So when does it get to be fun???

My little girl has gone from sleeping well overnight and mornings but not the afternoons to being a nightmare 24 hours a day. She used to have a long 8 hour sleep at night, followed by 5 or 6 hours, then up in the morning for a feed/play then back down for another 4 or 5 hours. Now I'm lucky to get 2 hours out of her at a time. Last night she screamed until midnight, then went down for a whole 40 minutes until it started again until 6am. She has reflux and I know that's what is keeping her awake. I hate seeing her in pain and I've tried just about everything.

Everyone keeps telling me "Don't worry, it will get better". Just when does this happen? Really need some light at the end of the tunnel here - motherhood is not looking that flash just at the moment :(

hey lulu,
I know how u feel. Bodhi doesnt hardly sleep at all. During the day he will maybe take 2...usually just 1.....15-20 minute naps. At night he still wakes up a couple of times & if he doesnt, i'm up all night waiting for him to wake up. It feels like it never ends.
To make things worse i have 2 yr old daughter aswell, who constantly wants my attention & if she doesnt get it she chucks a tantrum.
There is light at the end of the tunnel:)it does get easier. Its just these first few months where its the hardest, espesially if this is ur first. Ur body just adjusts after a while & u dont feel so stresses all the time.
Good luck with it all........i know u have heard it a milion times....but it really does get better:D

xoxox

Oh Lulu, :hug: I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. I remember feeling the same way (and if I'm to be honest, those thoughts cross my mind every now and again still :rolleyes:). I used to hear different things: "The first six weeks are the hardest", then, "after 12 weeks you really turn a corner" and "things get better after about 3.5 months" and "those first six months are tough" etc etc.
TBH, while I love my little girl more than I can describe, I didn't really start to thoroughly enjoy her until a couple of months ago. Now, while she's still a cranky little thing, I find her so much better to get along with, and more importantly, I understand and know her better. I think it has taken me the whole six months to feel my way around parenthood and actually feel confident in believing that I can do the right thing by her.
Now, having said all that, I know you mentioned reflux, but do you think it's worth another visit to your nurse/dr for a general checkup? It sounds just awful that Isabelle is so unsettled... could there be something as well as the reflux upsetting her? Like maybe a cold? Anyway, I'm sure you will work it out. And all the very best to you - you're doing such a wonderful job (you mean the world to your little girl, you know) and I pray things get heaps better for you very soon. Take care.

i must say, i am really starting to enjoy hollie, she is just over 3 months old, that said the past two weeks have been so hard with her waking up 3-4 hourly over night for feeds etc, it seems to have settled down now though, and she seems to be sleeping well day and night (touch wood)... i am however prepared for everything to go haywire again, as it just seems as soon as you feel on top of things and like you have a bit of a pattern developing, everything changes and you feel you are back to square one...

i was told it got better at 6 weeks but i found it got WORSE, much worse... I have found that 3 months has brought with it an awful 2 week growth spurt, but now that it has calmed down i am having so much fun and feel so much more confident...

the only thing i can suggest is just to go with the flow and try to enjoy the nice times... hollie had reflux too and from 6-12 weeks the nice times were few and far between, but they grow so quickly you really have to try to get things into perspective and realise the rough times won't last forever and things will get better.... everyone told me this but it is so hard to remain positive when things are so bad and you are getting no sleep etc. When you think about it, its only 3-6 months (hopefully) of your whole life of it being so tough with a newborn, its a drop in the ocean when you think of it that way. It will come and go so quickly. Eventually things will sort themselves out, you just have to be patient. The weeks seem to be going so quickly for me now I am kind of freaking out at how fast she is developing. It seems she is learning something new every week.

Keep your chin up. Its not easy but IT WILL start to be fun and the most rewarding experience. And be prepared for bad days and things to completely change, there is always something around the corner waiting to challenge you, like teething etc. And it seems everytime they are learning a new skill, it throws a spanner in the works. Instead of sleeping they are practising that new trick and trying to master it. Cheeky devils.

you poor thing - i know exactly how you feel. my son didnt sleep for longer than about 30mins (and usually in my arms) up until he was about 7 weeks old. i did not enjoy those weeks at all (of course!), and at the time, wondered if it would ever get better. it did get better, he started sleeping larger chunks of sleep, so he would do about 4 hrs in a row by the time he was around 3mths old. it stayed this way (bad, but much better than the first 7 weeks!), up until around 6mths, when we introduced a controlled crying routine. CC has been a godsend (for us - i'm not saying it works for all), and now he sleeps 12 hours straight overnight, and about 1.5-2hrs straight during the day (he's 13mths old now).

all i can say is - get help whereever you can. i dont have any family nearby, and it was hard to ask friends, so i pretty much had to cope on my own (my hubby was great, but he had to work).

good luck. it will get better. just do what you need to do in the meantime to survive (i think the first few weeks/months are all about surviving when you have a difficult child - if you enjoy it as well, thats a bonus!!)

