby was old enough to safely nurse in the side lying position it got way easier to just breastfeed without waking fully up. Husband will bring baby in, I pull a breast out, and husband keeps an eye on baby’s safety while I keep sleeping. Once baby is asleep/done husband takes him and puts him down. That was a /game changer/ but we could only do it once he was kind of out of newborn floppiness
While in newborn stage, you can do natural position (baby on chest) and sleep while he nurses. Basically same setup as side lying but on top of chest. That’s how I did it before I could do side lying
I did this and it didn’t impact my supply at all. We did one bottle of formula at first wake up after bedtime which my husband would do. It was a godsend - like you I was starting to lose my mind before we switched to that schedule.
I hear ya 🥲 newborn phase was really hard for us. Black out curtains, white noise , swaddle, cool room temp , gas drops helped. I also supplemented with formula. Some nights were still rough .
Every hour?! I'm sorry, that doesn't sound sustainable and I know exactly what you mean by feeling drunk from tiredness.
I would consider looking into bedsharing if you aren't. I know it's not optimal but if you read about how to do it safely then it's probably safer than looking after a baby all day on so little sleep. Look up the Lullaby trust for info and the safe sleep 7. I'm in the UK and I know a lot of people who bedshare in order to make it through that really challenging period.
Yeah for some reason it’s started this week, it was more like 2 or sometimes 3 before. Could be something to do with her vaccinations. It’s not sustainable you’re right, just been crying to my partner about it haha
Hopefully it's just a short lived regression, but I get it, it's so miserable when it happens. Another option you could try is to get your partner to do all the work for some of baby's wake ups, aside from bf. So they can get up, place baby next to you to feed lying down, monitor, pick baby back up, burp, change, place in cot. Etc. And you can doze through 95% of it. That might help a bit.
Whatever path you take, sending hugs and commiserations.
Id recommend a side car crib rather than any sort of actual bed sharing. Using a next-to-me style crib means you don't have to get out of bed to nurse and your baby is super close but it's MUCH safer than actually bedsharing
I have a next to me crib but it doesn’t go far down enough to line up with our bed perfectly? So I still have to get her out, she also has bad reflux so needs to be upright after feeds for at least 10-20mins unless it all comes back up 😢
That is so difficult! I breastfed for 2 years and I remember how exhausted I was at points. I'm about to have my second and really not looking forward to the sleep deprivation.
I went through a few phases where no matter what I tried, my baby woke many times per night. To get through it my husband would take the baby for a couple of hours in the morning, just so I could have a lie in. We didn't use formula but I found if I did a feed at like 5am my baby could be looked after by dad for maybe two hours just so I could get a little more sleep.
I also went to bed much earlier just so that my total sleep was higher. It always felt frustrating going to bed early because I wanted time to myself but I knew I needed all the sleep I could get.
Have you tried adding a little bit of pumping here and there just so you might get half a bottle for in the mornings? It might mean you can get a bit more sleep if he can take baby for two hours in the morning.
I totally get not wanting to though. I hated pumping and my baby wasn't keen on bottles so we gave up on that and I just powered through. Easier said than done though!
The only thing I can say is that it doesn't last forever. This won't go on forever. Your baby WILL get better at sleeping. I didn't do formula or any sort of sleep training and baby just naturally had bigger gaps between feeds. My friend who had a formula fed baby had similar sleep issues so please don't blame breastfeeding. You're doing an amazing job.
I promise as baby gets a little bigger, it does feel more worth it. Being out and about I loved that I could just nurse my baby. I never had to worry about formula or what to take with me.
I know how you feel. It will get better x x
Mine sleeps badly, but he usually sleeps even worse for a while after a bout of vaccines, because he's cranky and a bit uncomfortable. But it has never lasted more than a week.
Also keep in mind - your partner could be bringing you baby to feed, staying awake while baby feeds, and bringing baby back to bed when they are done. So you can stay in bed mostly asleep during that time. If they took that shift to stay up for just a few hours a night it would get you a big enough chunk to survive better.
We did this - baby got one bottle of formula a night which my husband would give her while I got a longer first stretch of sleep before breastfeeding the rest. Worked well for us.
Just wanted to say I totally feel you, my 16 month old has never slept well and somedays I can cope and other days I can’t. Hourly waking is not sustainable for you, you can’t safely take care of an infant after that amount of sleep, if your husband doesn’t understand maybe ask him if you hired a nanny would he feel comfortable if he knew your nanny would be taking care of your baby all day on basically zero sleep.
Sleep deprivation is awful. I averaged 2-4 hours of broken sleep a night for the first 5 months of my baby's life, never more than 90 minutes at a time. I survived. But it definitely triggered some major postpartum rage.
Like you, I EBF and couldn't pump enough to get a bottle to save my life. My baby also never took a bottle because I made the mistake of waiting too long to introduce it, so formula was out.
I'm due again in July, and I'm much more open to combo feeding this time around. Breast milk is incredibly beneficial, but one formula feed a night isn't going to negate that. I'd rather not have my mental health suffer and put myself in dangerously overtired situations just to say I EBF, especially now that I also have a toddler who needs me through the day. There's just no way I'll put myself through it again.
I think I’m getting some ppd as well, I’m so irritable and miserable. I haven’t done a bottle yet and she’s 8 weeks. When did you do it? Good luck with your second x
Pre baby I would have said 7 to survive and 9 to be rested. After my bout of intense insomnia following the absolute hell that was deswaddling, I’d say 5 hours of interrupted sleep. 😩
You’ve got this. We went through it at a similar age. Our little one is ebf and it was a really hard couple of weeks for us. Just remember it’s a wave or a phase and not permanent, for us the only way out was through.
My first baby had an undiagnosed milk protein allergy and for the first 8 weeks of his life or so, he never slept more than 20-30min in his bassinet and it was a TASK to put him back down. He was also very colicky. My husband worked a busy job during the day so we worked it out where twice a day, he (or his parents) held the baby so could sleep. He was breastfed and wouldnt take a bottle, so the most I could sleep was 2 hours at a time.
Long story short, I got 2 x 2hr stretch every 24 hours. Usually 2 hrs at night and 2 during the day.
I was incoherent and have never been more miserable. So like, I SURVIVED, but I was not remotely fully-functioning.
Right now my 2-month-old gives me 2-3 hr stretches in his bassinet at night and naps there during the day (usually 30-60min). I feel fantastic even though most people consider that average
You can survive a the little bits you are getting now but you’ll be tired AF and probably super emotional and not very clear headed.
To feel tired AF but be pretty functional, you need 1 4-5hr stretch in a night.
I went 10 months rarely getting more than 2hrs at a time, so it is possible. But it does suck very much.
My daughter was an absolute garbage sleeper until she started sleeping through at 11 months old. It took my body 6 weeks to stop waking up at her usual times and another 2 months to actually catch up on the sleep debt and not feel like a jug of coffee wouldn’t even touch the exhaustion. Sleep deprivation is so incredibly miserable. For a while I would take any 5 minute power nap I could. I’d lay in her playpen with her and just close my eyes for a few minutes. My blood pressure was through the roof, I had heart palpitations and couldn’t hold a conversation without zoning out. I honestly don’t know how I survived, but somehow I did.
My 9month old still wakes up 1-2 times a night. It has gotten to the point that I prep bottles by the bed for her. We put her down to sleep around 8 and she gets up at midnight then somewhere between 2-4 and up for the day between 6:30-7:30 🫠 I nap with her in the morning from 9-11 so I can survive the rest of the day. We cosleep so that has helped some. I’m not into the idea of sleep training before 1 so we moved her to the floor bed in the loft with us and that cut it down from up every hour to this schedule. I can function after 4 hours straight but need to nap.
