Mrs

[C&T]

At 6 weeks I was at breaking point and could not go on. Someone mentioned routine and that was the turning point for our family, I saw changes straight away and within 2 weeks my son slept through and has continued to be a fantastic sleeper.

 

I know many people are dead set against giving babies routine and I am sure some will be screaming at this post but for us it worked. It gave us the sleep we needed to function and created a much happier home. I had the book The contented baby by Gina Ford and used it as a guide and managed to use my sensible head to decide how much I used it (or not).

 

Ditto. Know not for everyone - but Aunty G (as we like to call her!) worked for us. Could be worth a read if nothing else. Baby Whisperer is popular as well, and I think helps you recognise sleepy cues etc - but not read it myself.

[Guest]

My daughter cried for England! She had a very difficult birth and was very squashed before I had to have an emergency CS. I nearly lost her! So I had a lot of guilt about not being able to cope with her crying! SHe is 20 now and has never been anything other than a dream since the baby crying days had passed!

 

So my point is? Your OH is like my ex.....basically lazy and needs a wake up call! It's his child too!

 

My ex would NEVER get up at night - moaning that "he had to get up for work" !!!!!!!!!!!! Well I had news for him - I worked full time too from when she was 6 weeks old! He had saddled us with such a huge mortgage and so much debt that I had to! Plus I was the main wage earner!!!!

 

It took me to crack and go to the Doctoe who put me on Prozac - which was rubbish - I had to find my own way out of my black hole!

 

Get help from friends and or family before you crack up - and get someone on your side to give him a good talking too!

 

If all else falls - go and talk to the chickens - they ALWAYS listen!

 

Much love - I do hope things improve - they did for me and my son who I had 8 years later was a breeze - no two are the same! xxx

[Aunty e]

Kill him. Seriously.

 

I'm lucky as both of mine sleep nicely but even then I get moments when I'm exhausted and at breaking point. I have to say that cosleeping saved my sanity with Teddy (7 months old at the mo). He was in a crib attached to our bednlike a side car, and when he woke in the night I just pulled him over, latched him on and went back to sleep. BFing lying down is a knack worth getting, it takes a bit of fiddling about, but can almost always be done. I know you say she isn't satisfied at night, but often just a bit of sucking will soothe them back to sleep again. So you can always maintain the last night bottle, but you might be able to skip a second one. And the more you have LO next to you, the more milk you will have

[fluffy chick]

I have been where you are now and think I would have actually cracked up if it wasn't for reading the baby whisperer books. There is also a fantastic forum the babywhispererforums or something like that. There are some wonderful people on there who helped me get my nightmare sleeper into a routine. I got some terrible advice off so called professionals like ' keep him awake all day and he'll sleep all night' which actually ends up in the 20-30 min OVER tired sleeping pattern. Feeding on demand also turned out to be a bad thing (for us anyway) and the baby whisperer routine was far better, he slept loads better and gained weight.

hth xx

[whoopsie]

Aunty E did you have a Babybay crib? We are looking into one (we have 9 weeks to go before Ichabod arrives!)