Posted on 02/12/2009 11:00:07 AM PST by Marie
I have a friend with a 2 week old newborn who's starting to loose it. Hubby is in Iraq and the baby is waking up every two hours all night long.
I know there are strategies to help babies, even as little as this one, to start sleeping for 4 or 6 hours at night, but I don't know what they are. (I failed miserably at this with my own kids and my daughter woke up every two hours until she was 15 months old.)
I remember FReepers giving good advice on this issue a few years ago and hope some of you can help now.
Also, any recommended books out there?
Thanks!
PS Tell your Husband Thak You for your service for the country!!
PPS My youngest is in Iraq also
A FREERIDER sleeps soundly.
Don’t know how to link but I just did a quick google (yuck) search for “help baby sleep through the night” and saw lots of sites with hints.
Trust me, you are not the first to experience this
this is normal for the first 2-3 months !!!
A NEWBORN requires lots of feedings and will not go 8 hours between feedings.
I had one like that, and i finally let her cry herself to sleep one night (SIX MONTHS LATER) and she started sleeping through the night from that point on.
If they always get fed every 2 hours they will stay in that pattern- start to space them a little further apart, you will know it is workign when they start taking more of the bottle at once.
This is BASIC parenting skill level 101. If mom cannot handle this then get some professional or family help
THIS IS NORMAL!! What did she expect? the baby to sleep 8 hours a night right from that start???
I think she is in serious need of some friends or family with experince.
GET SOMEONE TO STAY OVERNIGHT once or twice a week to help- just so she can get a full nights sleep. IT WILL HELP A LOT
PM me if I can help- I have been a single dad of 3 little girls for almost their entire lives.
My sympathies to your friend. Unfortunately a newborn isn’t going to sleep through the night - - every 2 hours is about normal. Your friend should ask for some help or get a babysitter so she can take a nap.
In my experience babies start to sleep through the night when you can start them on more ‘solid’ food (such as rice cereal, etc.) instead of just formula or milk. Which usually happens at about the 4 or 6 week mark depending on the baby and the pediatrician.
Unfortunately there is not much more you can do until then.
I was going to (sarcasm) suggest Bourbon; but to each his/her own, I always say.
Seriouly, two weeks old is just a bit early to expect sleeping through the night.
Dad of many daughters, here, including twins.
1. Become a schedule nazi. The biggest thing is to keep the kiddo up after feeding, playing and talking until it is time for the scheduled nap.
2. Kids can’t sleep through the night until they hit 12lbs. (They don’t have enough energy reserves until that size.) Sucks, but that is the way it is.
(There is a book “Growing Kids God’s Way” and various secular and even Jewish iterations of the same book (”Baby Wise” I think is the Jewish one, that describes the process. They are all the same, really.)
Really though, I don't know of any tricks for that age. Mom just needs to nap when she can. It's really hard for about the first 3 months. If you live close by, you could offer to take the baby for a few hours to give her a break.
Our daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was over a year old. Our first son slept through the night from the time he was 3 weeks old. It all depends on the kid.
The best help you can offer is to come by and sit with the baby, and let the mom get a nap during the day.
I had 4 babies, all breast fed, so that helped, another thing I did was give them a few spoons of baby cereal just before going to bed. As a Certified Nurse Midwife I learned the books say not to do this. My sons are all healthy men with kids and grandkids of their own, so I do not argue against it. Mom may need more rest herself.
Next is she breast feeding or bottle feeding? Increasing the amount of fluids she is taking in and a cup of warm tea prior to nursing seems to increase the amount of milk a baby gets when nursing. Two hard and fast rules for nursing moms is rest and fluid in large amounts.
The challenge came 15-yrs later when we tried to keep him from sleeping away the day.
If you are that stressed, please understand your family and friends are there for a reason, as are your church members.
But do know this, as hard as it is now, in future you will cherish the day your little one was, well, little.
I have a four month old. A baby as young as two weeks needs to wake up that often to eat. Until the baby is 12 pounds, he can’t eat enough during the day to sustain himself through the night. I can offer no other advice but to ask for help. If the baby is colicky, then she needs to take him to the doctor. He might be lactose intolerant, whey protein intolerant, or have acid reflux.
I have been there. It is not fun, but it does get better. I will pray for her. Thank God women have hormones that suppress all of those bad memories of childbirth and the first few weeks after!
The only reason I am alive today is that my mother woke me up every two hours to feed and started the milk for me when my feeble suckling didn’t get it started. I was only 4 lbs.
What was true for me is also true of any newborn. They are not on a “eat three times a day/ sleep eight hour” schedule for a very good reason. They need to eat as much as they can, then sleep as much as they can and then repeat the process.
As far as how YOU can get a good night sleep. Use a pump and lay in a nights worth of supply, put in earplugs and go to sleep when you put your husband on ‘night patrol’. Any man who wouldn’t do this to make sure his wife gets a good night sleep once in awhile isn’t worthy of the name.
Please thank your son for his service. You too, mom.
Is she nursing the baby? If so, tell her to keep the baby in a bassinet by her bed and nurse all night whenever the baby awakens. She can lay her baby next to her while she rests and nurse comfortably. That’s what we all did.
It would be unusual for a newborn to sleep continuously “through the night” (say 6 to 6 hours). They’re not built for it. Ordinarily the solution is for one parent to comfort the baby while the other one sleeps; I spent many a bleary-eyed night walking the boards of our living room floor with a crying Baby Chan in my arms so that Mrs. Chan could get some sleep. But since Dad is in Iraq, that’s not an option.
A newborn is too much work for one person. My advice would be to have Grandma, Grandpa, or an older niece, nephew or cousin stay over for a few weeks to help with baby. Alternatively, Mother and Baby could stay with them. The only other advice I have is to try and determine the cause of Baby’s restlessness. It’s usually gas that’s the problem; I suggest Mylicon liquid for children (which is just a dulited form Gas-X — a detergent); that helped Baby Chan a lot. Frequent feedings will also help. Baby might also have a low-grade fever, a rash, or any of a number of other sleep-ruiners; I’d check for those, too. Finally, I recommend co-sleeping; it makes both Mommy and Baby feel more secure and cuts the commute if Baby wakes up.
Tell your friend to “hang in there”! This part doesn’t last long — fortunately.
Yeah, yeah, sure, that's how we bought cigarettes and condoms when we were teenagers. Welcome to Free Republic Nadya Suleman!
Sorry, no good advise.
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