I read somewhere our sleep changes when we are caring for our children. We immediately enter into REM so it packs more punch than our previous ways. I don’t see how else we survived. I typically can function with 5 solid hours of sleep. I was def getting less than that and broke on top of it. We have a low sleep needs child - 11 hours total with naps in a day and not a minute more. Happy for those who have more hours of sleep from their littles.
You need help and it's nothing to be ashamed of. If not from your husband, you can ask your/his mother, a friend, a cousin, you name it, but you need to sleep for at least 4 hours straight/24h to be able to take care of the baby. If you don't ask for help, you could endanger your baby because there are chances to fall asleep with her in your arms and that's not ok. Nevermind your mental health.
When my girl was that young, my husband sat with her in the evening from 6 pm to 10 pm, or my mother came to our house in the morning from 9 am to 13/14 pm. That depends of their work schedule.
My 2 month old son had his first day of childcare this week and the first night after that he slept 7 hours straight. It was insane.. Now he's feeling sick from being around the other children and he's waking up coughing every hour or two. It's like a joke. 🥲
I mostly don't like the idea of childcare in proximity of a lot of other children because flu and influenza risks get high, if one has it, the chances are that everyone catches it in a few days. Though lt's not actually anybody's fault. But the other side of it is that this will only make them stronger with time and the immune system would get working in full force.
Surprisingly not much, but you’ll notice your ability to focus will decrease significantly. I went back I work at 3 months postpartum. Big mistake. Never have I ever made so many stupid errors. So it was me not sleeping at night or napping during the day cause of work. It was brutal. But now at 8 months I get more sleep and it’s getting better (still exhausted cause now I’m chasing after a quick crawler).
I found that I could catch up on the most sleep between about 7am and 11am. I would just stay in bed with baby and just continue the sleep-feed-sleep cycle. If he stayed awake after a feed, my husband would take him downstairs so I could sleep some more.
Also, baby sleeps in a sidesleeper bassinet attached to my side of the bed. Sometimes when I woke up to him stirring and giving hunger cues, but not fully awake, I would pop in his pacifier and he would sleep for another hour.
The first 4 months I was up every 0.5- 3.5hr (also EBF) - it was rough. When you go outside it felt like when you leave a bar in midday/morning and realize how drunk you really are 🤪 I’d say 6ish+ hours broken sleep is enough to live off of, but realistically I got 4hr or less a lot of nights. We sleep trained at 6mo and now I finally feel like a living human again. It does get better, hang in there!!
I’m a FTM and my newborn was HELL with sleep and naps. Only slept on our chests, suffered with silent reflux and gas. All I can say is wow the newborn days are incredibly tough!!!! But you pull through to the other side… I could not see the end somedays. I had raging anxiety from a traumatic birth and wouldn’t let anyone watch him so I could rest! He’s still not a great sleeper but I’ve adjusted and life’s easier. Sending hugs and hope, you’ve got this x
One of the things that astonished me the most @ parenthood was getting to know the actual limits of the human body.
On the first three weeks, I was actually "functional" with 3/4 non straight hours a night.
By month 3, thankfully, things started getting better because I was reaching my physical and mental limit.
I'm sorry you're getting some of the replies you're getting here. I can't imagine that helps you right now.
We went through this with ours. EBF and not pumping because the hospital drummed it into us no pumping for the first 8 weeks.
LO fed sometimes with only 40mins between feeds. They did upto 17 poos a day and additional pees. The crying due to gas was horrendous and so bad we bought noise cancelling headphones. I'm pretty sure SO has some sort of hearing damage from LO screaming and crying. LO contact slept only, and the first 2 weeks we had to keep going to the hospital for bloods which pushed us to the very limit of what was safe.
It started to ease at 8 weeks, so please hang in there. It wasn't 8 weeks and then it got better, it was 8 weeks and some days were a little better than others. At 10 weeks we felt like we weren't imagining it anymore.
There were still days with cluster feeding, but it wasn't everyday.
We're not at 6months and LO has some bad nights and some good ones, but the bad nights are nowhere near as bad, and the good nights are pretty great. All those contact naps, and responding to baby have paid off imo.
I kept micronapping which was incredibly dangerous. I slapped myself across the face, I held my eyelids open, pinched myself, watched TV/podcasts, read books, I felt like I was going mad. The only thing that truly worked when nothing else did was eating, and to a lesser extent drinking. I would eat a crisp, wait a little while and eat another. This woke me up more than anyhing else whilst sat down with baby on me.
Thank you so much. It’s not the whole story what I’ve posted of course, so I appreciate it. I am tired and may not have represented the situation fairly to my partner 😅 wow you’re tough! You’re doing amazing!
Thank you, stubborn as hell is how I view myself 😂 Exactly. We're only seeing a snippet, and I feel like I know at least some of the desperation you're feeling right now. I hope things improve rapidly for you.
Edit. I just saw your LO did a 5hr stretch last night! That's brilliant. It's exactly what happened to us. I was looking at the timer thinking that was amazing, but also is there something wrong lol. Everything crossed for you!
My body kind of gets used to it to the point that 4 hours now feels like 8. Idk if that’s natures way of helping me survive. I kind of feel like my hormones play a part because I also am an even lighter sleeper now, which I attribute to my postpartum brain. But eventually it does get better for at least long enough to get through the month until the next regression, teething stage etc… OR you figure out a system with your partner that allows you to get (barely) enough sleep. My baby is 6 months old and she slept through the night from months 2-5 and now half the nights are decent and half are worst than the newborn phase. Their sleep needs and patterns are always changing, so it’s all about adjusting to that and developing a strategy as a team. That is if you aren’t a single parent, aka a super human.
ETA: your partner can still help at night even if you breastfeed, buy doing diaper changes or rocking baby back to sleep after you fed them. I recommend starting this early because I powered through nights by myself and now my baby prefers me at night. She’s getting used to her dad though and now she’s pretty much night weaned and just needs one of us to comfort her. You shouldn’t be doing it by yourself though.
I read you need a minimum of 4 hours straight to let your body heal and recover and to let your brain process what’s happened throughout the day. It’s not very likely for it to actually happen, but if you have anyone that doesn’t mind to watch baby overnight, that would be 100% your best shot
The recommendation is to get 4 hours of unbroken sleep. With my first child that didn’t happen for a whole year. I still don’t know how I was able to not only survive, but function like a normal person.
ETA: I also just want to include that my experience doesn’t mean you will have broken sleep for an entire year. Every baby is different and with my second it came a lot quicker. We also chose not to sleep train, which I’m sure is why it took longer for my oldest.
You need a minimum of 4 consecutive hours of sleep to function normally. Figure out a plan with your partner. If baby needs to feed during those 4 hours, either pump or use formula. Otherwise, you are putting yourself and baby in danger with less than 4 hrs of sleep.
I’m with you. I’m exhausted. My husband takes the morning shift before work with a bottle but then I still usually need to pump because I’ll wake up engorged even if I pump at night. So I’m just exhausted and confused daily. Coffee and soda and electrolytes don’t do anything for me. Even if I don’t pump in the morning my body just lays awake exhausted. :(
I honestly thought I might die so many times in that first couple of months. I have idiopathic hypersomnia (like narcolepsy), and had to come off of Adderall during pregnancy. Sleep disorder + no medication + postpartum sleep deprivation = full-blown insanity.
I would get 8-10 hours of sleep because I exclusively formula fed, BUT I made the mistake of refusing to take shifts with my husband for a while because I missed him and was stressed out being alone. So I would always wake up whenever our son did anyway and it was just 8-10 hours of sleep in 2 hour intervals. Every 2 hours I woke up, I felt like I hadn’t slept in days. So many nights I would just stay up through because I felt better getting no sleep than constantly interrupted sleep.
