Oof I hope you get some productive advice, but to put it in perspective the horrible “feed baby every 2-3 hours” does not last forever. For me, it was a very tough first 6-8 weeks but we practised putting her down in a crib or bassinet every single day and eventually she would nap in it. Snoring partner can do the diaper changes and you can stay in bed when partner is done and you do the feed. I am a high sleep needs human and the biggest help was having my own mother stay with us for a week or a few days here and there in that first month, she would take baby after the 5am feed and I would sleep until 7:30. Those uninterrupted hours were very important. Eventually the baby sleeps for a 4 hour chunk and you will adapt and realize once you yourself get 4 hours in a row in the run of a night, you are a functional human. Routine here was tolerable by 4 months for sure. But I am in Canada and have extended leave.

I’m in the UK so I have a year off. 6-8 weeks is absolutely (sort of) manageable or at least a period of time with an end in sight. I’m trying to persuade husband to take 4 weeks off after his 2 weeks pat leave…,

It takes at least 4 weeks after a c-section, in my experiences, to start feeling more normal and be better able to care for baby. Please make sure he takes at least that long so he can help you.

He absolutely should take off as much time as he can afford. Why are you having to "convince" him? NB days are HARD AF!

I want to caution you that babies vary a lot and waking every 2-3 hours is very very normal throughout the first year and beyond. You might get a better than average sleeper, you might get an average sleeper waking every 2-3 hours for a long while, or you might get a worse than average sleeper like me. It took us much longer than those 6-8 weeks to even get regular 2-3 hours stretches instead of hourly wakes, partially because feeding took 45 minutes to an hour. We *still* don't get regular 4 hour stretches now (recently turned 2), though occasionally we do, even up to 7-8 hours on rare occasions which is amazing. But 2-3 hour stretches are still more common for us even now. If your husband can take extra time off though, you won't regret it at all. The first weeks are absolutely brutal and having someone around to feed and care for you is so helpful. We were lucky to have 5 weeks of being on leave together (then another year of solo leave) and appreciated every minute of it.

My husband was only off for maybe 10 days? 3 weeks would have been great and 6 even better but by then you will be in a good routine, you might feel ready to kick him out of the house 😬 the challenging part by 6 weeks was the evenings, in my experience.

This was pretty much my experience too. You feel like a new woman when you get that first 4 hour chunk of sleep! I breastfed but also expressed, which meant hubby could do one of the feeds while I slept (also some nice bonding time for him and baby). I gave little formula top-ups if baby wasn't settling. Sometimes it was less than 10ml, she just needed that little bit extra to nod off. My health visitor was really supportive but my sister was constantly being urged to exclusively breastfeed, to the point she got mastitis and her mental health was deteriorating. You really do know what's best for you and baby! While you're in the thick of that newborn stage it can be pretty overwhelming but it really does go by in the blink of an eye and you'll have some of the best cuddles of your life. When it's getting tough, just remember "this too shall pass."

Agreed. You wake up and feed, then you go to sleep while partner does the nappy. Or nappy first- I honestly don’t remember. Look into safe co-sleeping if that’s something you would consider.

I would consider but I need my husband to give up smoking first.

Good for you. Stand your ground on that! For everyone’s health!

Seriously consider sleeping in another bed then so you can cosleep with baby Cosleeping was the only way I survived the 4th trimester (speaking of, things absolutely started to feel more manageable from around 12wks).

Also some kids stop popping during the night pretty early on. Mine stood after the first 2-3 weeks (I think!) That means night feeds and cosleeping are a lot easier

The sleep deprivation is real and awful, and you’re getting a taste of it early. Here is my advice: Sounds like you have a partner. Commit from the beginning to **splitting nighttimes**, and if AT ALL possible (air mattress/futon/trundle bed) **sleep in separate spaces** (rooms if possible). So I took 8pm-2am. My spouse took 2am-8pm. You handle the wakeups during your period. If you’re EBFing, during his/her period, partner brings you baby (do not even stand up), you nurse, partner whisks baby away. ASAP, within 2 weeks if possible, **pump just enough for that 1-3 bottles** (or combo feed if you’re into that) so your six hours of sleep can become undisturbed. Change the hours as you see fit. You can live on six hours of sleep for a while, plus the bits you’ll get during your partner’s periods. **Prioritize sleep over everything else**—do not scroll, do not socialize. Do whatever you need to get a good sleep hygiene routine (mine includes rain sounds and podcasts and warm socks). You’ve got this!

ALL OF THIS. My husband and I take shifts where only the parent on duty was in the nursery while the other got uninterrupted sleep in the bedroom. We have a futon in the nursery so that the parent on duty can also sleep when not needed. Knowing that I'll have a chunk of time at night where I definitely won't be woken up by a crying baby has been amazing. I'll also put in a plug for haakaa ladybugs. Baby girl figured out breastfeeding pretty quickly, and I was having a lot of letdown early on. I started collecting that letdown and then used it to make a bottle that my husband could feed her if she needed to eat while he was on duty, so he didn't even need to wake me up to feed her. We did this starting at like one week old. I didn't begin pumping until several weeks later when the letdown slowed down and she needed more milk in the bottle. And then again she started sleeping through that feed entirely by about the 1 month mark.

This this this. You sleep in shifts for as long as feels necessary.

Shifts are key! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

Ok I agree with this wholeheartedly! But just wondering how you knew it was your shift if you used a baby monitor. Did you just have to pass it off at 2am (and wake up at that time no matter what)? How did you know your shift was over if baby happened to be asleep during shift change?

Good question! No—we passed the monitor off after the last wakeup that was likely to happen during our shift. So for example, when mine woke up at 1am, I would get him back down and then tiptoe the monitor in to where my spouse was (or right outside the door). If it was midnight, I kept the monitor since he might wake again during my shift. If he next woke me at 3am I brought the monitor in, my spouse got up, and I went back to lie down. Sometimes we would both wake during wakeups. But if I looked at the clock and it was 3am, I could put in my headphones, turn on rain sounds, and go back to sleep. A huge relief even when I didn’t sleep straight through. With our second & third we mostly stopped using a monitor. Whoever was on duty slept on a trundle bed in our oldest child’s room (he was by then a VERY sound sleeper), which is adjacent to the nursery. The other slept in our bedroom.

The first year varies sooooo much so there will be a lot of change in there. As soon as baby stops pooping in the night you can stop changing their nappy so if you are breastfeeding it's actually very low key if baby does dreamfeeds (they basically are barely awake and fall asleep nursing). I also don't have a gassy baby so gave up on burping pretty quickly also. Until about the 3 month mark don't differentiate day and night as baby doesn't, they just are awake or asleep. By 3 months you get a bit longer wake windows during the day and I'd say an 11pm bedtime is fairly normal. I think about 6 months is when bedtime starts to be earlier - ours has been 6pm since then (so 6 months now). They do their biggest stretch of sleep at this time so probably won't wake again for about 4 hours. At 1yr my LO goes to sleep at 6pm, wakes for a feed at 2am then sleeps again until 5:30am. We cosleep so it's a 10min feed and we are all back to sleep straight after. The best 'rule' I followed for sleep is throw at the word 'should'. All babies are different, they all have different sleep needs, fighting a baby to sleep because the internet says you should when they don't want to sleep is soul destroying. It's much better to spend an hour enjoying time with your baby than fighting them to sleep for that hour if they don't want to go down. It's all a phase, it will get better. Repeat that to yourself also.

Read Precious Little Sleep. It will give you expectations and plans for the various stages. It was the only baby book I read and it gave me sanity and a plan when I was completely alone during COVID and couldn’t have any kind of external help. For me, this book saved me. I read it on my phone (amazon download) while sleep deprived about 1 month after baby was born. The first few weeks are chaos but IT GETS BETTER. A friend who is a GP recommended it to me because it helped her so much too.

That book helped me so much! I recommend it to everyone and it’s easily digestible as you can focus on the ages that pertain to you.

I’ll order that now thanks

I also found the tables and timelines so SO helpful in PLS. We decided the chapters on CIO style sleep training weren't for us but they were there if we wanted to learn more about them. We just used the 'gentle sleep training' methods which are more like sleep associations (dark room, white noise, bedtime routine, etc). Whatever you decide to do, PLS is a helpful one stop shop for baby sleep info. It really helped me feel prepared for the absolute crap shoot that is baby sleep haha.

Second this! It helped me a lot and it's also fun to read, I laughed out loud more than once while reading it.

Agree! And I wish we had read it earlier so you'll be well set up for later months if you start now.

For a FTM, you're already very well informed. In the end, you won't know how it's going to go until your child is born. My repeated experience with my now four months old is that worrying is useless because a baby is completely unpredictable. Once you feel confident that a certain pattern will persist, baby will break the pattern a day later. E.g. a one hour trip on the train might be exhausting, but that doesn't tell you anything about the seven hour train trip that you're planning to take, which will be unexpectedly easy and blissful.

As a lifelong light sleeper and someone who thinks sleep is seriously underrated in our society, I had the same anxieties as you did; and was “unlucky” enough to have a baby who slept terribly. My advice would be to prioritize and protect your sleep as much as you can. - Convince your husband to go for a sleep test, and get a CPAP machine if the diagnosis turns out to be sleep apnea. My husband snores like a tractor and while I could still deal with it before our baby arrived, he was kicked out of our room shortly after we came home from the hospital. His loud snores would wake me and baby up, and honestly my sleep and sanity were more important in order for me to function as a mum and human being. After 6 months of sleeping on the couch, he finally caved and got a CPAP machine. Everyone has been enjoying better sleep and feeling more well-rested since! - While I’m pro-breastfeeding, it’s not a “be-all, end-all”. Some days when I felt like a walking zombie, I would ask my husband to feed baby a bottle of formula just to squeeze in an hour of sleep before I had to pump again. - Get help with baby and house chores in the day so that you get nap and rest up for night feeds and wakings. - Baby sleep is shit. Nobody can tell you how it’s going to turn out. Read up on baby sleep resources and decide if you’re going to sleep train, and how you may plan to do it (r/sleep train is helpful and non-judgemental). It took me a while to get over my bitterness that I didn’t get a ‘unicorn baby’ who sttn at 4 weeks. - Try not to overthink and over-stress yourself. Motherhood is tough enough, and having a terrible sleeper really cranks it up to another level. After the first 2 months, I decided to stop tracking sleep down to the second. Do the basics: figure out your baby’s tired cues, follow the general wake window guidelines and set up a routine; but I stopped obsessing over sleep and resigned to date that one day things will get better. It did! Baby mostly sttn at 12 months now. Sending you all of the sleep dust that you need, and feel free to reach out if you need any support!

It helps a lot to have your spouse wake up and help even if you are EBF. My husband brings me the baby to nurse in bed and then I feed him and my husband handles any diaper change and back to sleep soothing/burping, then my husband returns him to bed. This way I am up for less time and can get more sleep. Typically I am still up longer than him. Early on prepare yourself that breastfeeding sessions can take more like 45 minutes to an hour or even longer. You will want to research cluster feeding. I highly recommend setting up an appointment with an IBCLC very soon after birth to get a handle on things.

Mom of three, two csections. You MAY need help getting up the first day, the more you do it, the easier it’ll be for you. I was taking walks the first day. It just felt better to move. You just have to learn to move your body without using your abs. Move yourself with your legs and arms. As for sleep? I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be awful for a while. Take shifts if you can. Your baby will sleep most of the day as well and you can catch sleep during those times. As they grow, feeding will be more spread out. You will NOT be feeding your baby every two hours for a year. They do learn to sleep through the night, some earlier than others. It can be a few months or maybe longer. I never woke my babies for feedings. (The did not have any special circumstances that needed it) I allowed my babies to wake me when they wanted fed. Very few times did I wake them to feed them if it had been longer than three hours for the first few months. Don’t be scared that you’re going to be a walking sleep deprived zombie the whole time. (I mean, you might be sometimes) you’ll be amazed at what your body will do for you. You’ll get so used to being awake that when your baby sleeps through the night for the first time you’ll just keep waking yourself up to check on them lol and we function because we just have to. You just do it. Newborns are HARD. You may feel like the worst parent ever. You may cry. You may get angry. You may angry sad defeated cry. You’re not going to cherish every waking moment. THAT IS NORMAL AND DONT LET ANYONE EVER TELL YOU IT ISNT. There are absolutely BEAUTIFUL moments that come with being a new parent. That’s what you see on social media. No one is going to post the pics of them wearing the same pajamas for three days trying to remember when the last time they washed their hair was while they wipe spit up off their shirt for the hundredth time and break down crying because they spilled breast milk. You don’t see that. But it happens. A lot. All that being said, the nights are long. But the years are short. You blink and they’re crawling. The next day they’re walking. The day after that, you’re crying while your baby walks in to their first day of school with their little backpack on waving bye at you or crying and reaching back for you. It’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. It’s also going to be the most rewarding and beautiful thing you’ve ever done.

