Newborn sleep patterns? Advice needed and not coping vent.
This is a two part question of how to help DS and how to help myself mentally.....
I'm worried about DS and his sleep. He is 18 days old and basically has about 8 hours of solid sleep broken up over a 24hr period and the rest of the time he will have short restless sleeps where he wakes himself up crying and squirming every 20 minutes and I can tell its not a deep sleep. It doesn't matter if we are holding him or not (when he is in this period it's almost impossible to put him down) the pattern is still the same. Even when he is awake he will be happy in our arms for 20 minute periods then start crying and squirming etc until we calm him again, then he might fall asleep for 20 minutes then the crying and squirming starts again. Im looking for a miracle cure to help him feel settled and i cant find one- the child health nurse thought he might have reflux so the Dr prescribed him zantac, his bassinet mattress is raised on an angle, ive taken him to a chiropractor, he will only sleep on his tummy so we gave in and let him, we switched to a goats milk formula. What else can i do? id even be happy if he would go in the swing etc for some happy awake time but he wont he just cries. I'm not coping too well with the transition to motherhood and I really can't deal with the sleep deprivation. I can't sleep when he does during the day as when he is in a deep sleep is the only time we can go out or get stuff done without him crying the whole time and then by late afternoon when he is unsettled I'm too anxious to sleep whilst DH watches him (just tried before and can't go longer than half an hr) and I really begin to dread the night ahead knowing that ill spend 2hrs+ trying to settle him for an hour or two sleep before it all starts again. The stupid thing is I know this prob isn't even that bad and people do far worse so why can't I cope? How can I accept the fact that I'm not going to get alot of sleep and stop fighting against it because right now I think I have made a huge mistake in having a baby and I hate myself for feeling this way. I thought i could cope with minimal sleep but i really cant cope with only getting an hour or two in a row every few hours. Everyone keeps saying hang in there until 12 weeks when it gets better but right now that just seems like so far away. I can't trust my instincts with him as I have such bad anxiety and I stress over is anything wrong or is this normal baby behaviour. How can I help myself accept this new reality?
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