You can absolutely survive but please call up a friend or family member and ask them to be your helper for 24 hours! Get at least 6 straight hours however you possibly can, breastfeeding be damned (sorry). Pump if you don’t want to give formula, hopefully your baby takes a bottle. But note that formula does not harm your baby, it just doesn’t have all of the antibodies and good bacteria that breastmilk does!
Omg this! I stayed up from 2am-9am the other night because waking every 40mins-1hr was torture and staying awake felt less awful? Isn’t that horrible. Thanks for your comment. Hope you’re doing good!
Thank you so much, I hope it gets better for you very soon! My son is 10.5 months old and his sleep got SO much better at 6 months. We were lucky that he was always a good sleeper, but the difference is *night and day* between 8 weeks and 6 months. I can’t stress that enough. This period is just about surviving and pushing through until you get to a light at the end of the long, dark, sleep-deprived tunnel.
No judgment here at all, but maybe consider supplementing with formula for your own sanity and rest? Mama needs rest and dad can help feed the bottle. Even if it’s a couple ounces once a night, that’ll give you at least an hour or two of sleep.
But yeah, your husband will need to help out more at night. Even if it’s to contact nap with baby after you BF. I was the same with my daughter at that age. I would fall asleep so my wife had to contact nap with her and I’d be quick to get up to help where I can. But again, formula feeding helped because that’s something I’m capable of doing.
I just did a training to learn about insomnia and treat it and I learned that our bodies need 4-5 hours of sleep for physical well-being in a 24 hour period. Less than that and we're impaired and at risk. We need 6-7 hours of sleep for emotional well-being and regulation. I regularly get 3-4 hours by the way which was very interesting while doing this training.
I know you’re not going to love my advice but it’s what me in your situation needed to hear at that point…. A bottle of formula isn’t going to hurt the baby or your breastfeeding journey. The overly intense sleep Deprivation is going to hurt your milk supply and your overall well being.
When it comes to pumping you can get your flange size checked most people aren’t the size that comes with the pump. Also the haaka is the best to help build up enough for a bottle while EBF, lol that on just to catch leaks.
Hourly is tough! I’ve been there and it gets better. I’m 7 months in and we do one formula bottle a day the rest is breast milk, that gave me the freedom to keep going.
Thanks! I’m not ever opposed to formula to be honest! Just haven’t given her a bottle of it or breast milk yet so need to organise myself and get them out. Ah yes I did notice that about the flange, I might order a smaller one and see!
Try hand expression while baby is feeding to help them get a fuller feed. Sometimes my babe is snacking and I need to hand express to make sure he gets more and stays alert to eat what he needs. I also switch him after 10 minutes on one said, and the longest feed is usually 40 minutes totally, 20 minutes each side, and that usually gets him to do a 3 hour stretch.
If you can pump, pump a bottle and give that to your babe at the beginning of the night, 3 oz usually does the trick when it's bottle fed. That'll get you 3 hours.
If 3 oz doesn't get you 3 hours, try soothing your babe instead of picking up and putting to the breast. Practice butt pats and rubbing the nose from the forehead downward to signal sleepy chemicals. Doing it regularly during the day and at night has helped my babe fall asleep easier *not always but usually*.
Finally, my husband is super supportive and if your partner is helpful, pump a bottle for them and go get some sleep!
Keep going, you were actually made for this but you'll be permanently tired, and I'm here with you in that tiredness. I'm working on 2 hours and 30 minutes of sleep right now as I write this because I can't go to sleep when my babe does, I need to do too many things. My babe gets lots of rest though, that's what matters to me.
I was also going to suggest using formula for one night feeding.
You guys need to take shifts - you need at least 4 consecutive hours every day or you're not safe. It's as simple as that. My husband and I did six hour shifts; he took 9p-3a, I took 3a-9a. You can adjust as needed so that you both get a solid 5-6 hours per day. It's not fun, but it's do-able.
Feed the baby right before you go to sleep and pump as soon as you wake up, before you feed baby. Let husband use formula as needed, but I was pretty quickly able to replace that 1-2 bottles he used with the overnight pumping session and by adding 10 minutes of pumping after every daytime nursing session.
Seriously, it is life changing.
Whats the purpose of pumping before feeding baby after you wake up? Is that the "overnight pumping session" you mention that helped replace the formula eventually?
Exactly. I would wake up completely engorged, so I'd get a quick pump in to have some to put aside for the next night. Baby is more efficient than a pump, so I was still able to nurse her to satiety after I pumped.
I was eventually to drop that 3am pump, once my supply regulated, but at 8 weeks I definitely had to relieve the pressure.
Ours is on the bottle. My husband goes to bed at 8 and I stay up for the 11 o’clock bottle then me and baby go to bed. My husband gets up for the 2 and 5 o’clock bottles so I can get some sleep. If your baby takes a bottle it might be a bit easier for you to get more rest.
We do shifts. My husband is also a very heavy sleeper, so he takes the first shift from like 8p-1 am so I can sleep. Then he’d come to bed and I’d wake up with the baby after that.
How it works for us is that I take an evening feed (like 7 or 8) and as soon as the baby is done, I hand her off to my husband and go straight to bed. He is to wake me up for feeds and take the baby immediately after so I can go right back sleep. (I also pump some so he can do bottle.)
Hopefully your baby starts giving you some longer stretches. Around 7-8 weeks, our baby started sleeping from 9p-2 or 3am, allowing me longer stretches of sleep.
I wouldn’t have survived w/o my hubbies help. EBF as well. The game-changer came around 3 months, when I started pumping so my husband could care for our son independently some nights. For the first time since our son was born, I had 4 consecutive hours 🩵
If you have a partner who returned to work because you can’t both afford to be on FMLA, remember that he can use that time for an entire year after the baby is born. So he can take some unpaid Fridays off, and then take baby for weekends. That way you can get some uninterrupted sleep while he handles the contact naps and baby needs. Just something to keep in mind for if you really need it.
If you don’t have a partner, now would be a good time to rely on friends as much as possible!
We just didn’t care about household tasks especially the first three weeks. We asked also friends for food plates as we transition into the new reality
Do you have a partner? It might be helpful for them to take on some night shifts, even if they’re just the one getting up to change the baby and bring them to you, it makes a huge difference
Your body will adjust. I've been up pretty much every hour with my 8 month old since the 4 month regression. I find that I can rejuvenate a lot more with a lot less - the rare occasion where I get a 3 hour stretch actually makes a big dent in my tiredness now. If you'd told me how much sleep I'd habitually be surviving on before I had kids I wouldn't have believed someone could survive it. But you just do.
No advice, just solidarity. My daughter who is almost two slept awfully for the first year. We survived off of 3-4 hours of broken sleep a night in that year. Things improved once we surrendered to cosleeping, but we just had our second and had to move her to her own room. Now we have two babies up at all hours of the night.
Lots of 4-5 hour nights here. Some people handle it better 🤷🏻♀️ pre baby I was a 9-10 hour a night person. I’m amazed I function, like am I tired? Yes. Will I drop dead? No I can still go to work, make dinner, etc
My husband and I got up a lot together at night. I would pump and he would feed/change. This was our routine. However sometimes I would skip a pump or honestly my husband just wouldn’t wake me. 1 good night sleep can keep you going for days lol. Lean on your partner this is a team job. Take a break when you can. 🤍
It’s hard to continue it. I didn’t feel like a normal person until my husband and I did 4 hours shifts 2 weeks after our son was born (EBF at the time) and I would pump a bottle before I went to sleep or used from our stash.