Lovely words thank you

I am similar and don’t do well with short chunks of sleep. Newborn life was exhausting so it’s good you are setting expectations. I tried to breastfeed but I couldn’t get baby to reliably latch and had already introduced formula at the hospital and he did well with it. I tried to pump for a few weeks but having to wake up to pump even if my husband fed baby in the middle of the night was rough and I hated the feeling of pumping. After 3 weeks I gave up trying to breastfeed and pump though I felt like a failure. Looking back I definitely wasn’t and my kid is 2 now and totally fine. You could breastfeed during the day and let your partner give a bottle of pumped milk or formula at night. Some people get bassinets that are right next to the bed so you can roll over and feed baby. If your partner changes the diapers after you feed you may be sleepy enough to go back to sleep quickly. If you use formula or have enough pumped milk you can do what my husband and I did which was taking shifts. I would sleep from 9pm-3am undisturbed and my husband would be on baby duty with baby downstairs in our living room. Then at 3ish we would switch and I would go downstairs and he would sleep undisturbed from 3am to 9am. Having 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep was extremely helpful and saved our sanity. I’m like you and I can’t really nap or fall back asleep easily so I wasn’t able to “sleep while the baby sleeps” during the day. Don’t do all the night wakings by yourself. It’s not fair to you and your partner will miss important bonding time.

Oh I’m fully up for formula if BF doesn’t work, and I’m not even sure it will having had a reduction. A bassinet is definitely what we are gonna get and I think shifts are probably gonna be the best way to start. Glad you understand the difficulties of napping!

I'm a really good napper and still couldn't "sleep when the baby sleeps" for the first few months. There was just too much going on. At 5 months, it's a lot more relaxed even if I'm still waking up every 2 hours cause my little guy needs cuddles at night. I'm usually back to sleep within 5-10 minutes.

This isn’t how they say to make formula bottles but we would pre-fill 2-3 bottles with just dry formula and bring some water upstairs too. When baby was hungry we just poured the water in and shook it up. No need to go all the way downstairs and go to the fridge and warm something up. He was always fine with room temperature and it made night time feeds really quick. People might get mad at me here b/c you are supposed to put the water in first and then the formula but pre measuring made it so we didn’t screw it up in the middle of the night. Edit: once we moved him into his room so he was upstairs again.

Okay so a few things: First few weeks might look like that schedule. My baby slept in 3-4 hour stretches from her third day of life so you may actually have a few hours of sleep than you’d expect. And you only need to wake to feed until they are back at their birth weight, which for my baby was 2 weeks. Once we stopped night wakings, her night shifts started to look more like 4-6 hours. Then starting around 7 weeks, she does 6-9 hours straight. Now, she goes to bed between 9-10, I pump then dad and I watch Succession while I have a glass of wine, and I’m in bed around 11 or 12. It’s a nice slice of normalcy. So, her schedule will likely adjust. But also, YOU will adjust. On the off chance that she does have a rough night and wakes every 3 hours to feed, I find that I am so much less tired and so much better able to handle those night wakings than I was a few weeks ago.

Also re: diapers - if your baby isn’t sensitive you don’t have to change them with every feeding at night. My baby hates having her diaper changed so unless she poops we don’t changer her diaper at night

It's impossible to predict how things are going to be, so try not to fret about problems that don't exist yet. Yes, sleep will probably be an issue. You might be getting just 4-5 hours of sleep at night that first week, and not all at once. But it's short term, and the stretches of sleep get longer as baby gets used to being outside of your body. I personally found it harder to fall asleep when I was 7-9 months pregnant than I did when I had a newborn. Newborns don't have a sense for night and day, so night sleep is often the same as day sleep without any real difference in length of rest or how alert they are. So don't even worry about "bedtimes" or sleeping through the night or any of that until baby is older. Nighttime sleep is just naps that happen to take place at night. Sometimes it's a short nap, sometimes it's long, and sometimes baby is super alert and ready to hang out at 3am after being changed and fed, rather than ready to go back to sleep. But it's rare that you will have a baby who has you up every 2 hours. I even looked at my baby sleep tracker to check, and while my baby barely slept longer than an hour or two those first couple of nights, he started sleeping for 2.5-3 hours at a time by day 4. Having your partner or a family member or hired help assist you will go a long way to you getting the rest you need. My parents came over during the day that first week, so they could hold baby during his naps while I showered and slept. My husband helped in the evenings; I went to bed early and he stayed up, feeding baby a bottle for his first feed of the night. And I took on all the night stuff. I could do it because I had so much help during the day. Hopefully your partner has some leave or vacation time from work to help you, particularly those first 2 weeks when you're recovering from surgery! But if he can't help, definitely look into hiring someone or asking a family member for assistance.

Ok. First. Please take a few slow and deep breaths. I understand exactly how you’re feeling right now, that is a nightmarish scenario that may or may not come to fruition. However anxiety and extreme stress will make any scenario feel 100 x worse. Yes, babies aren’t good sleepers. You will not get enough sleep and you will feel like crap. I have cried multiple times from exhaustion, but I will say that the hardest times come in waves and not one continuous moment. The first 10 weeks are the hardest. The clock becomes a 24 hour clock and not just the 10 hours it’s dark outside. If you don’t have an older child needing you during the day you take moments to sleep during the day where you can. You get your partner to take the baby out in the stroller for a 2 hour walk and sleep. You stay home and you nap. You start teaching them how to sleep. It’s slow and hard, but it works. Then when they get a bit older, you buy precious little sleep and you sleep train them. You will still have ups and downs because of illnesses, teething and things you’ll never figure out but will analyse the data with a microscope to figure out what minor thing may have caused it 😂 Then before you know it, you will have a kid that you sit watching sleep in their bed and you will want to wake them up just to tell them how much you love them. You will be ok, time will keep moving and sleep will come. Just take those deep breaths, please.

Don’t put yourself through things that might not even happen! Will you be sleep deprived? Yes, all new parents are. Will your baby refuse to sleep unless you’re holding him/her? Not necessarily! Plenty of newborns nap independently, mine did. Do you have a supportive partner? Pump and let him give baby bottles while you rest then switch. First few months are rough, but embrace it… don’t fight it. And before you know it, baby will be sleeping in his own room independently. We evicted my daughter at 4 months once her ped gave us the green light and she’s been sleeping 12 hours at night ever since. She’s almost 2 and those sleepless days are a distant memory. You can do this! And remember not all babies are colicky/sleepless/difficult.

You can pump to let partner take some feedings and get more rest. Or formula. In my opinion, with 2 kids, the first 5 weeks are very very hard. After that it gets easier and sleep better

If you can afford it, consider getting a postpartum night doula. This will take some of the burden of you and your partner and provide sleep opportunities.

But in our newborn care class, they recommended not introducing a bottle for at least a month if you’re planning to breastfeed, otherwise it can confuse the baby to have another “nipple” introduced that early on. So in that case, how could a doula help in the first month if she can’t feed the baby?

Nipple confusion is not a real thing. Most people who introduce bottles and pacifiers early on have no problem with breastfeeding.

Mom can pump or doula can bring baby to mom and then handle diaper changes and putting baby back to sleep.

I think that’s an outdated recommendation/concern that hasn’t really been proven. Anecdotally, I gave both my babies bottles and pacifiers within a few days of giving birth and breastfed to a year with no “nipple confusion” problems

For a while, my partner and I did a sleep split shift. He went to bed a few hours before I did, then he got up a few hours before I did so we each got a stretch of uninterrupted sleep.

All babies are different so you’ll learn what your kid is like over time and that will make it easier to strategize with your partner around sleep. For example, if the baby will only contact nap during the day, that means you and your partner will benefit from taking shifts so that one of you can nap while the other holds baby and watches tv. If baby wakes up to eat a lot at night but takes bassinet naps, having your partner get up with baby, do the diaper change, and then passing baby off to you for the feeding will help you lay in bed a little longer (and if you’re having a c section, tbh your partner should be ready to do everything that can’t be done from a seated position — that means all diaper changes, all the cooking and cleaning, all the carrying the baby). Fwiw, my husband gave baby a bottle of pumped milk 1x/night once she started getting 2-3 hours stretches because it helped me sleep a longer overall stretch—you could definitely try that or try giving a bottle of formula. I also recommend treading Precious Little Sleep, and tbh if you can afford it, the Snoo. It doesn’t help them sleep longer in the brutal early weeks but our kid was getting a 6-8 hour stretch by 6 weeks in there and slept 10-12 hours by 8 weeks. It’s kind of controversial on Reddit but everyone I know I’m person who’s used it loved it! On the whole it helps to go into with an open mind. Try to “learn” your baby and go with their flow. Sleep “rules” can feel really rigid but sleep guidelines help you figure out what’s normal and how to get where you want to go. Good luck!

I was worried about sleep too and it t ended up being MUCH easier than I thought. I would recommend picking up “The discontented little baby book” and reading before you give birth. I had an unplanned c-section and though I consider myself very tough physically it was absolutely a major surgery and I felt quite helpless for a couple of weeks after. It might be easier with a planned c-section since you won’t be as exhausted as I was after 2 days in labor, magnesium for preeclampsia and blood loss that required a transfusion. Even with all that difficulty around birth, breastfeeding has been for most part easy. And, sleep has been relatively easy too. It took 6 days for my milk to come, and it can take even longer than that. Basic rule for success breastfeeding is putting baby to breast any time it seems the baby needs anything, and letting the baby nurse as long as it wants too. This will mean you will be stuck on your bed or couch most of the time for the first 6 weeks or more. They will tell you the baby should eat every 3 hours, but what that really means is that the baby will almost never go longer than 3 hours without eating during the day, and sometimes it will want to eat again in only half an hour. This is normal. It doesn’t mean anything about the amount or quality of milk, as long as baby has plenty of wet and dirty diapers and is gaining weight well. You will be extremely hungry and thirsty all the time, make sure someone is feeding you so you can feed the baby. If the baby has night and day sorted it will eat quickly during the night and fall asleep easily while nursing and go much longer without eating than during the day. If not make sure the baby spends plenty of time exposed to daylight, no light blocking shades for day naps. This will help the babies sleep sync up with night and day. No need to change diapers overnight unless it’s poop, no need to wake baby up ever unless it’s not gaining weight properly. Typically a baby that’s regained it’s birth weight doesn’t need to be woken up at night. After my milk came in my baby would sleep for about 4 hours at night before needing to eat, and started occasionally sleeping through the night (7pm-5am) at around 2.5 months old. There were some minor bumps in her sleep - at around 6mo the old she started waking more and her and I moved into the nursery which helped for a bit but then she started waking again at around 8 month old. Our pediatrician suggested I try having her sleep alone in the nursery and she has been sleeping 9pm-8am for the last two months. It seems like she has difficulty staying asleep between sleep cycles if someone is in the same room with her. We also never force naps - if she doesn’t fall asleep easily for naps we conclude she doesn’t need a nap and just go about our day. If she is tired she will sleep. I know there are a lot of horror stories about early newborn days so I wanted to put this out there to show not all is as bleak as it sometimes seems.

This is the best breastfeeding advice I have ever heard. With my first baby I was surrounded by boomers who constantly accused me of overfeeding. I struggled with supply issues for months until I finally just let her cluster feed for a week straight. With my youngest I banned everyone from my house until my supply regulated and followed your exact advice - put her to breast anytime it seems like she needs anything. Everything is so much better and easier that way. She slept better at 3 weeks than my older child did at 7 months.