It does get better, the 1st 10weeks for me was the hardest. DS never slept, was up all night, bad reflux, colic you name it.. Now he is 9mnths and an ansolute delight,, believe me when i say there is light at the end of the tunnel... good luck

Aww, sorry to hear that Lulu. Annika had extreme reflux to the point where she had burnt her tube, and needed x-rays to be sure there was nothing developmentally wrong. Annika's first three months were the toughest of my life. Annika would literally fall asleep screaming in my armsI asked myself so many times 'Why me? Why my baby?', and I was always really upset whenever I would see the picture perfect babies lying happily in their mothers arms when we went out or on TV etc. Annika did start to become easier to settle at around 3-4 months though. She still does have reflux, but as she spends a lot more time upright, and can sit by herself, it's rapidly improving. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I once read somewhere, I'm not sure if it's true or not, that a babies crying will reduce by approxiametly one minute a day until the time they are a year old, I found it reassuring, so chose to believe it lol. If the reflux seems very severe, you could bring her to the docs and ask about infant Zantac, Gaviscon or Losec (the strongest). Losec has worked wonders for Annika. I also really recommend the Karicare AR formula, its the one I've found that goes down best.

I think motherhood starts to really become rewarding when you get the first social smile, or giggle, or bubs reaches a new milestone. I get excited over each and every little thing - even if Annika tries a new food!

Hang in there sweet

It gets better the morning after they sleep at night LOL. I've just had an awful week with DS, but then last night he slept 9-6.30 with only two wake-ups and no plays, absolute bliss. For me, it was just a list of things to do until... last night, actually. Then I suddenly realised at 9pm that I wanted him to wake up more because I wanted to smother him in kisses again and play with him... that's the night he sleeps through, including a long sleep in his own bed! Typical LOL.

If it helps, just remember that the baby is a BABY, who doesn't know that Mama needs her sleep too. Babies just do what comes naturally and need to be taught about night and day. It's hard to do this, but bedtime routines help - when DS gets up at night for a play it's a short one - if it's more than an hour he gets a nappy change, but otherwise I just recite his bedtime story and sing his lullaby until he gets the idea... he gets the idea more and more quickly with every passing week and usually just wakes for a feed at night now, very rarely plays (last week was an exception - but he was still asleep less than an hour after he awoke).

DS also has mild reflux, I found that propping up the top of his crib helps him sleep, as does a prop under his neck to hold his head up a bit.

Lulu, just so you know, everyone one of us has felt what you are feeling so u are not on your own! I found it became alot easier at 3 months as this is when the majority of times the bub begins to sleep through the night, also the bub by 3 months is familiar with the routine. Can i suggest if you have no chance in getting bub back to sleep try running a bath, they kick and wriggle in the warm bath with helps get rid of wind or anything that is bothering them, this always worked with Josh as it tired him out!
BTW You are a brilliant mum, do u know how i can tell???? well if you werent, you wouldnt be so worried about her trying to find out solutions to her little problems! Good luck!

Nicholas also has reflux and he is now getting a lot better (he is just over 3 months). I found that going to a chiropractor has helped, as has the colic/reflux mixture from the Padbury Pharmacy. He is also on S26 AR formula for reflux (it is a thickened formula)and Losec. He is finally starting to sleep longer (up to 12 hours at night, and 1 1/2 - 3 hours each time during the day). Before this, he was only having 20 mins at a time during the day and 3- 4 hours at night. I also think a bedtime routine is really important. Good luck, and it really does get better eventually!

Oh gawd, I know EXACTLY what you're going through! Although we never even had that good patch of sleeping. Our DS has reflux (still!!) and right from the start he never slept well. We'd be lucky to get 1 - 2 hours out of him at a time over night and during the day he never slept, except on the boob while feeding (for maybe 20 minutes 2 or 3 times a day). Once we got him on this medication (Losec) he started sleeping well through the night (say 11:30 pm to 6 am - maybe waking for one feed) and then a month or two later he even started to sleep during the day!! Only for 40 minutes at a time (2 or 3 times a day) but that was HEAVEN to me!!!!

Finally by about 5 months old he was sleeping pretty good during the night (by then about 10:30 pm to 7 am - maybe waking once a night) but still only short sleeps during the day...this went on until the teeth started popping through (around 6 months old) when he started waking around 8 times a night in pain. :(

These days DS sleeps from about 9:30 pm - 6 am (waking a few times a night sometimes) and has 2 or 3 sleeps of 40 - 60 minutes a day. To me that is AWESOME but I know to others it is shocking. (I don't know where you get those babies that sleep heaps but we didn't get one)

Everyone kept telling me "it will get better when he's 6 weeks old", then at 6 weeks "it will get better when he's 12 weeks old", then at 12 weeks "it will get better really soon" but I think it took to about 5 months for us. I must admit, I didn't enjoy those first months at all...motherhood is definitely harder for those with 'difficult' babies...

Stick with it and look after yourself as much as possible (take any offered help - don't be too proud like I was) and just try to keep your spirits up as much as possible... It will get better, but maybe not just yet... Even though it doesn't feel like it, you're doing a great job and eventually it will get better...I know that's no help now but when it happens you will feel so much better and actually enjoy being a mum. :) Good luck!!!!