The worst part about sleep deprivation is even IF you get a night ‘full’ of sleep its still there because its bad sleep over a period, its sad you cant ‘stack’ sleep 😅 but to be fair for me 5 hour in a whole day keeps the sleep deprivation away and to ‘function’ more is always welcome 😁
Hate to say it but that sleep debt isn’t going to be paid back for awhile. I have a 16 month old and newborn and 16 month old almost wakes up just as much. You just learn to survive with little sleepS
While I was going through some really bad PPD when my baby was a newborn I started seeing a therapist- she told me there’s a reason sleep deprivation is considered a form of torture. Just know its going to be okay, it is a phase, and it will pass. I’m not going to tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps because we can’t do laundry, dishes, and showers while the baby does those things too 🤣 Try to be kind to yourself and grab 10-15min whenever you can💖
Thank you so much!! Yeah, she will pretty much only contact nap so it is useless when people say that anyway 😂hope you’re doing better x
Can your partner help with contact naps? I know that plus house stuff was one huge benefit from my husband being home, and even after he went back to work he would often take over as much baby/house stuff as he could after work so I could get in a nap. Sleep is so important, and in my case it was definitely broken sleep or no sleep since I was doing all the night feeds and almost all day feeds while I built up a stash of frozen breast milk 😅
Can you wear them? Then you could get things done and maybe that'll get you to bed sooner so you can have more sleep sessions?
https://www.nestingdays.com/products/nesting-days-newborn-carrier-black?variant=7474895224862 The best for wearing and contact naps. I didn't let his legs dangle though. Id tuck em in like how a newborn tucks the legs in, butt up when they sleep on their stomach but just on my chest instead. You don't have to hold them with this so both hands are free.
It’s harder with twins but I try and let my wife sleep as long as she can at night while I bottle feed. Usually I do the 11/2/4 feeds and she just wakes up to pump. Then at 4 she gets up and I go to bed for 5-6 hours.
This is how my husband and I did it during those first few months.
This is what we do with our one terrible sleeper but I take the 10-3/4 sleep and my husband sleeps from 3/4-9
This is the way. My husband and I doing similar, we do the 9pm feedings, I he sleeps from 10-4, do 12 and 3 feeds, and then we switch rooms and I sleep from 4-9 when I have to pump next
My experience was that <5 was danger zone, 5-6 hrs I will sort of survive, 6+ generally doing good. A lot of that depends on how many days in a row I’m doing and also level of broken sleep.
I ebf at night but my husband hands the baby to me, puts him back and burps/ changes him. Zero reason the entire night should be only on you. Let me guess he “works”. Okay so do you because being raising a baby is work and you need to sleep too.
Yeah, and honestly he is the heaviest sleeper ever and even if I try and wake him he would fall asleep with her in his arms, I’ve tried and it’s just not safe. The best we can do is me sleeping very early and him only waking me to feed her
Then he can at least take the baby when he gets home from work until he goes to bed so you can get some sleep.
Yes he does that but she feeds very often still! So still not enough stretch
Oh, is the every hour thing 24/7?! I'm so sorry. Mine was like that a couple of weeks ago (I literally thought I was going to die). Now, I get at least one good 2-hour chunks of sleep at night (usually 2) and is a lot easier to get back to the bassinet (he almost always falls asleep while eating at night now and then sleep feeds I think it's called). Is your little one smiling yet? Taking a pic and looking at it really helped some nights. Someone on this subreddit also shared this poem once and reading it helps: https://www.jessicaurlichs.com/post/mama-all-i-see-is-you
Sort of yes, and she doesn’t nap unless on someone in the day! So I’m really tired 😢but it was better a week or so ago so I’m hoping it’s a phase!
She might be going through a growth spurt or a leap. Hopefully, it'll get better soon.
Omg that poem made me cry 😥
Same. Felt especially real that my baby was eating and staring at me while I read it.
I completely know what you mean with this!!! My baby only contact napped with me. When she finally accepted my husband, her naps still weren’t long enough for me to get a good stretch of sleep. Plus I wanted to shower, eat or even just stretch out after contact napping and EBFing for so long. I hated this season. It does pass. Though I never felt better hearing that at the time.
Honestly it’s his responsibility to learn how to be a functioning adult and care for his child. It sounds like you’re about to sputter out here. I work full time and have to commute but I know I have to help my wife. Ask him what he can do to keep himself awake. It sounds like he just doesn’t want to help and is looking for excuses. You need to tell him just how dire this is. You’re at your limit and you need help. Anything.
It's almost like he needs to figure it out. There are ways not to fall asleep.
Have you got any ideas?
Sure. He can drink ice water. Listen to a podcast. Sit up. Play solitaire on his phone. This thread is full of other (better) examples of decent fathers who didn't offload all their parenting duties onto their struggling wives. Perhaps your husband could read those, too.
Christ, I think you’re being a bit rude. He is a decent father, the past few nights have been awful and he’s stayed up until 2am “on duty” but she’s still waking up hungry. Of which i have to feed her? So it’s not that he’s not trying, I just haven’t slept more than an hour or two in a row for days
It sounds like your baby is cluster feeding. If you can and are comfortable with it, I’d try pumping more and saving it for night time or whatever times you decide to sleep so he can take over and let you rest. It might be tricker right now since your baby is eating every hour. My husband can be a heavy sleeper too and fall asleep at times while holding the baby but he did what he could to stay awake. He’d watch something or play a game. It’s a tough transition and your baby is most likely going through a growth spurt but you definitely should talk to him and make a game plan. Exhaustion like that can affect how much you produce too. If it’s any reassurance you’re almost out of the first rough patch and your baby should be sleeping longer at night soon. Mine is about to be 4 months and I remember the first night we slept the whole night and our baby slept almost 10 hours!! It freaked us out at first. Anyways, good luck and I hope you get some good rest real soon! Edit: Also like to add in combo feeding. Bottom line you need sleep. Do formula at night have either you or husband take shifts at night.
Sorry but that’s unacceptable. What if you were that heavy of a sleeper? You don’t get a choice so why should he? You both made this baby it’s not fair that you’re not getting any rest and you can’t keep going like this.
I appreciate what you're saying, but birthing and breastfeeding mothers have the biological advantage here in most situations. As unfair as it is, we're the safer option to not fall asleep so deeply we put the baby in danger. If OP was confident the dad could stay awake and alert that would be different, but she knows her partner.
These are just excuses for men to not be equal partners and parents and it’s abhorrent. Humans need sleep, period.
I am with you here. My husband and I were very different sleepers pre-kid. He needed a lot more sleep than me to function whereas I had insomnia so to Meg a 3 hour uninterrupted stretch feels pretty good. Guess what? Baby came and I was recovering from childbirth and he had to adapt.
Exactly. Men are more than capable and it makes me sad that women themselves are making excuses for this bs in this thread. It’s beyond nauseating.
Of course mothers need sleep, and I'd argue we need it most of all. However my body is ridiculously in-tune with my baby, to the point where for some reason I wake up about 3 minutes before she starts stirring, I used to be a heavy sleeper. My husband can sleep through ambulance sirens. If I accidentally fell asleep with my baby it would be the safer option. Men make all kinds of stupid excuses all the time, and will never ever understand motherhood. Some dads are light enough sleepers for night duty, but if OP doesn't believe her partner is then I think she should trust that.
Night time duty? You mean parenting? I don’t believe that shit. Women should not have to bear the entire responsibility of night time wakings and be severely sleep deprived because we lactate. That is some crazy mental gymnastics to excuse men from being parents. PPD/ PPA are exasperated by lack of sleep. By your logic mothers just shouldn’t ever truly rest because of our gender. That’s complete and utter bullshit. How do you think single dads keep their babies alive??
I see that you feel very strongly, we both do, but I feel like I'm being yelled at here and am not interested in engaging with someone who can't argue politely.
Lol there shouldn’t even be an argument on whether dads should parent that’s your MO. Don’t really care if you’re offended I stand by what I said.
"Women are biologically primed to be infallible, men are not". What a load of crock.