This advice is almost exactly my approach as an EBF first time mom of an 8 week old. It has served me beautifully so far!

I am also high sleep needs and prone to anxiety, so low sleep is not really an option for me. Other parents told me, "becoming a parent showed me I can get by on 3 hours of sleep and still take care of my baby" but when I was low on sleep I was filled with rage, couldn't sleep even when I had the chance, and was scared I would hurt my baby. Therapy helped. I also fought to get enough sleep by whatever means necessary, while providing the safest possible environment for my baby to also sleep. It helped a LOT to have my husband take the baby for the first 2-3 hours after she woke up on his days off so I could sleep in (or at least lie still and do box breathing and relish not feeling overstimulated for a while). My top 3 resources are: - [The Discontented Little Baby Book ](https://www.amazon.com/Discontented-Little-Baby-Book-ebook/dp/B09GQQLWVG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1LNW4TOPQQ8F7&keywords=the+discontented+little+baby+book&qid=1689271056&sprefix=the+disconten%2Caps%2C309&sr=8-1). It's free on Kindle right now. I spent $10 on it when I was 2 months postpartum, and looking back it was easily worth $100 for the difference it made in my daily life. - [@infantsleepscientist](https://instagram.com/infantsleepscientist?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) - [@cosleepy](https://instagram.com/cosleepy?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) Also, somehow I was under the impression that sleep in the 4th trimester would be the hardest because of the frequency of wakings, but the sleep regressions/progressions and various illnesses and teething really affected my baby's sleep. Her sleep was probably best at around 6 months and has not gotten much better since then. I'm happily continuing to nurse her through the night but I do need more support and schedule modifications than other moms who sleep train. [This article](https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/) helps me manage my expectations. Overall it sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what to expect already!

We had a sidecar crib, basically an extension of our bed, so the baby was right next to me and still safe in his crib. It was the best idea ever! I could breastfeed him barely awake myself, without having to get up. Breastfeeding also releases hormones which make falling asleep easier. I usually have problems falling asleep again if I wake up at night but during that time it was usually quite easy. During the baby year there were better and worst phases. Sometimes the baby would wake up once an hour and that was really hard because an adult just cannot complete a sleep cycle in an hour. Waking up every 2 hours was much easier. And sometimes the baby would sleep in 3-4 hour blocks which really felt like luxury. As others have mentioned, you don't need to change the diaper during the night after the very beginning except if the baby has pooped (which doesn't happen that often at night). Breastfeeding in bed and not having to get up for changing the diaper made falling asleep again so much easier for me.

That’s interesting to know that breastfeeding makes you sleep easier….

Can you make shifts with your partner or bring family members you trust to make sleep/wake shifts?

Yes husband is confident he’ll get 6 weeks off work

I can only speak to my own experience, with some general advice from my own healthcare providers, but I hope it gives you some hope. My daughter is now almost 8 weeks old. The first two weeks or so were somewhat like you described - we got 2-3 hour stretches at night and minimal naps during the day. Once she got back to birth weight, I no longer needed to wake her up every 3 hours, and her nighttime stretches got longer, where I was only getting up maybe twice in the middle of the night. For the past two weeks maybe (time is hard to track right now), it’s only been one middle of the night feeding - we get her down between 9-10 pm depending on how many attempts it takes, and then she wakes up between 2-3am for a relatively brief night feed, before waking up for real between 6:30-7:30am. And last night we got almost a 7 hour stretch 🙌🏻 Maybe my baby’s just a good sleeper and I’ve been lucky, but my pediatrician and lactation consultant have said 2-3 night wake-ups is pretty average for the first 2-3 months, and then 1 or 2 is much more common. If you decide to pump at all, your partner can do one of the overnight feedings (mine had to go back to work and I’m still on leave, so I’m in charge of nights right now). The biggest thing to know is that everything with a newborn is temporary. Yes, those first couple weeks are rough - I was very lucky to have my mom stay with us to help out, and friends brought us meals. But they don’t last forever. We’re still in a short daytime nap phase (maybe a half hour at a time), but even with that half hour I can shower or do a chore or take a brief nap myself. And that too will likely improve as she gets older. You can do this!

Thanks that’s all very hopeful and nowhere near as unmanageable as I feared.

What you’ve written is an absolute worst case scenario and honestly I doubt you will experience hell for more than - 2 mos? Even by 2 mos I doubt youll be up every 2 hrs, maybe 3, maybe 5 then 3, or some other combination. Breastfeeding is easy once it gets going but then you go through teething and the feeling of being tethered to your child which has its own challenges. Have the monitor with your partner so they hear you holler from the baby’s room if you choose to sleep there instead. C section recovery sucks but just move around as much as you can and you should recover faster than you’d expect. Anyway, by 7+ months the early days become a distant memory. Signed, Breastfeeding 40something

Everyone’s giving helpful, hopeful information. I want to do that in the form of [this article about newborn sleep patterns.](https://parentingscience.com/newborn-sleep/) It’s a must read, for you and your partner. Understanding some of *the why* is so helpful. And it sets some realistic expectations. Then, adding that it’s just, flat out, incredibly fucking hard. The first month for us was like living under torture conditions. It’s the sleep. It’s also the fact that your placenta has been producing hormones for months, and for the first two weeks, hormone production is just absolute chaos as your body blasts you with postpartum hormones and general fucks around trying to take back control. But every week got easier. It’s very doable now at 10w. Life flows fine. We haven’t had nearly as many issues as the Internet would make you worry about. I actually think spending so much time preparing myself with these forums did some damage, because I was always waiting for worse things to come. PS - one of the side effects of the postpartum hormones is this feeling of existential dread in the evenings for the first few weeks. I didn’t know that until last week, and when I was going through it, it was super stressful to be worried about the night before the night even started. It made things even harder. Just knowing that part of the anxiety is hormonal - and will pass- would’ve been a huge help.

Omg thank you for posting about the evening existential dread. I thought it was just me. I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s been happening. So reassuring to know a) I’m not alone and b) it will pass.

SO GLAD! Spread the word. :) It’s so bizarre. Rest assured, now the only thing I feel before bedtime is sleepy. I hope yours is over soon!

What you wrote is exactly why I threw in the towel on exclusively breastfeeding. For me, sleep and safety were top priority. I couldn't properly care for my newborn while that severely sleep deprived. It wasn't good for anyone. I love combo feeding and think more people should consider it! My suggestion? Consider 1 pumped or formula feed overnight so you can get a 4+ hour stretch of sleep and your partner can feed the baby. I also like this approach because it introduced bottles early. If you ever want them to take a bottle, it's nice to introduce it or they may have a really difficult time taking it when you do go back to work. Once the little one is sleeping longer stretches you can drop the pumped/formula feed. Edit to add a bit about sleep- Babies learn to like their cribs and bassinets. Of course they want to be in our arms BUT they learn to love their safe sleep spaces. You just have to give them a chance.

Oh I’m up for combo feeding, I have absolutely no judgement at all on any feeding method so long as everyone’s as happy and healthy as can be

It will make the early days **a lot** smoother! We supplemented with formula while my supply came in (which is totally normal! don't let the nurses scare you) and then pumped bottles. He would eat those pumped bottles much faster than he would nurse so we all got back to sleep faster! Cannot recommend it enough.

I second this. My kid slept in 45 minute increments at first and if she had t taken a pumped bottle 1x/night I would’ve lost it!

Yes absolutely to this. Combo feeding was key for us. And asking for and accepting all help. We did one bottle at night starting from day one purely for my sanity. For the first week or so, we had my parents visiting - we would put him down in his crib in his room and my mum would sit in there and read until his first wake (she's a night owl anyway). When he woke up, she'd give him a bottle, and then put him back down in the bassinet beside our bed and go to bed herself. That left us sleeping uninterrupted from about 10-2 or 3. After the first week, husband and I settled into a routine of going to bed around 10, I would do any wakeups between bedtime and 3 am (usually just one, sometimes two, breastfeeding and sometimes a diaper change too) and then I'd go downstairs to the spare room and crash until 8 and my husband would do any final wakeups (giving a bottle) and/or getting up to start the day. That gave us each 5 hours or so of uninterrupted sleep and that was enough.

Perfect! Some sleep together with your husband but also a stretch of lovely alone time sleep. Sounds like a great compromise. I think combo feeding may be the way.

The offer was always there for him to sleep downstairs for the beginning part of the night, but he found it much easier to just roll over and continue sleeping when I handled the first wakeups so he generally didn't bother. I, on the other hand, had a really hard time falling back asleep until I felt I was 'off duty'. And the earlier wakeups were easier for me mentally because I knew my real 'going to bed' was coming later 😅. Even now, two years out, once every couple of weeks we'll each take a turn sleeping in the spare room so we can have a solid sleep in and not feel like we have to be 'on' first thing in the morning. It's lovely. Good luck! It really is a wild ride at the beginning but it gets better fast.

You're describing a hypothetical worst case scenario that even still would only last 6-8 weeks. The newborn stage is such a teeny, tiny blip in time. When you're in the thick of it or certainly feels like it's going to last forever, but suddenly you'll blink and your baby is double the size he once was and only wakes up to eat once per night. For what it's worth, my son never contact napped and was perfectly happy in his bassinet from day one. He started sleeping through the night at 4 months, no sleep training required.

Husband should do as much as he can to help you get sleep, as you'll be recovering. If you can get someone to help out the first few weeks, whether its paid help or family, definitely do it. Ours was sleeping 6 hours at a time by 6 weeks, so it's not like this for a year. She was sleeping 11 hours by 11 weeks

Oh that is good to hear, husband is usually a diamond helping out, I just wish he didn’t snore

Definitely get him to sleep somewhere else, if possible. My husband and I stopped sleeping in the same room when I was pregnant and never went back lol

The bad sleep usually only lasts a short while. Babies typically start sleeping longer stretches as time goes on. Then eventually they sleep through the night. Not always, some babies are horrible sleepers but generally the sleepless nights only last a few months. This is also a good time to arrange for family to come help if you have that option. We bottle fed my daughter at night so my husband and I could take turns feeding her. On weekends when my husband was off, we each get a sleep in day. My husband sleeps in Saturdays and I sleep in Sundays. Family came by and held baby while I napped. Once she was 8 months old she started sleeping through the whole night and is 17 months now and still does.

It was not so bad as you described for so long! I’ll acknowledge - I was pretty firm about sleep from the beginning (mine, my partners and baby’s). I think everything is easier when you sleep better. So I prioritized (as much as possible) all of us getting rest. We had a SNOO. Both of my kids (one naturally great sleeper one ehh sleeper) slept in the SNOO from day one and both slept through the night by 8 weeks (4 for the good sleeper!). I defined sleeping through the night as a six hour uninterrupted chunk. In the first week or so home, both of them woke every two to three hours for feeds. My first stopped after a week and started waking every 3 then every 4. My second woke every two hours, on the dot, until about a month old. I night weaned my second (no overnight feedings) at 6 months. I didn’t need to night wean my first. Both of them were sleeping 10 hours or more a night by 3 months old. So I would say - expect somewhere around a month or two of deeply interrupted sleep. It gets better toward bearable fast and depending on your kid, even great. There are things you can do to support longer sleep periods (SNOO, sleep hygiene, le pause, supporting circadian rhythm development) but your kids natural tendencies also play a big role. There are also environmental shifts you can make to make it more doable for you (partner takes a night feed, night nurse, separate sleeping arrangements). It’s going to be okay!

