Two week old LO - Cry, feed, sleep?
Hi there,
Bit of a moan, really... just want to see if anyone else feels like this or if there's something else I should be doing every day with my baby. My LO is 2 weeks old today and the past fortnight have been a long cycle of sleeping, crying, feeding, changing. In between all that, it's just making up bottles, sterilizing, doing laundry and trying to eat something before he wakes up again! He takes ages to settle to sleep each time and I'm starting to feel so sleep deprived! He has colic and doesn't sleep for long at a time - I'm finding it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel! When does it change? Did anyone else feel this way when their baby was very young? Should I be trying to put him into a routine by now?
Thanks from a mummy who's had a very long day!
webminx
Bit of a moan, really... just want to see if anyone else feels like this or if there's something else I should be doing every day with my baby. My LO is 2 weeks old today and the past fortnight have been a long cycle of sleeping, crying, feeding, changing. In between all that, it's just making up bottles, sterilizing, doing laundry and trying to eat something before he wakes up again! He takes ages to settle to sleep each time and I'm starting to feel so sleep deprived! He has colic and doesn't sleep for long at a time - I'm finding it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel! When does it change? Did anyone else feel this way when their baby was very young? Should I be trying to put him into a routine by now?
Thanks from a mummy who's had a very long day!
webminx
0
Replies
You will hear this a LOT but it does get better. The first few weeks are difficult because everything is 10 x worse when you are sleep deprived. You will find as the weeks progress your LO will settle quicker and things will become easier and so rewarding especially when they smile at you etc.
All babies are different but with my DS I put did a bedtime routine from 2 weeks or so with bath, massage, bottle and bed just so he could distinguish day from night. In terms of napping, feeding etc that came a bit later - probably at 6 weeks as I think it's hard for them to remember routines any earlier.
Honestly it does get easier as once they get older their tummies hold more milk and they can go for longer. With colic, it must be so much harder for you but you need to just take each day at a time and get your OH/family/friends to help out as much as they can.
Good luck,
Gi & Thomas (14 weeks)
I noticed things improved when they started to be awake more during the day. This meant that I didnt feel like I was looking after 2 little machines that ate, slept and pooped but 2 beautiful little human beings with their own personalities. This was from about 10 or 12 weeks.
Bedtime routine is a good one to get started early, even if theyre only in bed for 3 hours before being up for a feed. Its good for them and for you as it begins to teach them when bedtime is. When the boys were small my bedtime routine didnt happen until 10/11pm but I gradually bought this forward and now I fight to keep them up past 6pm! lol
Dont get me wrong, it still isnt easy. They dont sleep through the night and have only just stopped feeding every 3 hours!
There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it will arrive when you least expect it, with a smile, when they grab your finger, or look into your eyes when youre feeding them like youre the only one in the world they are comfortable and happy with.
Gemma, Ryan and Alfie 25 + 5
At 2 weeks old there is very litle you can do with regard to routine as it is very difficult to make them feed/sleep/wake up if they really don't want to.
I think the only thing we did at 2 weeks was start a bedtime routine of bath, feed in quiet room, cuddle and bed. Don't necessarily expect him to get the hang of it to start with but just keep perservering with the same thing at the same time every day and he will get the idea.
My lo had colic too and we would spend every evening between his 6pm and 10pm feeds trying to calm him down. I'm afraid I don't have magic answer, my lo grew out of it at 8 weeks and I believe most babies do by about 4 months however for you this is going to seem ages away. I just focused on 1 day at a time. We did find that massaging his tummy and giving him a dummy really helped though.
It does get easier and one day soon you will look back and think that it was only a short time he was like this but I know from experience that it doesn't help you much at the moment. Is there anyone who can look after lo for an hour or so to give you a chance to catch up on sleep?
Good Luck hope it gets better soon
Wendy & Sebastian 13+3
I didnt start the bedtime routine with the boys till 9pm to begin with. I would bath, dress, feed and story the boys so they were in their moses baskets by 10.30pm ish.
As time went on, and because hubby works till 10pm most nights and I was finding it difficult to bath 2 tired, hungry boys on my own, I stopped bathing them at night. Hubby now does this in the morning, every other morning. I bought the time forward by 30 mins every couple of days till I reached 7.30pm, to be fed and in bed by 8.30pm. They then stayed like this for a while. (The routine was then nappy off time, sleepsuits on, bottle, story, bed) They would still feed at 10 but I had that time in between to myself.
I now start the routine at 5.45pm, I try and keep the feed till 6.30 and they are in bed asleep by 7pm. By the time your LO is the age of my boys you wont need as long and will be able to take your time, its just that I do 2!
I do hope the colic clears up as I imagine it is horrid (the boys never had this)
Gemma, Ryan and Alfie 25 + 5