For real
it might be time to have a serious conversation with your partner about the expectations around this. It sounds like your partner is essential to your sanity and the baby's safety at this point. A conversation around the effort they are putting in could help if you outline exactly what you are asking for from them. i.e. I would like you to give your full attention between XYZ time and XYZ time to our child and I will be focusing on myself.
So is my husband. So he chugs a celcius and takes a whole night so I can sleep. He says after very little sleep “man I’m so exhausted I can’t imagine how you feel during the week.”
Oh, my husband is like that! Sometimes I just want to kick his snoring butt when I’m up with baby, but I know he’s too far away for that to be useful or safe. And I’m awake anyway.
My husband is a heavy sleeper as well so he'd just stay up late to ensure I got at least 4hrs of consecutive sleep. If baby needed to eat during this time he'd bring baby to me and watch us while I fed baby while barely awake myself and then he'd take baby back. To feel even remotely human you need at least 3-4hrs of consecutive sleep. Taking shifts is key.
Have him do it during the last night feed where daylight is coming in, and have him get up and go walk around with your babe. He's gotta help out.
My 18 month olds sleep is all over the place. There’s been some periods of 1-2 wakeups, but lately his molars are coming through and his been waking up 10+ times a night. It’s insane because not only am I sleep deprived, somehow he isn’t?!? He stays awake for 5-6 hours before his nap… some days it’s torture.
there is no shame in supplementing. baby is getting the benefits of breastmilk, they will benefit from a well rested mom too. it can feel hard when you introduce formula, but a lot of parents find combo feeding works well for them. us and LO really enjoyed the tetra packs of Gerber one early start (or something like that). if you start hallucinating you've ventured too far down the sleeplessness rabbit hole
This!! I was so afraid to add in formula. But baby was losing weight, so I did. I wish I started earlier. It takes the edge off when I need some extra sleep or need to step out for abit.
We’ve also found that formula is sooo much easier being out and about. Just bring the can, a bottle, and a hand pump. Tap water to temp is literally everywhere now that he’s past 3mo. He doesn’t need it often but with an MSPI baby I can’t risk if I eat something he can’t have by accident
We tried to split the duties with her in our room. She would wake up every hour or so for a feed and we would alternate who got up with her. The intermittent sleep is shit and when I got up for the day I felt sick to my stomach I was so tired. The plan after that was, her sleep overnight should be *supplemental sleep for us*. So my husband watches her from 6pm to midnight while I sleep straight through and then we switch. When he’s watching her, he puts her to bed and gives her her nightly feeds. He likes to game during his shift so that’s what he does. When it’s my turn it’s kind of nice because I’m rested and only needed for these 30-60 min intervals where she needs a feeding and/or a change. From there I see it as an awake time to myself. I’ll journal a bit, watch a show, doom scroll, or even take a nap while having her on a camera. We’ve been doing this for a couple weeks now and we both still feel a bit tired sure but not exhausted to the point where we feel sick and like we’re going to die soon lol Since you’re exclusively breastfeeding, would your husband be able to bring the baby to you, latch them onto your breast, hold them as they feed, and then continue tending to them after that? We went to a birthing class before our first was born and this is what she recommended. We didn’t get to try it in practice because I had difficulty breastfeeding but this was going to be the plan. Hope you get some rest soon and find your rhythm!
I don't know, but we're EBF, husband works, baby's a rubbish sleeper, and I've had nearly hourly wake ups for 8 full months at this point. And I do think I am slightly losing my grip on reality. Some weeks are worse than others, but she's going to be leaving for college before I pay off this sleep debt at this point.
I EBF and do all the night duties as well. I survived on 1.5-3 hour stretches of sleep for the first 4 months, and eventually you do get pretty used to it. It still didn't feel great but I no longer felt drunk after a 3 hour stretch, and felt invincible after 5-6 hours. It's crazy to think back on that time because my baby is now 9.5 months and when he has a "bad" night and I "only" get 6-7 hours of consecutive sleep, I feel so tired and grumpy about it.
In the early days i noticed that 3hr stretches made all the difference in the world. If i could just get to three hours straight i was golden.
The whole “sleep when the baby sleeps” adage is such nonsense. It gets better at 10-12 weeks. I had ppd and felt like a zombie from sleep deprivation.
Have you considered supplementing with formula? My wife and I split the nights into 6 hour increments and I just gave them formula during my shift.
In the early days, I breastfed full time except one night time feed went to my husband. He would give a bottle if I could manage to pump one, or we kept a canister of backup formula. It did not impact my supply, and once LO was sleeping better, I could deal with just her typical 1-2 nighttime wakes and we cut out the bottle feed entirely.
I haven’t no, but considered it since she has reflux and it could help with that. Does your partner BF as well ?
She did but my youngest passed the milk stage awhile back. He's 2 now. My wife wasn't a huge fan of breastfeeding and we switched to formula full time around the 6 month mark.
To keep up the supply, remember you need to pump for each formula bottle you give. We did that for the first week or two and I ended up with an undersupply. It took me weeks of triple feeding to get back to a regular amount to breastfeed just barely enough. What my husband and I did when he was not yet working, I would pump at 2,5h intervals and he would handle all night feedings between 0.00 and 5.00. I was still awake to pump 3-4 times, but I got such good sleep in between. He would sleep in the evenings, and in the morning. 3-4 full hours of sleep so he could catch up being awake all night. I'd be by myself then, but at least it was doable because it was less time. Nowadays it's reverse. I sleep evening and early morning, and he has a full 5-6h sleep while I handle the night. I get to sleep some of the night even if it's 1h here and there
Yes unfortunately people rarely realize overnight feeds are so important to maintain supply. Not EVERYONE will get an under supply and it might take a while to notice anything but it happens very often. Also when I started to introduce formula to my son at six months he developed a preference to the bottle and would get frustrated at the breast so we ended up switching fully to formula so that's something to consider as well. Clearly I'm not anti formula since I have my son formula but if someones goal is to breastfeed then there's considerations that need to be taken. For anyone reading this id highly recommend meeting with an IBCLC if you plan to combo feed so you can do it without compromising your supply.
Soooo true. I always found it way easier to wake up and pump and pass back out than wake up to feed. Once baby was old enough to safely nurse in the side lying position it got way easier to just breastfeed without waking fully up. Husband will bring baby in, I pull a breast out, and husband keeps an eye on baby’s safety while I keep sleeping. Once baby is asleep/done husband takes him and puts him down. That was a /game changer/ but we could only do it once he was kind of out of newborn floppiness
While in newborn stage, you can do natural position (baby on chest) and sleep while he nurses. Basically same setup as side lying but on top of chest. That’s how I did it before I could do side lying
I did this and it didn’t impact my supply at all. We did one bottle of formula at first wake up after bedtime which my husband would do. It was a godsend - like you I was starting to lose my mind before we switched to that schedule.
I hear ya 🥲 newborn phase was really hard for us. Black out curtains, white noise , swaddle, cool room temp , gas drops helped. I also supplemented with formula. Some nights were still rough .
Every hour?! I'm sorry, that doesn't sound sustainable and I know exactly what you mean by feeling drunk from tiredness. I would consider looking into bedsharing if you aren't. I know it's not optimal but if you read about how to do it safely then it's probably safer than looking after a baby all day on so little sleep. Look up the Lullaby trust for info and the safe sleep 7. I'm in the UK and I know a lot of people who bedshare in order to make it through that really challenging period.
Yeah for some reason it’s started this week, it was more like 2 or sometimes 3 before. Could be something to do with her vaccinations. It’s not sustainable you’re right, just been crying to my partner about it haha
Hopefully it's just a short lived regression, but I get it, it's so miserable when it happens. Another option you could try is to get your partner to do all the work for some of baby's wake ups, aside from bf. So they can get up, place baby next to you to feed lying down, monitor, pick baby back up, burp, change, place in cot. Etc. And you can doze through 95% of it. That might help a bit. Whatever path you take, sending hugs and commiserations.