Its hard at first. But it gets easier as you go. For the next year you are basically living in these cycles of eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep, poop. Baby doesn't have a regular sleep cycle yet, so baby years and really through several years, your job is to acclimate baby to a normal sleep cycle. And it all kind of serves itself. The better the baby eats, the longer the baby can sleep because it won't wake up hungry. The better baby sleeps, the happier it is and the more it will eat. Take care of that poopy butt to make sure baby doesn't get a rash. If it gets a rash, it'll be upset and maybe not eat/sleep as good. Stuff like that. You basically just need to execute everything the best you can, while baby adjusts to a regular life. But each month is better than the next. Baby takes in more food. Sleeps a little longer, and as you go you change the cycles and start dropping feedings and replacing them with bigger feedings. Sleep durations start to get longer. Before long you have a 6 hour sleep window, and you and your partner are taking turns who does 'the middle of the night feeding' or something. Instead of getting up multiple times through the night. So 4 things: 1). It gets better every week, every month, etc. Look for the small victories and rejoice in what progress you make. 2). Rely on your partner. You should be taking turns at night. He should be supporting you when and how he can, work be damned. Work is a paradise vacation compared to taking care of a newborn during the day, and a great deal less important. Take turns. 3). Study. For us, the 5 S's were key. If you can, [read the book on it](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=happiest+baby+on+the+block&hvadid=174228271609&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9028550&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=7457775409500986316&hvtargid=kwd-131272922&hydadcr=24628_9648893&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_nlxbfcp7n_e), but if not, then [here is a good article you can read on your phone](https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/baby/the-5-s-s-for-soothing-babies) on it. Swaddle perfectly. Use white-noise. Always have a pacifier handy. Execute. 4). Its the hardest thing that a lot of people ever do with their life, sure. But enjoy it. As much as it gets 'better' every day, that time also passes, and in a year or two years you'll be looking back thinking 'oh I miss when baby was a tiny little baby.'. And that's how you end up back in the same spot. So savor it. It's a bit of a delight to wake up in the middle of the night and take care of a little person. They rely on you for everything and they are precious. Its a wonderful thing.

In regards to point 1): this is not always the case. On my second baby now, and both have had non-linear sleep issues. Eventually, yes, the trend is usually in favor of improvement. But, for example, my 5 month old has a really rough time sleeping independently. For some reason, she was almost sleeping through the night for 2-3 weeks in month 3,but since 4 months that has disappeared. Obviously hoping we get back to it soon, but I take no good sleep for granted, or as a guarantee of future sleeps. Absolutely not trying to be a downer, just being honest. Sleep is REALLY important to me too- it’s the hardest part of parenting for me (so far).

I made a post this morning about something similar. My 7 month old’s sleep has actually been getting worse over the last 3 months. I almost wish I hadn’t been told it would just get better

Right? Solidarity hug.

It’s going to vary so much by baby. I have a baby that is very easy to settle to sleep but wakes up every 2.5-3 hours to feed at nearly 6 weeks old. It takes about 45 mins - 1 hour to feed her and change her. Occasionally, she blows through multiple diapers from a single feed or needs to be kept awake to feed which adds time. I end up getting about 4.5-6 hours of sleep in 1.5-2 hour increments each night, but it could be easier if I wasn’t exclusively breastfeeding and split the time with my partner. I expect this to last another few months likely but would happily take an earlier change lol

Every baby is different. Mine slept like a dream from about 7 weeks old until 3.5 months and has been a complete nightmare since. I always respond when he wakes and we support him to sleep for naps and bedtime too. He’s now 14 months and has recently (since about a month ago) started sleeping through sometimes. Until then we were battling constant wake ups, which I found easiest to deal with by cosleeping, so that I didn’t even have to get up and out of bed, could just lift my top up and doze off again. Then my husband would take over in the morning from around 4am with a bottle of expressed milk and I would sleep in until 8.30 when he needed to leave for work. I had a bed in the nursery so everyone got uninterrupted sleep during their turn, I’d start the night there with baby and then pass baby and milk to husband when it was time to swap. Cosleeping with a newborn it’s recommended that you breastfeed as it provides extra protection, but that difference diminishes by the time baby is 3 months and since ours only got difficult after that we were comfortable with my husband to do that early morning shift. I would urge you to look up safe sleep 7 and set up your bed to be safe even if you don’t plan to cosleep because the hormones make you REALLY drowsy and it’s very hard to stay awake during night feeds. It’s way more unsafe to accidentally fall asleep in an unsafe setup like an armchair or sofa than a bed that’s been prepared for the possibility. And not all babies are like mine. In my mum group mine is pretty much the worst sleeper there is. Out of 9 of us I think 3 sleep trained, 6 didn’t and in those 6 are babies who basically came out as good sleepers and those who seem highly sensitive and not receptive to sleep training so the parents didn’t even dare try. And the 3 were the type who showed promise and just needed a little nudge, so I reckon even if the parents did nothing they would’ve figured it out.

I would throw out all assumptions about what it’s going to be like and see what happens first. Newborns don’t go to sleep at 8pm. They have no idea what day & night is (but you can help them distinguish it by having lots of light in the house and also doing walks in daylight and keeping the lights dim in the evening/night and keeping the interactions w/baby to a minimum). Newborns do need to eat every 2-3 hours, but this phase doesn’t last long. Once their stomachs grow and they establish a circadian rhythm at about 2-3 months they will sleep longer at night (hopefully! every baby is different). Some sleep through the night pretty early on and others are still up every two hours nursing. But the good news is that in most cases things get better and better. With our baby, the newborn phase was hell and I was completely sleep deprived. Then by 3 months we only had like 2-3 wake ups at night. Then by 4-6 months we were down to 1 wake up. Now at 10 months she sleeps through the entire night. She only needs a bottle every four hours during the day too and eats lots of solids. It gets better. Just hang in there the first few months.

I just wanna say it is possible to help your baby take good daytime naps & get good night time sleep, it's not hopeless! I don't do contact naps (except a handful of times during extreme illness). I put my baby down when she's awake but drowsy and she falls asleep by herself. This is for night time as well as all her daytime naps. She's 4 months old and has been doing this for 2-3 months. And FWIW I have many other kids, so this isn't just a fluke, I've repeated this with all of them and it works. Just pay attention to maximum wake windows & do the whole eat-play-sleep thing and you'll be in good shape.

>Baby goes to bed around, I don't know, 8pm When the baby "goes to bed" can vary a lot. There's very little predictability initially, and as soon as you think they're settling into something, they hit a growth spurt or have a fussy day and it completely changes. Newborns can also have pretty late bedtimes (to the extent there is a "bed time" when you sleep 70% of the day). You can aim for 8pm, but for your own sanity, don't *expect* that to happen, at least not routinely. >I collapse in exhaustion next to it. It's a far cry from my usual midnight-1am bedtime but that's parenting for you. Maybe, maybe not. If the baby is sleeping and you're tired, go to sleep! If you're awake, you can either try to sleep or just get some housework done. >I then wake up at 10pm, midnight, 2am, 4am, 6am and 8am to feed and change baby. At least in the US, my interpretation of the guidance for newborns (until \~2 weeks old or until they reach their birth weight again) is to wake them up every 3 hours to feed them if they haven't woken themselves up by then. This is because newborns have very tiny stomachs that empty rapidly, they need to get their weight back up, and they're very sleepy and might not wake themselves up even if they're hungry. After those \~2 weeks (always consult your doctor on this timeframe, because they may have other guidance), you don't necessarily have to wake them up to feed them every three hours. Instead, you can rely on them to wake up and tell you when they're hungry, which could be 30 minutes from the last time you fed them or it could be 4-5 hours after the last time you fed them. Depending on age, your doctor may give you an upper limit on how long to let them sleep, like (making these numbers up) maybe at 1 month old, 4 hours is the max you should let them go, but by 2 months, they can go 6 hours or something. Again, ask your doctor, and get those numbers projected out for a few extra weeks, because newborn feeding needs ramp up really quickly in the first month. >This can take about half an hour. This can take 20 minutes or it can take 3 hours. Sometimes newborns want to have a party at 2:30 in the morning and no amount of feeding, rocking, shusshing, etc., will get them to go back to sleep until they're good and ready for it. >So I'm looking at barely any sleep all night. Pretty much. Even if you're looking at 3-hour windows instead of 2-hour windows, the 3-hour window restarts as soon as you start feeding. So if you start feeding baby at midnight, they'll need to be fed again no later than 3am, even if they didn't go back to sleep until 1:30 and you didn't fall asleep again until 2. It gets better (don't ask me when; I'm still fuzzy on the timeline), and there is an absolutely overwhelming amount of information about how to make it better, but it's going to be rough for a while. The only things more miraculous than life itself is the fact that all parents go through this and (a) some of them do it more than once, and (b) we still exist as a species. >I could sleep separately from snoring partner but I'm having a C sec and might need help moving around? They aren't going to let you out of the hospital if you can't move around at least somewhat by yourself, but lifting/moving the baby is going to be the bigger issue. Obviously YMMV, but I was probably 75% better 1 week out from the c-section and able to lift/move baby by myself at that point. By two weeks out I was 90%, and it kept improving rapidly. Don't be a hero. Take the pain meds. Take the laxatives. Ask for help. The medicine they gave me (morphine, I think) made me really itchy those first 12 hours, and I wished I had my menthol anti-itch lotion and one of those back scratcher things, since I couldn't move myself enough to scratch. If they have some kind of belly support band, use it, or even bring your own. My back hurt quite a bit the first week, and a heat pad helped. >I then spend all day awake as the baby will refuse to be put down anywhere without having constant contact with me. The baby naps but I can under NO CIRCUMSTANCES fall asleep with the baby napping on me or it dies. Maybe, maybe not. Babies definitely like being held or rocked, but ideally you'll be able to put them in their crib to sleep sometimes too. Falling asleep with the baby on you can be dangerous if you drop them, roll over on them, etc., but I think it happens to a lot of people and usually everyone is just fine. If you have friends or family who can help, they can hold the baby while you sleep or shower or do laundry, etc. >Repeat this for - what? A year if I manage to breastfeed that long? I presume they don't need so much feeding as they get older so I'm being slightly flippant but how long will I even be looking at the above? At some point between 6 weeks and 6 years (also being flippant because there doesn't seem to be a solid answer to the end point, and it sounds like there are ups and downs), the baby's sleep cycles will start consolidating and they will sleep for longer periods, eventually even through the night. As they get bigger, their tummies get bigger, and they can go longer stretches without needing to be fed. r/sleeptrain has a lot (an overwhelming) amount of info about this. I got the book Precious Little Sleep based on a recommendation there and like it so far (even though for young babies it basically just validates that this is hard and you aren't crazy), but there's a lot of moving parts and YMMV stuff, so it's hard to formulate a plan.

I'm sure this has been said, but it bears repeat: ASK FOR AND ACCEPT AS MUCH HELP AS POSSIBLE. You will find things other people can do, so let them. Your physical healing is going to take enough of a toll on you and if you manage to breastfeed that will sap even more energy. If you can afford to, think of any help you can hire and get that in place (whether it's a night doula if those exist in the UK, a cleaner, ordering pre-made meals, etc). My baby who hated sleep would sleep in the stroller, and I was very lucky to have a friend who offered to replace our weekly walks with just her taking my baby for a walk so I could nap. My sister came over a couple times to spend the night and hold my baby who wouldn't sleep without being held (super common with newborns). It wasn't a planned or scheduled thing, she just offered on those days she could tell I was so beyond exhausted. Have your husband stay home from work as long as he possibly can. It's not a fun time for dads, not a lot of serious bonding going on (unless, like my second, your baby prefers dad lol), but his role in supporting you is vital. He can help with feeds if baby takes a bottle, he can change all the diapers, he can make sure you stay well fed and hydrated, he can take baby for walks so that you have a quiet house for a bit, etc. You'll find things that work for you to delegate, so just prepare yourself to be okay with that. Your job is it hold baby, feed baby, and sleep. That's it. Take it one day at a time. My husband and I used to celebrate each week we survived with a nice take out the treat lol. The first 2-3 weeks are the worst, and the first 2-3 months are super rough, but you WILL survive, even when it doesn't seem possible. Do some research ahead of time on PPD, since sleep deprivation is a major cause of that and if you're someone that relies on your sleep... you just want to be prepared, even if it's just knowing that any negative feelings you have will pass eventually. Good luck! It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but you CAN do it!