Hi Lulu.
I felt EXACTLY the same. I said to my husband once, "It's like spending every day with the dreariest person you could possibly imagine." They don't sleep well, they don't smile, sometimes it seems like they never stop crying and you don't feel human AT ALL..... a lack of sleep just does not help either.

I had Daniel in his cot at about 6 weeks and was in tears because he was crying so hard, I felt like I just couldn't take it. My "friends" told me; "Just wait 'til the six weeks, it'll get better". I waited and waited for the 6 weeks (I was literaly hanging out for it) but guess what. When the six weeks came, he was still the SAME!!!!!!! Arrrgggggggggg.......

When he turned 12 weeks old it was like a little light switch in his head went on. He started gooing and smiling. He is now 4 1/2 months old and he is just beautiful. He gets excited when you go in to his room in the morning and when you talk to him. When you make farting noises he absolutely cacks himself.

I believe 12 weeks is the magic number lulu........ hang in there. I know it's awful and I felt exactly the same way. You are not a bad person for feeling like that, you are still a human and this is a HUGE change in your life. Some people can take it with a grain of salt and others have to drag themselves through it (I did. I was clawing myself through). That's what I did and now I have just the most beautiful little boy (not that I didn't before, but I can see it more clearly now).

Just keep hugging your DS and one day she'll do something that will just make you heart burst with love and you'll be sitting there looking at her wondering how you could possibly ever love another person soooooo much.

If it gets too bad, you MUST find someone to talk to. I didn't talk to anyone and my DH thought he would find me hanging from the ceiling one day. Mind you, I still don't understand how people can hurt babies as I would never have hurt my little boy. My DH and I had a really big talk and repaired any rifts and went at our son as a united front.

Change is inevitable :) I came to that *brilliant* realization just a week ago... they just continue to change as soon as you think you understand their routine. So many developmental changes happen in their first year it is bound to keep changing.

Persoanlly for us, Ella turned a corner at 6 weeks for sleeping and at 2 months she became interactive and started cooing (which we just loved). And now she's chatting to herself as we speak when she's suppose to be sleeping...

The first few months are really tough - as all the other mums have said call in help if it gets too tough. But it will change and you'll probably not realise it :) Enjoy the little things that she does as changes before your eyes.

Good luck and come back online if you need to chat.

Ann

lulu~ :hugs:

My first 6 months as a mum were very hard.....I couldn't get into a routine with my daughter kaitlyn as hard as I tried. In the end I had to come to the realisation that every baby is different, and went with the flow:). Kaity didn't sleep through till around 7 months we tried co sleeping, dream feeding everything. I couldn't even get her to have naps during the day.
Then one night she slept through :clap:. and ever since most nights she does, unless her teeth are playing up.

Now at 10 months kaity sleeps between 7pm-6am most nights and maybe has a total of 1hr during th day. And in all honesty I can hardly remember those first 6 months now...they grow up so quickly so make the most of those night time cuddles e.t.c because you will be amazed at how much you miss them when they do start sleeping thru.

Goodluck!!!

Exaclty Frog. Being a mum is not an easy job. Is it?

Hi,
I can relate to everyone above. My little one has never been a good sleeper, in fact he is sitting in his cot awake right now, but he is happy.
I am lucky to get one hour out of him during the day, but he is now doing 7 - 7 most nights.
I found it got easier at about 6 months, when I could pop him on the floor and he could play without getting upset. So now, we have lots of play time, and I put him in his cot for a "rest" x2 daily.
Also ( and I know lots dont like their little ones watching telly) he loves "Elmo's World, so if I need 20 mins, I pop it on.

I can relate to all of you, everything said is true. Lulu hang in there, it's very tough first up, especially as a new mum. I went through exactly what you have described & I was at the end. Crying each time DH walked in the door after work, Charlie wouldn't sleep during the day, so was always cranky & over tired. Then up every 3hrs at night!!! I missed breakfast & lunch most days & was knackered. Everyone told me, sleep when he sleeps during the day - easier said than done if they don't sleep:)
But there is light at the end of the tunnel & around 3months does seem to be a turning point. I was always stressed as everytime I went out he was cranky & thought all the other mum's were looking at me weird as I held him all the time, but now he can chat & look at things better he's much happier left alone. As for day sleeps, DH had a couple days off & we just perservered with him, several hours of music & replacing the dummy etc but seems to have paid off.
I read a great book "save our sleep" & this helps with choosing a routine if that's the way you want to go & suggest ways to teach them to sleep. I've also been told they don't understand the routine etc until around 10wks. Charlie is 11wks & we've definately seen a huge change. Though many people will tell you just when it gets good something pops up to put you all out of whack again. Hang in there:hug:
I had a week when Charlie would just cry all of the time, it seemed after every bottle he would just cry & cry. We would rock him back to sleep every feed & we were all very tired. I thought it was reflux & it turns out all he wanted was more food!!:redface: I felt very stupid. He wasn't yet at the age to up the intake according to the formula tin but was ready for it. Sometimes the change can be something so simple but unfortunatley they can't tell us what they want.

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