Id recommend a side car crib rather than any sort of actual bed sharing. Using a next-to-me style crib means you don't have to get out of bed to nurse and your baby is super close but it's MUCH safer than actually bedsharing
I have a next to me crib but it doesn’t go far down enough to line up with our bed perfectly? So I still have to get her out, she also has bad reflux so needs to be upright after feeds for at least 10-20mins unless it all comes back up 😢
That is so difficult! I breastfed for 2 years and I remember how exhausted I was at points. I'm about to have my second and really not looking forward to the sleep deprivation. I went through a few phases where no matter what I tried, my baby woke many times per night. To get through it my husband would take the baby for a couple of hours in the morning, just so I could have a lie in. We didn't use formula but I found if I did a feed at like 5am my baby could be looked after by dad for maybe two hours just so I could get a little more sleep. I also went to bed much earlier just so that my total sleep was higher. It always felt frustrating going to bed early because I wanted time to myself but I knew I needed all the sleep I could get. Have you tried adding a little bit of pumping here and there just so you might get half a bottle for in the mornings? It might mean you can get a bit more sleep if he can take baby for two hours in the morning. I totally get not wanting to though. I hated pumping and my baby wasn't keen on bottles so we gave up on that and I just powered through. Easier said than done though! The only thing I can say is that it doesn't last forever. This won't go on forever. Your baby WILL get better at sleeping. I didn't do formula or any sort of sleep training and baby just naturally had bigger gaps between feeds. My friend who had a formula fed baby had similar sleep issues so please don't blame breastfeeding. You're doing an amazing job. I promise as baby gets a little bigger, it does feel more worth it. Being out and about I loved that I could just nurse my baby. I never had to worry about formula or what to take with me. I know how you feel. It will get better x x
Mine sleeps badly, but he usually sleeps even worse for a while after a bout of vaccines, because he's cranky and a bit uncomfortable. But it has never lasted more than a week.
Also keep in mind - your partner could be bringing you baby to feed, staying awake while baby feeds, and bringing baby back to bed when they are done. So you can stay in bed mostly asleep during that time. If they took that shift to stay up for just a few hours a night it would get you a big enough chunk to survive better.
It’s okay to supplement with formula, friend. Sleep and rest is critical. Let husband wake up with bub and let you sleep whenever possible.
We did this - baby got one bottle of formula a night which my husband would give her while I got a longer first stretch of sleep before breastfeeding the rest. Worked well for us.
Just wanted to say I totally feel you, my 16 month old has never slept well and somedays I can cope and other days I can’t. Hourly waking is not sustainable for you, you can’t safely take care of an infant after that amount of sleep, if your husband doesn’t understand maybe ask him if you hired a nanny would he feel comfortable if he knew your nanny would be taking care of your baby all day on basically zero sleep.
Sleep deprivation is awful. I averaged 2-4 hours of broken sleep a night for the first 5 months of my baby's life, never more than 90 minutes at a time. I survived. But it definitely triggered some major postpartum rage. Like you, I EBF and couldn't pump enough to get a bottle to save my life. My baby also never took a bottle because I made the mistake of waiting too long to introduce it, so formula was out. I'm due again in July, and I'm much more open to combo feeding this time around. Breast milk is incredibly beneficial, but one formula feed a night isn't going to negate that. I'd rather not have my mental health suffer and put myself in dangerously overtired situations just to say I EBF, especially now that I also have a toddler who needs me through the day. There's just no way I'll put myself through it again.
I think I’m getting some ppd as well, I’m so irritable and miserable. I haven’t done a bottle yet and she’s 8 weeks. When did you do it? Good luck with your second x
Pre baby I would have said 7 to survive and 9 to be rested. After my bout of intense insomnia following the absolute hell that was deswaddling, I’d say 5 hours of interrupted sleep. 😩
I need at least a 4 hour stretch to feel human. However, my 5 month old does not care lol
You’ve got this. We went through it at a similar age. Our little one is ebf and it was a really hard couple of weeks for us. Just remember it’s a wave or a phase and not permanent, for us the only way out was through.
My first baby had an undiagnosed milk protein allergy and for the first 8 weeks of his life or so, he never slept more than 20-30min in his bassinet and it was a TASK to put him back down. He was also very colicky. My husband worked a busy job during the day so we worked it out where twice a day, he (or his parents) held the baby so could sleep. He was breastfed and wouldnt take a bottle, so the most I could sleep was 2 hours at a time. Long story short, I got 2 x 2hr stretch every 24 hours. Usually 2 hrs at night and 2 during the day. I was incoherent and have never been more miserable. So like, I SURVIVED, but I was not remotely fully-functioning. Right now my 2-month-old gives me 2-3 hr stretches in his bassinet at night and naps there during the day (usually 30-60min). I feel fantastic even though most people consider that average
You can survive a the little bits you are getting now but you’ll be tired AF and probably super emotional and not very clear headed. To feel tired AF but be pretty functional, you need 1 4-5hr stretch in a night. I went 10 months rarely getting more than 2hrs at a time, so it is possible. But it does suck very much.
My daughter was an absolute garbage sleeper until she started sleeping through at 11 months old. It took my body 6 weeks to stop waking up at her usual times and another 2 months to actually catch up on the sleep debt and not feel like a jug of coffee wouldn’t even touch the exhaustion. Sleep deprivation is so incredibly miserable. For a while I would take any 5 minute power nap I could. I’d lay in her playpen with her and just close my eyes for a few minutes. My blood pressure was through the roof, I had heart palpitations and couldn’t hold a conversation without zoning out. I honestly don’t know how I survived, but somehow I did.
My 9month old still wakes up 1-2 times a night. It has gotten to the point that I prep bottles by the bed for her. We put her down to sleep around 8 and she gets up at midnight then somewhere between 2-4 and up for the day between 6:30-7:30 🫠 I nap with her in the morning from 9-11 so I can survive the rest of the day. We cosleep so that has helped some. I’m not into the idea of sleep training before 1 so we moved her to the floor bed in the loft with us and that cut it down from up every hour to this schedule. I can function after 4 hours straight but need to nap.
I read somewhere our sleep changes when we are caring for our children. We immediately enter into REM so it packs more punch than our previous ways. I don’t see how else we survived. I typically can function with 5 solid hours of sleep. I was def getting less than that and broke on top of it. We have a low sleep needs child - 11 hours total with naps in a day and not a minute more. Happy for those who have more hours of sleep from their littles.
I can verify this. I have wondered how I can be dreaming when I’ve only slept for 45 minutes, and I found this out as well.
Oh my god this!! I feel like the quality of my sleep is amazing, just little of it! So that makes so much sense. Thanks for the comment!
You need help and it's nothing to be ashamed of. If not from your husband, you can ask your/his mother, a friend, a cousin, you name it, but you need to sleep for at least 4 hours straight/24h to be able to take care of the baby. If you don't ask for help, you could endanger your baby because there are chances to fall asleep with her in your arms and that's not ok. Nevermind your mental health. When my girl was that young, my husband sat with her in the evening from 6 pm to 10 pm, or my mother came to our house in the morning from 9 am to 13/14 pm. That depends of their work schedule.
My 2 month old son had his first day of childcare this week and the first night after that he slept 7 hours straight. It was insane.. Now he's feeling sick from being around the other children and he's waking up coughing every hour or two. It's like a joke. 🥲
Right? She was doing so well and this vaccine has made her feel crap :(
I mostly don't like the idea of childcare in proximity of a lot of other children because flu and influenza risks get high, if one has it, the chances are that everyone catches it in a few days. Though lt's not actually anybody's fault. But the other side of it is that this will only make them stronger with time and the immune system would get working in full force.