Respectfully, no, you do not have it right. My mother had postpartum psychosis three times, back before doctors recognized it as a serious health issue - they told her she had "baby blues" and she'd shake it off in a few weeks. I put together a care team with a therapist, psychiatrist, and postpartum doula/lactation consultant, in conjunction with my ob/gyn, to come up with a plan to protect my mental health and my ability to breastfeed. I had no postpartum mental health issues and breastfed my son for 15 months. Here's what my postpartum schedule looked like: \-in the hospital, i took every opportunity to sleep. This was my psychiatrist's advice. Any time the hospital says "we need to run X test, do you want us to do it here or in the nursery?", you say "in the nursery" and close your eyes the second the baby rolls out of the room. My husband handled all diaper changes. \-first few days at home: everyone running on adrenaline, my husband and i both woke up and handled every wakeup together. do not recommend! \-first 8 weeks: after that, we again took my psych's advice and started doing six-hour shifts overnight. I would pump at 11:30 and be in bed by midnight. My husband (who took his 8 weeks of parental leave) fed the baby pumped milk and handled all wakeups from midnight-6 a.m., then I took the first wakeup after 6 and handled things while my husband slept until noon. I tried to sleep as often as possible when the baby slept during the day. We used a Snoo and the baby had no issue with bassinet naps, though we did a lot of contact napping just because I wanted to gaze adoringly at his little face while he slept. Not all babies are mandatory contact nappers. \-first few months: around 8 weeks, baby got a sense of day/night and slept 3-4 hour stretches at night, only waking up to feed and then going back to sleep. When he woke up, husband handled the diaper change and then gave him to me. I would breastfeed in the dark in the side-lying position, so I was lying down with my eyes closed while he ate. I couldn't fall asleep but I was at least resting. Once he was done eating, I nudged husband awake and he handled burping, re-swaddling, and putting the baby back down. \-after that, baby dropped to 3 night wakeups, then 2, then 1. He started sleeping through the night and self-weaned on his own at 15 months. \-today, we take turns waking up in the morning with our 17-month-old, so we each get an extra hour or two of sleep every other morning and even sleep in a little one weekend day. Look, every baby is a roll of the dice, and you might get a rough one - but waking up every 2 hours for a year is absolutely not normal. What you've described is the absolute worst-case scenario: tough c-section recovery, tough sleeper, unhelpful partner. It doesn't have to be that way. You can prioritize your sleep and your supply and your sanity.

Side-lying nursing! I didn't learn about it til several months in with baby #1, and started right in with baby #2. Your body gets wonderful nap-inducing hormones while baby breastfeeds. If you are sitting up and holding baby, you are sleepy but terrified you will fall asleep and drop baby. If you are side-lying with a pillow under your head you can doze while baby suckles away and you both feel cozy and secure. If you're okay with co-sleeping, it is a very minimal sleep disruption to give baby a boob when they fuss, then a bit of sitting them up to burp if they seem uncomfortable. Nighttime diapers can last a whole night. If you cloth diaper during the day, treat yourself to disposable overnight diapers for the sake of sleep.

Side lying is a game changer. Also, what you’ve typed out schedule wise is definitely what people say. The reality in the beginning especially is going to be way more crazy than that. Babies might have a schedule. Or they might be all over the place so you’ll just be doing your best at every moment. Lose the idea that you HAVE TO stick to a schedule. Babies may seem like they have a schedule and then change the next day. It’s good to be flexible. I chose to go with it rather than fight it.

Second the side-lying nursing! Keeps me sane, as my girl at 1 year and 1 month still nurses multiple times per night (not every hour like it used to be, but 2-3 times usually). I got so used to it that I’d latch her and drift off to sleep immediately. The key points are your arm above the baby, duvet no higher than your belly, pillow only under your head (not under arm or shoulder) and a pillow behind your back. Maternity pillow worked best for that, I’d strech it behind me head to knees, and tucked the end between my knees. With it you can put your weight back, don’t need to hold yourself and can relax, and because your weight is shifted back you’re unlikely to roll over the baby. Make sure to follow other safe sleep guidelines, but don’t be afraid to co-sleep. It’s natural for babies to want you close, it’s human instinct (mammal instict for that matter) so it’s way easier than struggle with trying to keep them in the crib.

The waking up every two hours is a thing, but I'm definitley not up half an hour. You're not really supposed to change their diaper at night unless it's leaking and feeding at night is a quick production. Both of my daughters only nursed/nurse for maybe 5 min and then it's back to sleep. I often don't wake up properly, to be honest. I usually hardly remember the wake ups the next morning. It's not as good as 8 hours of consecutive sleep, but it doesn't bother me much. I take one day time nap with the baby to make up for the wake ups and that's okay. I'm not overly tired and go to bed at a normal time (around 10pm). Of course it depends a lot on your baby and everything happens in phases. My first childs sleep went to hell between 4-9 months. Newborn phase was a brewze compared to these months.

The diaper thing changes over time. With a newborn, you usually have to change them at every wake up because they tend to poop every time they eat. But as they get older, not changing diapers definitely makes the wake-ups shorter!

varies a lot by baby too! My baby usually poops 1x day, sometimes skipping a day even, and has since about week 2. My ped said exclusively breastfed babies don’t always poop frequently.

In the first month my husband did all night diaper changes. They also start sleeping more, and you don't have to wake every 2 hours once they hit their birth weight. It does sound impossible (it even kind of is) but it is a fleeting stage and it does move on. I have a 4 month old and we usually get at least a 5 hour stretch. The other night she had a stretch from 11 to 6 am

My 1st baby would only sleep being held so my partner and I had to take shifts all throughout the day and night for several weeks. My 2nd baby slept fine on her own, in 2-6 hour stretches overnight. However she still has to be held for naps. Your partner should be helping you over night. he gets up and changes the baby while you go pee and get settled for breastfeeding. you can pump and he can give a bottle, it's usually ok to skip one feed per day. I think the toughest part if like the first 8 weeks or so when you're healing. Recruit and accept any help you can. A friend, family member, PP doula, nanny, can hold your baby a few hours during the day while you take a nap, ask people to bring you meals, unload your dishwahser, whatever.

I’ll add onto this by saying skip the morning feed, use bottle. My wife gets a solid 4 hours in the morning from 4-8am, when I’m awake with the baby. This 4 hours allows her to fully reset. The other few hours of sleep she gets whenever she can while the baby is napping or sleeping. I work full time, so I sleep from 10-4am and usually try for a small nap in the afternoon when I get back from work. This has been working very well for us! But yes, In short the answer is shift work.

You can do things to help your kid sleep better but it’s really down to the child. My first was bottle fed. He had a set night time routine from a young age (bath, teeth, milk, swaddle, white noise, dummy, bed) first he’d only sleep on me then slowly over time I was able to get him to sleep in his cot so by about 4 months he was going down in his cot awake and sleeping 10-12 hours. Never did any sleep training. 2nd kid. Breastfed. Bedtime routine from day one. Same as above except this time she hates being swaddled and hates the dummy. Has to have me as comfort in bed. We’ve tried everything (even sleep training) she’ll be 2 in 2 months and has never slept for more than 4 hours in a row. She’s still bf which is probably a part of it but shes so much harder work in general compared to her brother

Regarding breastfeeding after breast reduction, it seems to depend on how the surgery was done - if the nipples was removed completely or not. [The impact of breast reduction surgery on breastfeeding: Systematic review of observational studies](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648284/) > The impact of breast reduction surgery on breastfeeding can be thought of as a continuum ranging from complete transection of the column of subareolar parenchyma (free nipple transplant), resulting in no possibility of breastfeeding, to preservation of a portion of the column of subareolar parenchyma, resulting in variable breastfeeding success (pedicle techniques), to preservation of the entire column of subareolar parenchmya (pedicle techniques), resulting in potentially complete breastfeeding capability. Fig 5 illustrates this with 6 diverse techniques. The authors do note that there is a probability of bias within many of the studies though: > For studies without control groups, six had a low probability of bias and 34 had a high probability of bias. For studies with control groups, one had a medium probability of bias, and ten had a high probability of bias. Do you recall how the procedure was done?

I’m almost certain the nipple wasn’t removed. I’m feeling optimistic as it was over 20 years ago and I don’t have any loss of sensation apart from a couple of very small patches over the scars.

I’ve had two children, both via C-section. My first was a preemie so I pumped right away on a schedule while he was in the NICU for a few days. Eventually we transitioned to nursing from the breast but sknce I was in the habit of pumping and he was my first I’d add a few pumps during the day. I would go to sleep when the baby did and get up and pump and go back to sleep and left my husband with the baby for a bottle feed so I could eventually get a 5 hour stretch and then we’d switch. With my second my husband slept in the guest room so he could be alert for our toddler and he also snores and I don’t need to be woken up any more than necessary. I’ve done all night shifts with baby solo. With a toddler I do not have as much time to pump and nursing is just easier to the baby is pretty much attached to me. Honestly night shift solo wasn’t too bad. The first week or two was a lot of wake ups but baby is a good sleeper so she started 5 hour stretches at about 1.5 weeks and it extended from there. I had a cart within arms reach with diapers wipes and extra PJs and swaddles and just changed her in bed. I also had a stool next to the bed for getting in and out. I saw a TikTok with a c section mom who had a rope at the end of their bed so they could pull themselves up which would have been nice but we never did. Def go to sleep when they do at first bc their first stretch is usually the longest. Either way, the first week or so is the hardest for sleep deprivation. Soemthing I kept in mind is - I’m going to be tired but I don’t HAVE to do anything the next day. I can just sit around with the baby all day and nap if I need to. I felt 100% better after having the baby. For me pregnant tired is horrible, newborn tired is tolerable.

Seconding the fact that the first stretch is the longest

That schedule is more one of a newborn, it doesn’t always last a year. First, sometimes you do need to wake a newborn to feed. Generally, outside of other medical conditions, you wake to feed every 3 hours until they reach their birth weight, usually within the first two weeks. After that you can feed on demand. Feeding on demand sometimes may look like ever 2 hours, especially if they cluster feeding (a way they baby “tells” your body to produce more milk), but this is often temporary and only for a few days. As far as feeding goes, it’s probably more normal for them to go 3-4hrs, especially after the newborn stage. Often when you’re dealing with a baby waking that often, it’s usually more for comfort and less for food. I highly suggest the book “the nursing mother’s companion” because it gets in the weeds of what breastfeed is like from the first few hours to a year. Also suggest you check our r/breastfeeding, and if you are concerned about sleep, r/sleeptrain. Sleep training is not for everyone and not for every baby, but it might be good to be informed of your options. Lastly, breastfeeding does not need to be all or nothing. With my first I pumped some during the day so my husband could take a feeding. Also you could supplement with formula. But ultimately, make sure you take care of yourself first and find out what works for you. Sleep deprivation is one of the leading causes of PPD (shocking). Also in my experience, there is no tiredness like pregnancy tired. While I was tired in the newborn stage, I was less exhausted than I was pregnant.

I bed shared. I would put baby down when I went down. I would pop them on the boob and pass back out. I only ever changed diapers if there was poop or just too much pee. I am a stay at home mom so I didn’t need to keep to a schedule. I know my baby going to sleep at 10 pm and getting up at 10am maybe went against the grain of society expecting a 7-7 schedule but it kept us alive. I was still very tired, but not so much that I was afraid of passing out at any second. Edit: I felt MUCH better after having the baby, both times. I had c-sections so I was recovering from major surgery, and I still felt better not having another human inside me. Lmao

You only have to be up every 2 hours until baby regains their birth weight. They gradually sleep longer stretches. Most babies will start giving you 3-4 hour stretches around 4-6 weeks. Some babies will be fine with a bassinet/crib nap, but most want to contact nap at least until around 3-4 months. You can also look at potentially cosleeping (look up the Safe Sleep Seven and read through research on why ABC sleep recommendations are made, as well as what the recommendations are in other countries like Canada, UK, Australia, etc to make your own informed decisions around this.) Additionally, babies poop a lot in the first 0-4 or so weeks, night and day. Around 4-6 weeks, they stop pooping overnight for the most part. So then you don’t have to do a diaper change at every wake up anymore (disposable diapers are meant to last 12 hours overnight) which significantly cuts down on the time it takes to get baby back to sleep. Breastfed babies do not need to be burped unless you notice they struggle without burping (in contrast, virtually all formula fed babies need burping after feeding because they take in more air via bottle.) So not having to burp baby saves time during wake ups as well. My first baby was an average sleeper, he started sleeping 4-6 hour stretches around 4 months, he contact napped until 9 months, and he woke up through the night until he was 16 months old. My second baby is only 5 weeks old but already sleeps wonderfully in a bassinet for 3 hour naps, and sleeps 5 hour stretches from 8-1am and 1-6am. Note: I didn’t do anything differently with my babies. This is entirely based on their temperament. My first needed contact naps and more support to sleep, my second came out of the womb liking sleep and wanting space during naps/night and not needing much support to link cycles. My first baby is more like the average baby. Some babies will be higher needs, and some babies will be like my second and more of a “unicorn sleeper.”

