Exhausted and need ideas/reassurance

Thanks ladies. The tips are helpful and it's good to know I'm not alone, so vent away, mamanee

She and I both slept two lots of 3 hours last night, so I feel heaps better! I cant believe I'm at a point where I think 3 hours is a good sleep

it's amazing how your perception of a good nights sleep shifts!

I used to think 10-12 hrs was a really good nights sleep! 5-6 in one block now and I'm good :)

oh T_rex, i got given this spray from the body shop. it's got herbs in it and you spray it on your pillow! i swear it works! we love it. can't remember what it's called but i don't imagine they do that many! smells yummy though!

disco:)

I just got back from the family centre. Not sure if I completely agree with everything but this is the advice they gave me.
Feed 4 hourly with the last feed at 10. No snack feeding or top ups. This will mean that she will get 5 feeds a day.
Stop feeding at night (don't know if I can do this)
Make sure I review the ranitideen so that she is on the right dose. They also said it is probably reflux with her symptoms.
Your little one is a bit younger than Esme but the main thing they said was to make sure that she's not snack feeding. They weighed her before and after a feed and she didn't have enough so I need to make sure I offer both sides at least once.

Last night went better than I thought. She woke at 10 so it wasn't really a dream feed. Then woke again at 1.30am I left her for a few minutes to see if she'd self settle but then got up to her. To get her back to sleep I gave her a dummy (which she doesn't normally take) and rocked and jiggled her until she fell back asleep. She cried while I was doing this for about 5 minutes before she started to settle. She was back in bed after 10mins! But then she woke at about 1.50 so I got back up and repeated what I did which only took 5 mins then she slept until 7am! I think that the ranitideen is helping too.

I would think that 5 weeks is too young to be actively encouraging sleeping through. if you introduce a dream feed you might get that night feed earlier in the morning consistantly. It sounds like your DD will drop that night feed on her own when she's ready. Only reason we did what we did is that she was sleeping through and start waking at 3 months multiple times like a new born again so we needed to get her back into better sleeping patterns.

EsmesMum,

LOL! yes five weeks is way to early i meant five months, doh baby brain!!

disco

TRex I have the happiest baby on the block dvd, a breastfeeding naturally dvd and the baby whisperer book if you want to borrow any or all.
Feeding for more than 45 minutes isn't normal and def indicates a prob. Reflux is a beeyatch isn't it?!! Jake was on omeprazole which was fantastic and helped hugely with feeding and sleeping.
You can also make an appt at Palmy Hospital with a lactation consultant - they sit down with you and watch you feed and offer advice, tips and tricks and support. I found it great to just tweak somethings and we weren't even having issues in the end (my nipples were hurting alot so I wanted help with my latch but turns out we had thrush not BFing probs).
Anyway hope things start to improve for you luv catch a big hug!!

T_Rex wrote: Last night, like so many other nights recently, I was up 6 times, for 30min to 2hours each time. I'm so very very tired. DD is exclusively BF and wont take the bottle so I can't express at let someone else feed her. She feeds for 1.5 hours after her bath before finally going to sleep. Thats about 4 goes on each boob - my nipples hurt by the end of that! And I often feel like I'm empty before we begin. I know I'm making milk cos on the rare occassions she sleeps, my boobs are ginormous. But is 1.5 hours normal? It is followed by her longest stretch of sleep - about 3 hours I find that when I finally get to bed, it's often hard to fall asleep knowing I'll be up again way too soon. Warm drinks used to help but I don'tknow any nice dairy free ones (DD has dairy allergies). Ideas for me for falling asleep easily/quickly? DH is being awesome but I'm getting so bored being too tired to do anything in the day. He's been working from home most mornings so that I can sleep in. Trouble is, DD loves to be with him when she is happy, but screams and screams if she's tired and he's got her so I only get maybe an hour of sleep. How can I get her to accept him settling her? She wont self settle at all - not even when she was newborn. And I won't use CIO so please don't suggest that. I've tried co-sleeping but she doesn't sleep well lying flat. She sleeps well on my lap in the lazy boy, but I don't! Anyway if you are still reading, thanks and any ideas much appreciated!

How about night time rescue remedy to help you sleep? Not sure if you can use while breastfeeding or not but worth finding out and maybe if you can some of the calming properties might filter through too

1.5 hours does sound like a long time. Is she definitely feeding or just comfort sucking?   Can you transfer her to a dummy at all and see if that makes a difference?

I'm trying to S L O W L Y get Cooper to self settle too - not there yet, but I'm also not keen to use CIO or CC.   I've been rocking Cooper to sleep so what I've been trying to do is slow the rocking down and doing less of it till he falls asleep while I'm still then once that started working I was doing it (either rocking or just in my arms) till he was almost asleep then transferring and patting and shushing till he was asleep and now I'm trying to do that but intermittently patting and shushing and then stopping and standing there till he's asleep and then the plan is to gradually do less and less till I just put him in bed drowsy and walk away. Dunno if it will work but hopefully it teaches him in a more relaxed way? I think doing that was from one of the Elizabeth Pantley books.

Probably worth continuing to try getting her to take a bottle, maybe trying different teats. Hopefully she'll eventually get it?

Sorry if repeating what others have said, I was a bit lazy and only read half the posts

Thanks Chelle just PMed you. I'm in the parenting to sleep camp although DD does cry while I'm doing it I feel that it's different to letting her cry on her own what you are doing sounds like it's from the no cry sleep solution. We are slowly getting her back to self settle for all sleeps I only had to rock for one sleep today which is a huge improvement! The other 2 I had to keep going and checking on her as she went down without a sound!

If you do go the bottle route T Rex the family centre reccomended using the Nuk latex orthodontic teats for Esme as she's older or even going straight into a sippy cup. Hope things are improving for you!