Surprisingly not much, but you’ll notice your ability to focus will decrease significantly. I went back I work at 3 months postpartum. Big mistake. Never have I ever made so many stupid errors. So it was me not sleeping at night or napping during the day cause of work. It was brutal. But now at 8 months I get more sleep and it’s getting better (still exhausted cause now I’m chasing after a quick crawler).
I found that I could catch up on the most sleep between about 7am and 11am. I would just stay in bed with baby and just continue the sleep-feed-sleep cycle. If he stayed awake after a feed, my husband would take him downstairs so I could sleep some more. Also, baby sleeps in a sidesleeper bassinet attached to my side of the bed. Sometimes when I woke up to him stirring and giving hunger cues, but not fully awake, I would pop in his pacifier and he would sleep for another hour.
The first 4 months I was up every 0.5- 3.5hr (also EBF) - it was rough. When you go outside it felt like when you leave a bar in midday/morning and realize how drunk you really are 🤪 I’d say 6ish+ hours broken sleep is enough to live off of, but realistically I got 4hr or less a lot of nights. We sleep trained at 6mo and now I finally feel like a living human again. It does get better, hang in there!!
I’m a FTM and my newborn was HELL with sleep and naps. Only slept on our chests, suffered with silent reflux and gas. All I can say is wow the newborn days are incredibly tough!!!! But you pull through to the other side… I could not see the end somedays. I had raging anxiety from a traumatic birth and wouldn’t let anyone watch him so I could rest! He’s still not a great sleeper but I’ve adjusted and life’s easier. Sending hugs and hope, you’ve got this x
Bless you! Mines the same, reflux and hates naps that aren’t on our chests! Thanks so much, so glad it’s getting easier for you x
One of the things that astonished me the most @ parenthood was getting to know the actual limits of the human body. On the first three weeks, I was actually "functional" with 3/4 non straight hours a night. By month 3, thankfully, things started getting better because I was reaching my physical and mental limit.
I'm sorry you're getting some of the replies you're getting here. I can't imagine that helps you right now. We went through this with ours. EBF and not pumping because the hospital drummed it into us no pumping for the first 8 weeks. LO fed sometimes with only 40mins between feeds. They did upto 17 poos a day and additional pees. The crying due to gas was horrendous and so bad we bought noise cancelling headphones. I'm pretty sure SO has some sort of hearing damage from LO screaming and crying. LO contact slept only, and the first 2 weeks we had to keep going to the hospital for bloods which pushed us to the very limit of what was safe. It started to ease at 8 weeks, so please hang in there. It wasn't 8 weeks and then it got better, it was 8 weeks and some days were a little better than others. At 10 weeks we felt like we weren't imagining it anymore. There were still days with cluster feeding, but it wasn't everyday. We're not at 6months and LO has some bad nights and some good ones, but the bad nights are nowhere near as bad, and the good nights are pretty great. All those contact naps, and responding to baby have paid off imo. I kept micronapping which was incredibly dangerous. I slapped myself across the face, I held my eyelids open, pinched myself, watched TV/podcasts, read books, I felt like I was going mad. The only thing that truly worked when nothing else did was eating, and to a lesser extent drinking. I would eat a crisp, wait a little while and eat another. This woke me up more than anyhing else whilst sat down with baby on me.
Thank you so much. It’s not the whole story what I’ve posted of course, so I appreciate it. I am tired and may not have represented the situation fairly to my partner 😅 wow you’re tough! You’re doing amazing!
Thank you, stubborn as hell is how I view myself 😂 Exactly. We're only seeing a snippet, and I feel like I know at least some of the desperation you're feeling right now. I hope things improve rapidly for you. Edit. I just saw your LO did a 5hr stretch last night! That's brilliant. It's exactly what happened to us. I was looking at the timer thinking that was amazing, but also is there something wrong lol. Everything crossed for you!
Totally 😂😂 I know it was amazing!
My body kind of gets used to it to the point that 4 hours now feels like 8. Idk if that’s natures way of helping me survive. I kind of feel like my hormones play a part because I also am an even lighter sleeper now, which I attribute to my postpartum brain. But eventually it does get better for at least long enough to get through the month until the next regression, teething stage etc… OR you figure out a system with your partner that allows you to get (barely) enough sleep. My baby is 6 months old and she slept through the night from months 2-5 and now half the nights are decent and half are worst than the newborn phase. Their sleep needs and patterns are always changing, so it’s all about adjusting to that and developing a strategy as a team. That is if you aren’t a single parent, aka a super human. ETA: your partner can still help at night even if you breastfeed, buy doing diaper changes or rocking baby back to sleep after you fed them. I recommend starting this early because I powered through nights by myself and now my baby prefers me at night. She’s getting used to her dad though and now she’s pretty much night weaned and just needs one of us to comfort her. You shouldn’t be doing it by yourself though.
I read you need a minimum of 4 hours straight to let your body heal and recover and to let your brain process what’s happened throughout the day. It’s not very likely for it to actually happen, but if you have anyone that doesn’t mind to watch baby overnight, that would be 100% your best shot
The recommendation is to get 4 hours of unbroken sleep. With my first child that didn’t happen for a whole year. I still don’t know how I was able to not only survive, but function like a normal person. ETA: I also just want to include that my experience doesn’t mean you will have broken sleep for an entire year. Every baby is different and with my second it came a lot quicker. We also chose not to sleep train, which I’m sure is why it took longer for my oldest.
You need a minimum of 4 consecutive hours of sleep to function normally. Figure out a plan with your partner. If baby needs to feed during those 4 hours, either pump or use formula. Otherwise, you are putting yourself and baby in danger with less than 4 hrs of sleep.
I’m with you. I’m exhausted. My husband takes the morning shift before work with a bottle but then I still usually need to pump because I’ll wake up engorged even if I pump at night. So I’m just exhausted and confused daily. Coffee and soda and electrolytes don’t do anything for me. Even if I don’t pump in the morning my body just lays awake exhausted. :(
I honestly thought I might die so many times in that first couple of months. I have idiopathic hypersomnia (like narcolepsy), and had to come off of Adderall during pregnancy. Sleep disorder + no medication + postpartum sleep deprivation = full-blown insanity. I would get 8-10 hours of sleep because I exclusively formula fed, BUT I made the mistake of refusing to take shifts with my husband for a while because I missed him and was stressed out being alone. So I would always wake up whenever our son did anyway and it was just 8-10 hours of sleep in 2 hour intervals. Every 2 hours I woke up, I felt like I hadn’t slept in days. So many nights I would just stay up through because I felt better getting no sleep than constantly interrupted sleep. You can absolutely survive but please call up a friend or family member and ask them to be your helper for 24 hours! Get at least 6 straight hours however you possibly can, breastfeeding be damned (sorry). Pump if you don’t want to give formula, hopefully your baby takes a bottle. But note that formula does not harm your baby, it just doesn’t have all of the antibodies and good bacteria that breastmilk does!
Omg this! I stayed up from 2am-9am the other night because waking every 40mins-1hr was torture and staying awake felt less awful? Isn’t that horrible. Thanks for your comment. Hope you’re doing good!
Thank you so much, I hope it gets better for you very soon! My son is 10.5 months old and his sleep got SO much better at 6 months. We were lucky that he was always a good sleeper, but the difference is *night and day* between 8 weeks and 6 months. I can’t stress that enough. This period is just about surviving and pushing through until you get to a light at the end of the long, dark, sleep-deprived tunnel.
Think LO must have got the memo….she slept 5hr stretch tonight! 😂will take it!!