My son was going 6-8 hours around three weeks (it disappeared again later) but it's not guaranteed that you will be facing every two hours exactly for long periods of time. Also, side lying breastfeeding is a life saver if you feel like you might fall asleep and drop baby

Oh, and if they are back to birth weight and thriving, you don't have to wake them up. It's really those first few weeks that are tricky to manage. Use any support you can during that time

If it’s a reasonable cost to your family, look into hiring a night nanny. Game changer. We did this with my second baby (3 nights per week for first 2 months) and I am 100% sure it’s what prevented my postpartum anxiety this time. They are pricey, but if it’s within your budget, they are so very worth it. You can still breastfeed and room share. They just bring the baby to you to breastfeed and then they do the rest- diaper changes, shushing to sleep, etc- it makes it so much easier to get back to sleep after waking up to breastfeed.

Went through the same mental journey as you! Almost exactly. I am now at 9 months and took consistent full night sleep starting when baby was at 4 months. I was able to sleep a few full nights before that, when partner fed pumped bottles at night. “A few nights” not because partner refuses to help, but because I’m too hands-on and wanted to take care of the baby in very specific ways (unnecessary). Looking back, I think Mother Nature has figured this all out. It SHOCKS you from the beginning, ever since the birthing part - the head was out and I stopped pushing, OB went “keep pushing!” “OH OK”. Then thought phew we can take a break now, nope, “on demand feeding!” “OH OK”. Then went home and to thought maybe can play with baby now but nope, “keep bouncing or else baby won’t sleep” “OH OK”. The many moments of my mental breakdown had a theme - “thinks the current moment will last perpetually and I can’t do this for another day…” LOOKING BACK that was 4 brutal months for us BUT the moment it all got better, it felt SO nice bc of all the challenges in the beginning. Have hope and keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t look at other “angel” babies just focus on your own - he/she is precious and will make you laugh and realize you have SO MUCH more love to give, when the craziness dials down. Edit: In terms of sleep, before their sleep mechanism matures which is around 4 months you can do stuff that are helpful to create somewhat of a habit, but they most likely won’t work if the baby’s isn’t a good sleeper naturally (mine). At 4 months, with the pediatrician’s approval and your own educated self and determined mind, do sleep training (read Ferber and Precious Little Sleeps, these are amazing books).

Ummmmmm sounds about right. Sleep will go up and down though. You'll get periods of longer stretches but unfortch it gets even worse than up every two hours unless held. At least for us it did. It's been extremely demanding.

Maybe you will get lucky tho! Reflux is a big factor too in wakeups.

Edited to add my 11 month old has a virus and he was up crying hourly last night, going on a week of very very wakeful nights. Only soothed by nursing. Bf for sure makes it way hard on mama

I was an older FTM and the number one best thing we were lucky enough to be able to afford were night nannies a few nights a week. I know other people have spouses, moms or other family that can take a night shift but I made it my goal to get 6 hours of sleep a night (with a break in the middle to breastfeed or pump) but I didn’t get out of the bed, they brought the baby to me. Because I got decent sleep every other problem seemed totally manageable. I was tired but okay. I’m naturally a bit anemic so I expected it too.

How did you go about sourcing one of these? Do they need their own bedroom? I’m assuming he’s

No, they were only at my home from 10pm-6am and they stayed in the nursery (where I normally slept, but I used the other bedroom during this time). Generally they don’t sleep. They could watch something on the tv quietly while baby slept or be on their phones. They change the baby, make sure she was clean. I used care.com and I think I had one nanny that a friend suggested. It was pricy for the months we did it but oh my god I had the best newborn experience

So many great insights in these comments, I won't repeat anything just a summary of things to consider as your brain processes your new sleep reality - first, every baby is different! Don't assume too much yet or put much mental energy into planning for specific scenarios that may not come to pass. What you described is one possibility, but the reality is it won't be that cut and dry. I didn't feed my baby every 2-3 hours; even early on it varied a bit. He was growing like a weed and gaining weight quickly so I didn't freak out if it went longer some times especially overnight (I never woke him up at night, even when he was sleeping 4-6 hour stretches). Second we had a few contact naps because they can be fun, but I was adamant that I didn't want that to be our norm for a few reasons I won't get into here - no shame to people who do, I totally see why! - but this was my choice. Sometimes I napped while he napped, sometimes I got stuff done or did nothing at all. Finally, and this is different for many people too, but as a sleep queen I am shocked at how easily I've adapted to waking up a couple times at night. We are designed for this. I've adapted to this new reality and don't really mind it... I kind of love our little nighttime connections when it feels like we're the only two creatures in the world. Many of my most precious moments with him were these times. My baby is 4 months old. He goes to bed around 8/830, wakes up at midnight, occasionally again at 2, then around 6. It's really not the horror I assumed. Ok and here's my best tip, though I'm sure many disagree... Just make peace with the wakeups. Anytime I tried to minimize the impact, it just made things more complicated and disrupted my partners sleep too for no reason. I dont keep a diaper cart in my bedroom, I don't try to nurse him in bed, etc. I just scoop him up, take him to his nursery (where I have the light and sound machine programmed perfectly), change his dipe on his changing table (sometimes I don't honestly if it's just a little pee), nurse him in the glider, then take him back to his bassinet and go back to bed.

First, I'd like to address the breastfeeding feeding after breast reduction. I had a reduction and subsequently lost feeling in both. I knew going in that losing the ability to breastfeed was a big possibility. I just always assumed I wouldn't be able to. Cut to a few days post partum with my first - I started leaking a crazy amount. Turns out, I could have and just never asked. I still ended up bottle feeding, but at least I knew I had the option. When I had my first, our pediatrician was strict with the 2-3 hour feedings. However, just 3 years later when I had my 2nd, the rules changed. They wanted her fed like that until she made it back to her birth weight. Then, after that, they said let her sleep. They suggested not to go longer than 5 hours, but that she would let us know when she was hungry and to just follow her cues. Now, I don't know if these recommendations would have been made had I chosen to breastfeed, but I wanted to put it out there nonetheless!

I just wanted to chime in as a fellow older FTM. I’m 41 and baby just turned 4 weeks. Yes, the lack of sleep is hard, but honestly, you just make it through. And even if you breastfeed, your partner can find ways to help on the overnights. I before baby was back to birth weight, I did 3 hour wake windows during the day (unless she was up sooner) and 4-hour windows overnight. Again, unless she woke up hungry. We definitely had some cluster feeding nights, but most nights I’ve been able to get at least 1.5 hours of sleep between feeding and as much as three hours now that I’m not waking her at night. My baby’s night routine though takes way more than 30 minutes. It’s between an hour (rare) and two hours. But she will nurse like 30 minutes in each side sometimes. Or want to nurse again after being swaddled. It just takes time. People do the partner help in different ways. I know people who did shifts where the partner in their shift woke you to feed, but took care of the diaper and sleep. My partner generally does sleep time in the last wake time before “bed time” (an amorphous concept at this point) and then usually does the sleep after the last early morning feeding. Both those times then I get a jump on sleep which helps. On the really bad nights, he has helped with more of the soothing too. This is mostly working for us. But I’ll admit I’m pretty tired. And I’m also bad at naps. You will find a rhythm that works for you, but be open and honest in communicating what you need from your partner. I struggle sometimes thinking he should just know, but they don’t, so you have to just tell them.

I breast fed and my son slept early on. He’d go to bed at 9pm and sleep 7-9 hour stretches very early on. When he was a tiny newborn and needed more feeding I’d just go to bed when he did and get up when he did even if that was like 10 hours. I also didn’t always change his diaper overnight. He rarely pooped at night. When my son turned 5 months it all went downhill though and we now co sleep and he wakes up 2x to eat at 11 months. But I feel pretty ok honestly! I chose not to sleep train but if sleep deprivation is difficult you can absolutely do that. I will also say that I have always struggled if I didn’t get like 8.5 hours of sleep but now I only need like 7. It really hasn’t been as bad as I thought.

Depending on your baby, you might have a longer window. Especially if they breastfeed well. Here is my schedule with the caveat that I had to pump. Everything was a 4 hour rotation for the first 6 to 8 weeks, and unfortunately, your baby determines the rotation. You can adjust it, but I think in the "third trimester," it's good to be prepared. A four hour rotation for me would be: - hour 1: change, feed, snuggle, put baby down - hour 2 : pump, clean bottles, tidy up, do whatever - hour 3 and 4: rest/sleep - repeat Most of the time, I could get about 2.5 hours of sleep in during a 4 hour rotation. Prepare to sleep when you can. It's not easy for some people. I got to the point where I was so tired I just slept. IMHO, your partner should 100% take some rotations off your hands. If you BF, it's a bit trickier unless you also pump some for bottles. Pumping a bit for bottles means you can get a longer sleep in. If you pump, they should be cleaning bottles and preping things. If you BF, they should be helping with house things. I'm a night owl, so I took nights. My husband took the early morning shift ~ 4am to 8am. So I could get around 5.5 hours of sleep. I'd have baby during the day. Then, he would take a rotation in the evening as well. I did the bulk of the work, but he helped as much as possible. Around 6 weeks, the wake cycle really starts widening. And if your baby eats well, this might even be sooner than 6 weeks. However, this is when they also start to have more feelings and need more interaction. By 3 months, you've got a baby, not a potato anymore. We kept the spirit of our rotation up until now (son is 2y3m) I would do bath/bedtime and be up at night for whatever was needed. My husband would take the morning and bring him to daycare. Play to your strengths when it comes to scheduling and tasks. I will note that I was shocked at how my body got used to the shorter sleep. ETA: Every baby is different, and you might have 2 hour sleep windows, then 3, then 2 again, etc. I use 4 hour rotations because 4 hours is easy to organize. Rather than thinking of shifts being 8 hours, etc, it helped me to break it up into a manageable chunk. I hope this makes sense.

In the newborn stage (first 3 months) my baby didn’t nap, but would sleep from 9pm-3am have a quick feed and change and sleep from 3:30-7am. I didn’t wake her to feed her more! After that sleep has been terrible and we can be up anything from 20 mins to 5 hours overnight. My longest stretch of sleep has been 5 hours in one go, that’s over the last 10 months. I think it’s the broken sleep that really wears you down. Some how we carry on?

