Sleep and Routine
No blog about motherhood would be complete without mentioning sleep deprivation, and as the mother of a newborn once again, it's time I had a moan about how tired I am...Well I am tired and the sleep deprivation is starting to take it's toll - a few hours sleep here and there, even with a nap during the day, which I'm being quite good about, just isn't enough. I've gone beyond the stage where I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow and am now finding it difficult to switch off when I do get a chance to sleep.
Last night was particularly bad - I put Theo down at 8pm, he was asleep by 8.30pm and went until 1.30am - hurrah! If it wasn't for the fact that The Apprentice was on last night I'd have gone to bed at my normal 9.30pm and got almost 4 hours sleep!! A missed opportunity (and at this stage of the game that is enough to reduce me to tears!) Still, I was very pleased - that is until 2 and half hours later when I still hadn't managed to get him back to sleep. He was just wide awake - I tried bringing him in the bed, feeding him again, rocking him, patting him, ignoring him....he was all big eyes every time I sneaked a look at him with the light of mobile phone (which has doubled up as a torch since Freyja was born). In the end I moved him into his room and left him to it - no, he wasn't crying, I'm not into that, he was just awake and I didn't really see why I needed to be too. I think he fell back to sleep soon after 4am and was awake again by 6am. Thank goodness my mum is coming to visit today.
On the whole though, we do have more good nights than bad nights - he's generally sleeping his longest stretch from around 8.30pm to about 12/1am and then feeds again at around 3/4am and again at 6/7am. That doesn't leave much time for sleep in between, particularly as he takes up to an hour to feed and settle each time but at least I am getting some. I'm desperate for him to drop the 12/1am feed and I keep thinking about introducing a 10/10.30pm feed in the hope that he'll shift his longer stretch, but I can't quite bring myself to feed him when I could just go straight to bed...
During the day he's a good napper (a million times better than Freyja was at this age. She just didn't really nap - little catnaps here and there and the only way I got a good 2 hours from her was to put her in the sling) - in fact, keeping him awake during the day is more of a battle than getting him to sleep. I've got a vague daytime routine going where I feed him, try and keep him awake for anything up to an hour and a half, then put him down to bed, which works well during the day. But by the late afternoon/evening it all goes a little bit awry and I'm still trying to find out what works best for him in the evening with feeding and sleeping.
What I also have to keep reminding myself is that he is still so young - not even quite 6 weeks yet. He looks more like a 3 month old and already I can barely remember life without him!!
posted by solveig @ 12:59 PM
4 Comments:
I think Julian and Cass were trying a dream feed at 10/10.30 with the aim of then getting a good 5 hour stretch of sleep without having to go to bed themselves ridiculously early. Perhaps have a word with them to see how they've managed.
I've been trying to remember what I did with the boys, but try as I might, its all a blur in the mists of time.....
Oh how I feel for you! The exhaustion seems to really hit hard at about 6 weeks ... Good luck! And take advantage of having your mum around.
Rowan - I did a dream feed with Freyja for ages, and it worked well (although she always woke up for it!), but at 6 weeks she was still staying up crying and feeding until I went to bed so it just sort of worked itself into the routine!! I am going to give it a go soon...it's just so tempting to go straight to bed.
Mini-et-moi - thanks for your comment! We've had 3 unsettled nights in a row now and I am really feeling it!
Oh love, I'm empathising with you. I generally do that dream feed now, which to be fair is little hassle as Lola takes a maximum of five minutes to feed at any time. At best she'll go till 3am, but sometimes she'll be awake again at midnight. Not sure if it makes a difference or not, I think they make it up as they go along...
Such a good idea to document these things, as Rowan said it all becomes blurry. I've just found a notebook where I documented where she woke and fed over a 24 hour period and she woke for food every two hours as night. Trouble is I have no idea when I wrote it - it could have been one week, or even eight! xx
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