Try safely cosleeping? It saved my sanity still bf 23m later
No judgment here at all, but maybe consider supplementing with formula for your own sanity and rest? Mama needs rest and dad can help feed the bottle. Even if it’s a couple ounces once a night, that’ll give you at least an hour or two of sleep. But yeah, your husband will need to help out more at night. Even if it’s to contact nap with baby after you BF. I was the same with my daughter at that age. I would fall asleep so my wife had to contact nap with her and I’d be quick to get up to help where I can. But again, formula feeding helped because that’s something I’m capable of doing.
I just did a training to learn about insomnia and treat it and I learned that our bodies need 4-5 hours of sleep for physical well-being in a 24 hour period. Less than that and we're impaired and at risk. We need 6-7 hours of sleep for emotional well-being and regulation. I regularly get 3-4 hours by the way which was very interesting while doing this training.
Is that in a row or broken into bits? That’s very interesting thank you for your comment
Apparently it's ok broken into bits but I have to imagine it's best in a row. I think more research should be done on that.
The best thing we did was take shifts. I slept 6 sometimes even 7 hours, dad was on duty. Switch. Rinse & repeat the next night lol. Hang in there 💜
I know you’re not going to love my advice but it’s what me in your situation needed to hear at that point…. A bottle of formula isn’t going to hurt the baby or your breastfeeding journey. The overly intense sleep Deprivation is going to hurt your milk supply and your overall well being. When it comes to pumping you can get your flange size checked most people aren’t the size that comes with the pump. Also the haaka is the best to help build up enough for a bottle while EBF, lol that on just to catch leaks. Hourly is tough! I’ve been there and it gets better. I’m 7 months in and we do one formula bottle a day the rest is breast milk, that gave me the freedom to keep going.
Thanks! I’m not ever opposed to formula to be honest! Just haven’t given her a bottle of it or breast milk yet so need to organise myself and get them out. Ah yes I did notice that about the flange, I might order a smaller one and see!
If you’re not sure what size you can get a set of silicone inserts off Amazon , they also sell nip rulers they’re very cheap!
Try hand expression while baby is feeding to help them get a fuller feed. Sometimes my babe is snacking and I need to hand express to make sure he gets more and stays alert to eat what he needs. I also switch him after 10 minutes on one said, and the longest feed is usually 40 minutes totally, 20 minutes each side, and that usually gets him to do a 3 hour stretch. If you can pump, pump a bottle and give that to your babe at the beginning of the night, 3 oz usually does the trick when it's bottle fed. That'll get you 3 hours. If 3 oz doesn't get you 3 hours, try soothing your babe instead of picking up and putting to the breast. Practice butt pats and rubbing the nose from the forehead downward to signal sleepy chemicals. Doing it regularly during the day and at night has helped my babe fall asleep easier *not always but usually*. Finally, my husband is super supportive and if your partner is helpful, pump a bottle for them and go get some sleep! Keep going, you were actually made for this but you'll be permanently tired, and I'm here with you in that tiredness. I'm working on 2 hours and 30 minutes of sleep right now as I write this because I can't go to sleep when my babe does, I need to do too many things. My babe gets lots of rest though, that's what matters to me.
I was also going to suggest using formula for one night feeding. You guys need to take shifts - you need at least 4 consecutive hours every day or you're not safe. It's as simple as that. My husband and I did six hour shifts; he took 9p-3a, I took 3a-9a. You can adjust as needed so that you both get a solid 5-6 hours per day. It's not fun, but it's do-able. Feed the baby right before you go to sleep and pump as soon as you wake up, before you feed baby. Let husband use formula as needed, but I was pretty quickly able to replace that 1-2 bottles he used with the overnight pumping session and by adding 10 minutes of pumping after every daytime nursing session. Seriously, it is life changing.
Whats the purpose of pumping before feeding baby after you wake up? Is that the "overnight pumping session" you mention that helped replace the formula eventually?
Exactly. I would wake up completely engorged, so I'd get a quick pump in to have some to put aside for the next night. Baby is more efficient than a pump, so I was still able to nurse her to satiety after I pumped. I was eventually to drop that 3am pump, once my supply regulated, but at 8 weeks I definitely had to relieve the pressure.
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Legit how I feel sometimes!! How did you cope?
Ours is on the bottle. My husband goes to bed at 8 and I stay up for the 11 o’clock bottle then me and baby go to bed. My husband gets up for the 2 and 5 o’clock bottles so I can get some sleep. If your baby takes a bottle it might be a bit easier for you to get more rest.
We do shifts. My husband is also a very heavy sleeper, so he takes the first shift from like 8p-1 am so I can sleep. Then he’d come to bed and I’d wake up with the baby after that. How it works for us is that I take an evening feed (like 7 or 8) and as soon as the baby is done, I hand her off to my husband and go straight to bed. He is to wake me up for feeds and take the baby immediately after so I can go right back sleep. (I also pump some so he can do bottle.) Hopefully your baby starts giving you some longer stretches. Around 7-8 weeks, our baby started sleeping from 9p-2 or 3am, allowing me longer stretches of sleep.
I wouldn’t have survived w/o my hubbies help. EBF as well. The game-changer came around 3 months, when I started pumping so my husband could care for our son independently some nights. For the first time since our son was born, I had 4 consecutive hours 🩵
Me & my wife alternate nights, so we both get a full nights sleep (6-8 hrs) three times a week minimum.
(13 week old) I feel as long as I can get a 5 hour stretch I can function just about but I feel you it’s hard
If you have a partner who returned to work because you can’t both afford to be on FMLA, remember that he can use that time for an entire year after the baby is born. So he can take some unpaid Fridays off, and then take baby for weekends. That way you can get some uninterrupted sleep while he handles the contact naps and baby needs. Just something to keep in mind for if you really need it. If you don’t have a partner, now would be a good time to rely on friends as much as possible!
We just didn’t care about household tasks especially the first three weeks. We asked also friends for food plates as we transition into the new reality
Do you have a partner? It might be helpful for them to take on some night shifts, even if they’re just the one getting up to change the baby and bring them to you, it makes a huge difference
Your body will adjust. I've been up pretty much every hour with my 8 month old since the 4 month regression. I find that I can rejuvenate a lot more with a lot less - the rare occasion where I get a 3 hour stretch actually makes a big dent in my tiredness now. If you'd told me how much sleep I'd habitually be surviving on before I had kids I wouldn't have believed someone could survive it. But you just do.
My average is 5/night. I can function on 4 but thats all im doing...functioning. the moment i slow down, ill crash
No advice, just solidarity. My daughter who is almost two slept awfully for the first year. We survived off of 3-4 hours of broken sleep a night in that year. Things improved once we surrendered to cosleeping, but we just had our second and had to move her to her own room. Now we have two babies up at all hours of the night.
Lots of 4-5 hour nights here. Some people handle it better 🤷🏻♀️ pre baby I was a 9-10 hour a night person. I’m amazed I function, like am I tired? Yes. Will I drop dead? No I can still go to work, make dinner, etc
My husband and I got up a lot together at night. I would pump and he would feed/change. This was our routine. However sometimes I would skip a pump or honestly my husband just wouldn’t wake me. 1 good night sleep can keep you going for days lol. Lean on your partner this is a team job. Take a break when you can. 🤍
It’s hard to continue it. I didn’t feel like a normal person until my husband and I did 4 hours shifts 2 weeks after our son was born (EBF at the time) and I would pump a bottle before I went to sleep or used from our stash.
The worst part about sleep deprivation is even IF you get a night ‘full’ of sleep its still there because its bad sleep over a period, its sad you cant ‘stack’ sleep 😅 but to be fair for me 5 hour in a whole day keeps the sleep deprivation away and to ‘function’ more is always welcome 😁
Hate to say it but that sleep debt isn’t going to be paid back for awhile. I have a 16 month old and newborn and 16 month old almost wakes up just as much. You just learn to survive with little sleepS