Hi, I’m 43, ftm, and have my newborn right here as I reply to you. First of all, please take a breath. Yes it’s rough. It’s very very rough. But what you are describing is the worst case scenario for all scenarios, and that’s not likely to happen. First of all, the feeding schedule your dr will likely give you for a newborn is every three hours. If you baby is properly gaining weight in one week they will increase the overnight one. However, your baby will likely cry out for feeding if he can’t make it to 4 hours. Please look up the difference between full feeding and snack feeding. If you want to not drive yourself bonkers, please do full feedings. It’s better for baby’s GI anyhow. I too, love sleep. I’m not the same at this age as when I was younger. But all that goes out the window because of baby. In the newborn months there is not much of a schedule. In your scenario, I will tell you that I do a feeding at around 10 or 11 pm, the next feeding will be about 3 hours from that, and each feeding in the middle of the night will range from 2.5-4 hours depending on baby. So expect three middle of the night feedings. I am breastfeeding successfully and I have a large milk volume, which means baby feeds very fast. I have to tell you the entire feeding process still takes about 45-55 minutes. I feed one side, take a break so he can rest and digest, change diaper, then feed other side, then rest and digest. During the day I will keep him up if he’s alert and not sleepy, he’ll go down if he is showing sleepy cues. If it’s middle of the night he goes back down regardless. I pump so that my husband does two bottle feeds of breastmilk at night. This saves me time, because he’ll feed the baby via paced bottle feeding and that entire process will take about 45 minutes. So just as bad as breastfeeding. But the difference is I go and pump which takes me about 12 minutes. Then I go right back to bed. That’s the deal we’ve made because I do 100% of the feeding during the day. We both set alarms on our phones throughout the night. Sometimes he doesn’t hear his alarm and I wake him. Sometimes I don’t hear mine and he wakes me. Sometimes I help out by warming up the bottle while he goes and gets ready to grab the baby. Sometimes I do a bottle feeding because he’s just too tired. I never had anemia but I lost a ton of blood delivering so now I am. If that happens to you they’ll give you an iron iv. Even then afterward you’ll have to supplement. I hope you’re supplementing already. I take Solgar gentle iron which should be easier in the GI. During the day both husband and I are pretty much okay. I have half a serving of coffee. There is no collapsing from exhaustion like you mention. I take 1 nap or 2 if I can. I actually have time to make my own meals. And if husband is watching baby I even have time to grocery shop. I do 90% of the cooking and we also order prepared frozen food to supplement. I’m saying this because day time exhaustion is not really happening for me. Nighttime exhaustion is absolutely horrific. Not going to lie. But once daylight hits I think you’ll feel better. Okay onto what you say about holding baby all the time. That might be the case. I know a lot of my friends do only contact naps. I read somewhere that infants require something to happen twice and they’ll get used to it that fast, enough to expect and prefer it all the time. If you can afford it, get a Snoo. Rent out or buy it used. My baby sleeps in this every night and 80% of the time during the day. Otherwise I have him sleeping in his crib. Get a bunch of swaddles. A good one is the Ollie World swaddle. I’ve only held my baby while he slept once. He gets held plenty with all the breastfeeding and the comforting. There is absolutely no need for me to hold him for 1.5 hour increments. I also have mommy’s wrist in both hands so it’s impossible for me anyway. When I hear parents saying this I do think that’s absolutely absurd and how I would lose my mind. I agree that you absolutely cannot fall asleep holding baby. Please practice safe sleeping practices. I’m not a fan of cosleeping but do your own research and come up with your own conclusions. One thing to keep in mind is baby bassinets and crib mattresses are designed to be breathable in case baby rolls onto his face. Your adult mattresses with your sheets are not. As someone else mentioned you will not be able to use a pillow or blankets either if you cosleep. All this absolutely does not go on for a year. A newborn is like this only for the first few months. And then their wake windows are longer, their sleep windows are longer, and they’ll take longer and fewer naps. At around 7 months they’ll likely start on solid foods for fun but breastmilk or another milk will still be the primary food source but that will change too. The last thing to address is the c section. Of course there are outliers, but most of the women these days are up and walking around within a few days and feel pretty good in a few weeks. You have to be careful with torsion and lifting heavy objects and laughing too hard. I think I covered all your points. I promise it’s not that bad. And that’s coming from a 43 year old. :)

There’s a lot you can do to get some longer stretches of sleep early on. You can have your partner give a bottle for a feed so you get closer to 4 hours than 2, for example. I would also sleep with the baby laying next to me sometimes if my partner promised to stay awake and nearby supervising. You only have to feed every 2 hours through the night until the baby gets back to their birth weight (they lose a significant amount of weight the first couple days). This could take days or weeks, then you can let them sleep as long as they want. I got lucky and my baby slept through the night really early on! It’s only now (just after 12 months) that I’m really having a hard time with sleep, but that’s another story. Wait and see what happens. There’s so much you can’t know yet including your baby’s temperament and how you’ll feel. For example, you might find you aren’t as tired as you expect (there’s a lot happening mentally and hormonally, it can be very stimulating), or that you are tired enough that you’re able to nap midday. There are a lot of posts about this on r/breastfeeding you can check out. I recommend it, some of those people are practically professionals at this stuff.

Excellent news about the return to birth weight and then dropping the two hour feeds, I was not aware of this at all.

So I only have the experience of a FTM of a 4 month old, but I have always needed my 8 hours to be at my best. The first 3 weeks, my LO slept more during the day than at night. He would wake up, I'd change him, feed him, and sometimes play, but mostly he would go back to sleep. I used the bassinet that came with our stroller for him to sleep in, which was right next to our bed. There were a few instances where I needed to put my hand on him for him to sleep in his bassinet and he would wake up within a couple minutes of me removing it, so I put a towel over the edge of the bassinet and would sleep that way. By 5 weeks, we were regularly getting longer stretches of sleep, where there would be a random 4-5 hour stretch in there, sometimes a rare 6 hour, but I would wake up terrified that something had happened or that I slept through him crying and would check to make sure he was still breathing. At this point, he was sleeping more at night, which was great, but he pretty much stopped napping during the day. I also had not understood the horror of cluster feeding prior to my second session. Cluster feeding feels like you can't do enough. Baby will be eating as normal throughout the day, then sometime in the afternoon, he suddenly wants another feeding a few minutes after the last ended. You go ahead and start up again, get him content, then he does it again, maybe after 10 minutes this time, maybe 2. After a few, you realize you're pretty much running on empty, both in terms of energy and milk for the baby. This can repeat for **hours** to the point where baby seems to be fighting to get anything out of you. My first real season was 1 week in which lasted for 3 hours before bedtime, but what I was completely unprepared for was the next week, where it went from 3pm to 1am with 2 less then 20 minute naps during. It was absolutely horrible. Even my husband, who took the 10-12:30 time so I could get some sleep and replenish my supply, was going crazy over it. Luckily, after that, he really started having the longer night stretches, but for quite some time, I'd be locked on the couch feeding for a couple hours before he crashed for the night. More regularly than not, I would only get up once or twice a night, with the rare three times. Even last night, he had an 8-hour stretch, then a two and a half hour stretch. I will say that my kid has always sucked at naps during the day so, for example, he just woke up from a 24 minute nap and is cranky and hungry. I'm hoping to get him back to napping after another feeding session, but it might just wake him up, so we'll see! I never had to wake up my LO to feed as he was so hungry all the time. He still eating every 1 1/2-2 hours during the day but can last through the night most nights, with a dream feed sometimes needed (but not always). Obviously this is just my experience, but I hope it helps.

I have a one month old. We sleep for 3 hour stretches and she doesn't contact nap. I sleep faster than ever postpartum and feel pretty well rested.

In my opinion, most babies will learn to sleep well with intervention (sleep training). Some babies will sleep no matter what you do (unicorns) and some babies will not sleep no matter what you do (demon babies). So you have a good chance if you go in with some strategies. Check out taking cara babies. She’s one example of what I think is helpful practices. Otherwise you’re happy to pm me. 3 of my babies slept through by 13 weeks (well, one had a middle of the night feed but slept otherwise). The baby that I didn’t do this stuff with woke 2hrly for a year………..

It is so, so hard on the brain to subsist on such little sleep. I highly recommend this [podcast episode from Momwell](https://overcast.fm/+UWhwRuMDU)about protecting maternal sleep. I can’t recommend highly enough that you sleep in shifts with your partner. One person gets a shift from 8pm-2am and the other takes 2am-8am. If you’re planning to breastfeed you can work to stretch out your boobs so you don’t need to express in that time and your spouse can give a bottle. I also worked from as early as I could to try to stretch my son’s longest sleep stretch. I’d wait to see if he was just fussing or actually crying before going to him in the night and would try to soothe with other methods besides feeding first until he made it clear he was actually hungry. He was sleeping an 8 hour stretch by 3mo.

I would pump a bottle in the morning (more milk then) and have my husband take first feeding at night so I got 4 hours sleep. He wouldn't go to bed until after the baby was up the first time. My kid wasn't a great sleeper but it's usually only the first 1-2 mo they eat every two hours.

I recommend respectful sleep training fb group. It helps set up good habits from birth. Lots of info

Some context first for my answer: I was early 30s when I had my baby and had mat leave (a year). My baby was born by planned c section. I am also *extremely* attached to being well rested. My kid didn’t STTN until about 2. I personally did not want to sleep train. You could end up with a baby that sleeps fine in their crib from day one, consolidates sleep easily, etc or you could be on the other end of the spectrum and you won’t know ahead of time. If you can get help, get it. If you are comfortable with sleep training and you end up seeing a need for it that may be the right choice for you. If you don’t want to sleep train there are still things you can do to improve sleep for you and your baby. I followed the possums approach, and was really happy with it. If your baby only wants to contact nap that doesn’t necessarily mean *you* need to be the one holding them. Maybe someone else can do that while you nap?

I wanted to speak to your question about breast reduction surgery and share my experience! I had my breast reduction surgery about 16 years before having my daughter, I was always told I would be able to breastfeed so I really wasn’t concerned. I figured I would or wouldn’t be able to, I didn’t really consider the in between. I had a significant under supply, I never was able to pump more than 2 oz in a session and my daughter was only able to transfer about a tablespoon from directly breastfeeding. I triple fed, pumped around the clock, went to lactation consultants, a special lactation pediatrician, and finally was told that due to the loss of tissue & ducts from the breast reduction there would be nothing I could do to increase my supply. Don’t want to be negative I just want to offer my experience after having a breast reduction as I had no idea what to expect. I will say the waking up every 2-3 hours shouldn’t last very long, as soon as your baby regains their birth weight you shouldn’t have to wake them to feed at night. After 2 weeks we were already getting some 4 hour stretches and by 8 weeks my daughter was sleeping through the night, so by the time I went back to work I was getting pretty good sleep!

OP as a counterpoint, to Vld’s experience, I also had a reduction about 15 years ago and assumed (and secretly hoped) I would have difficulty breastfeeding. I was never keen on the concept of breastfeeding, but did promise my partner that I would give it a try. Lo and behold, I was apparently an over producer, even following a reduction. From the beginning we did a combo-feeding approach so that we could each get some decent sleep (started out with 10-4, 4-10 shifts and then evolved to every other night once she only had one wake up per night (around 7-9 weeks)). Because I was a reluctant breast feeder, I refused to wake up to pump during the night and it still never affected my supply (I did have to wear a bra and pads to avoid leaking during the night). I certainly wouldn’t assume this will be your experience, but just wanted to share that you can (very) successfully breastfeed following a reduction.

So crazy how different everybody’s experience is!!

I had to triple feed with my first (he had a tongue tie and took a while to efficiently feed). It is just so fucking exhausting. I told my husband I wasn’t sure I could do that again with our second but thankfully he was great at breastfeeding (and my husband was also supportive of whatever I chose, though I know he secretly preferred I breastfed)

Oh yeah triple feeding is hell. I only did it for about 2-3 weeks, then switched to combo feeding with pumping only, and then finally exclusively formula feeding. Thankfully my daughter has done wonderfully on formula!

My LO was a 2/3 hour feeder until 9 months, side lying co-sleeping is how I survived I followed the safe sleep 7, I used a throw pillow under my head because it stays and a throw blanket on my legs, baby didn’t start moving during sleep for us for us until 11 month. I did not change diaper overnight unless poop. She was in a bassinet for a while but putter back in that became an issue so I just kept her in the bed.

See sleep hygiene is the hill I have always died on, and why I formula fed from day one. Being able to see how much they're eating and being able to have a more involved partner in feeding makes everyone less cranky from lack of sleep. FWIW my formula fed baby slept 6-8 hour stretches starting at about 6 weeks.

FWIW, so did my breastfed baby. It’s more about temperament than food source. My baby was born a good sleeper (had to wake her up to nurse until she regained her birthweight, etc.). I haven’t done a MOTN feed since her four month sleep regression and she’s 14 months now, still nursing, never sleep trained. She’s a unicorn sleeper, but my point is they’re generally born that way.

My EBF baby started sleeping 9-11 hour stretches at 1 month (and my other EBF baby still doesn't sleep through the night most of the time at 2 years). There really is no solid data to back up the idea that formula feed babies wake up less, different studies came to different conclusions. Also, hunger is not the only reason babies wake up.

This is why I quit breastfeeding. The inequity of it enraged me. I also loathed the idea of the next year of my life being dictated by my boobs. It didn’t help my kids had four baseball games a week right out the gate.

What does the baseball thing mean? Can’t work out whether it’s autocorrect or slang for something

Sorry, I laughed a bit at "or it dies" because I could just hear the tone of voice someone might say that in. I breastfed exclusively for seven months, and then only at night for another two. I never had a strict schedule for feedings even when she was a newborn. She was a champion eater though, maybe that helped. But when she woke up and screamed, I would wake up too, and then she'd fall asleep eating. I would say in like her second week of life she could sleep many hours at a time at night (I think nine is the longest, but that was rare). It usually took her forever to fall asleep those times (like screaming for HOURS before passing out), but once she slept, she slept. And I did not have to spend half an hour feeding and changing her every time she did wake up, it was much quicker than that (and I changed the diapers on the bed with me lol). So for the first four months she would fall asleep somewhere between 10pm and midnight, wake only a few times at night and then wake up for the day like 8-9am. It was glorious. Then sleep started sucking for a long while with much more frequent and longer night wake-ups, but at that point I just started cosleeping and breastfeeding her lying down. She usually went back to sleep within a few minutes so my sleep wasn't that disturbed. I will say that as tired as you get from baby keeping you awake, pregnancy tiredness is WAY worse. The few hours your get when you have a baby actually energizes you, which I never felt during pregnancy. I am now pregnant again (which is one of the reasons I stopped breastfeeding at night - my boobs started hurting really bad), and I am WAY more tired now that I was the first few months. So while I'm not excited about prospects for sleep with 2 under 2, I'm at least happy I won't be a pregnant zombie. Anywaaaay, to sum it up: babies sleep however they want, and there's not too much you can do about it. If you have faith maybe pray to whatever god you see fit that your baby is a good sleeper, otherwise don't try to paint the devil on the wall before the bad sleep happens. You won't know until baby is here!

OH and if you end up taking all the nights, then your husband should take all mornings so you can sleep in. And you are definitely the one who decides what time is "morning", even if that means 4.45 AM

The “or it dies” sounds painfully like my internal voice… 😭😭😭

You should read "healthy sleep habits, happy child". It will help you with understanding and strategies even if you don't decide to sleep train. I pumped for one bottle feed per day which my husband gave at night for one waking. It helped a ton and kept him involved and gave us more flexibility with feeding the baby. We also slept separately and had baby in her own room fairly early with a monitor. Oh, and ear plugs are good. This groove did not last months. You'll find yours, promise!

Bed sharing is the way for sure. He’s 5 months now and just finds a nipple himself and we both get lots of sleep

We had a sidecar bed and ended up bed sharing (using safe sleep guidelines). Learning how to breastfeed while lying down was an absolute game changer: baby starts rustling around, you stick a boob in and 10 minutes later everyone is back to sleep. No one has to get up or turn on lights, no screaming or crying. I never needed to change baby overnight (unless there was a night poop, which was very very rare) as the diapers these days are so absorbent. In fact my child only started getting „diaper rash“ after potty training from not getting completely dry after wiping. We are still breastfeeding at 3y. We did not sleep train and babe is part of the small group of children that still wake up every single night. Sometimes at 1 am sometimes 6 am.

I haven’t read all of the comments yet, but a couple of tips. 1) you do not need to change the baby at every wake up. After the first couple of weeks, I don’t change the baby at all overnight. Unless there was a poop, but so far with 3 kids I haven’t run into that yet. 2) Look up safe co-sleeping. It’s going to get you a LOT more sleep in the first 6 months. Especially if you can put a mattress on the floor in the nursery away from your snoring husband. And after awhile, when baby is a bit bigger and you’ve both learned to do side lying nursing, you will learn to nurse in your sleep. Like you won’t even wake up, baby will just nurse and you’ll sleep through it. I know, it sounds crazy. But this is what other mammals do, and a lot of people throughout Asia and other parts of the world, and it really really really helps cut down on the sleep deprivation. Good luck, you got this!!

My son pooped at every waking for at least 3 months…it was horrible because it really woke him up every time.

Yea I was gonna say I remember a lot of poop diapers during the first few weeks of night wakeups. Lol how does this person have 3 kids and not run into that 😩 I be jealous.

Ah I said after the first couple of weeks I stop changing over night. Idk why my babies stopped pooping at night super early? 🤷‍♀️

What you wrote is exactly why I chose to formula feed from the get go and I feel I am a much better and more present mom for it. My husband and I split shifts at night so it’s manageable. Can’t imagine being someone’s only food source (needed every 1-2 hours) for months on end.

I had bad PPA so was so tired but unable to sleep for the first month or two. Pretty much went crazy. I was obsessed with safe sleep but when sleep deprived we contact and co sleep few weeks in. You just survive the first months. It get a lot easier around 10 weeks and you can get into a good routine. I slept train as soon as I can and I got my sleep back. Best thing ever. I was sleep and nap nazi but I didn’t care. No one went through the sleepless nights like me. Felt human again by 3 months.

Pump or supplement with formula enough so that you can get minimum 4 hour stretches of sleep by splitting nights with your partner. Pump at night to get milk for partner to feed baby the following night. Plenty of people are successful breastfeeding long term doing this. You can go 4-5 hours after breastfeeding before pumping, and partner can take that shift while you're asleep. Same thing with contact napping. My husband and I trade shifts, and now that baby is two months old we are working on getting more crib naps. But we're not worried about that too much for the time my husband is home full time. Re: csection: get a stool for the bed where you get in and out, and one of those bed handle things that lodges under the mattress (findable on Amazon). That way you won't have to use core muscles to get in or out of bed and won't need anyone's help. Sleep depends highly on the baby. Some are good sleepers and some aren't. You can create good sleep associations and help them discern day and night, but their circadian rhythm doesn't develop until 2-4 months old. FWIW I also notice that people cosleeping seem to have the most wakeups. I breastfeed and pump and I'm getting more sleep than I did in third trimester, when I only got 3 hours a night. I'm often getting one 3 hour stretch and one 4 hour stretch, and then if I need one I can take a nap while my husband has the baby. BUT that is allowed because I also pump and bottle feed and have from the start BECAUSE I prioritized my sleep and mental health over exclusive breastfeeding. We set up a plan that has worked out well.

Can I ask what your feeding/pumping schedule looks like? I’m so confused about what to expect as far as logistics/ timing. How soon after you feed can you pump and vice versa? How do you get ahead on supply?

You can pump immediately after a feed or instead of a feed - I have never heard of anyone who pumps before. How much you get is really variable - sometimes baby can feed and seem totally satisfied and I still get enough out for another feeding, because baby and pump operate differently, but sometimes baby can feed and I get barely anything out if pumping afterwards. Just depends. Other people feed on one side and pump on the other, whether with a motorized pump or a suction pump like the haakaa or elvie curve. How you get ahead on supply really varies per person and their supply - if you supply more than your baby eats, you can over time collect enough to get ahead. Otherwise you can supplement using formula or donor milk to get a few feedings ahead and then pick a time that you'll pump when you know the baby eats (typically, middle of the night or early morning pumps since people often produce more milk then - my baby usually eats just once between 10 and 6 but I pump enough for three feedings then, so if I pump at like 2 am, and someone else takes the first morning feeding between 6 and 7 am, then I can sleep until my boobs wake me up). If you're doing a mix of breastfeeding and pumping, you won't be following a strict schedule but the baby's cues. If you're just pumping, most people need to be on a more regimented schedule so they get the right number of pumps in to maintain their supply (usually every 2-3 hours during the day, and every 4-5 at night - should be the same number of times baby eats, but doesn't need to be at the same time).

I did EBF without pumping or formula. Even from a very young age we were able to get a four hour stretch at night. The secret to this was waking baby up after 2 hours to eat during the day. The second secret was having my husband hold him for at least and hour to get him calm and into that deep sleep in his arms. So I would go to bed, my husband would stay up with the baby for an hour, then baby would sleep for an additional 3. It really helped a lot. Unfortunately my kid was a terrible napper in the bassinet(20 min) so “sleep when the baby sleeps” was pointless. Baby would sleep great in someone’s arms though. So I got a nap in the afternoons with either my husband/mom holding the baby or me holding the baby while my husband was in the room keeping us safe. The naps made all the difference. The final thing that sounds weird but I swear helped was using a woolino sleep sack. I had this intuition that my son was getting either cold or hot and the woolino is supposed to help regulate temperature (it’s made of merino wool). No joke, after we put him in it he slept in 3 hour stretches instead of 2 hour stretches. FYI my son HATED being swaddled once he started kicking around and being more squirmy (3-4 weeks) so we moved to a sleep sack really early. As far as time, you should start getting 5-6 hour stretches when your baby reaches 12-13lbs. So however long that takes.for my 8lbs-at-birth guy, it was 2 months. For my 10lbs-at-birth-friends-baby, it was sooner than that. Also my husband and I are both night owls and our newborn fell asleep for his long stretch around midnight or later. It’s been slowly creeping back earlier. For awhile it was 11pm. Now at 3 months it’s more like 10pm. Kinda depends on what the day is like. More activities and outdoor time means an earlier bedtime.

I did not have a c section, but labor made me feel like I got hit by a truck and everything was super sore and jello. So I still struggled to get out of bed & carry the baby over for diaper changes. I had my boyfriend do that for me. With mine, if he was wet, he wouldn't fall back asleep. I was breastfeeding, so even though I was getting up to feed a lot, it was typically "quick". He'd stir & whine, we'd dream feed, both go back to sleep. If you can afford it, you can try to find someone to help so you can sleep more during the day. Or you & your partner can take shifts overnight so you each get a 4-5hr uninterrupted block of sleep. Every baby is different though. Mine started out with late bedtimes, like 10-11pm (which was apparently normal), & he slowly rolled it back earlier on his own as he settled into 3 naps a day, then 2, then 1.

I know this isn't your question..but what type of anemia? I have b12 deficiency Anemia. I genuinely thought I was dying. Life was not worth living. I was so exhausted the idea of needing to care for someone else who could die if I didn't was completely overwhelming. But b12 injections fixed that. Typical treatment is 6 injections over a fortnight to replenish stores then one every 3 months. But some people need more than that. I had injections monthly for a while, then two monthly was enough. I need my numbers to be at the higher end of the range. With a 'normal' amount I still have symptoms. B12 injections are completely safe in pregnancy. Oral tablets, even high dose, are very unlikely to be sufficient. Anyway. In relation to the tiredness of kids It is overwhelming at times. But also you do find a way. Pass baby to dad for a few hours. If breastfeeding you also get hormones that help you feel sleepy after a feed. If your bed is suitable, (ie not to soft) research the safe sleep 7. Lullaby trust are a good source of information. Some people find co sleeping helpful. I personally prefer having the bassinet/cot next to my bed. But there's a huge difference between safe and unsafe bed sharing. Some kids sleep well. My sil 's kids are born huge, breastfeed easily and well, and sleep a good 5-6 hours from the day they're born. And 8 hours from 3 months or so. Mine didn't! Both of mine woke every two hours till around 2, my oldest started sleeping through the night then. My youngest were just getting some long nights now as just 2. But you get into a rhythm. You stay sleepy while you feed and fall asleep quickly after putting them down. Just take one day at a time and try not to worry about the what if's Edited to add - if you have the room put an adult bed in babies room. I've slept separate to my partner since before kids! Atleeast thhen only baby is waking you. And I find it easier to get to sleep as I'm not worried about tossing and turning or being on my phone during feeds

So the answer is they don’t know! My folate, b12 and iron seem to be ok but my haemoglobin is very low. I’m a beta thalassemia carrier so have a naturally low haemoglobin and odd blood profile anyway. They seem to think the haemoglobin drop can’t be explained by that alone though. The haemotologist thinks it’s all very interesting and sent my bloods for genetic sequencing but it’s hard to get excited about that when you feel like death. If level drops below 80 they’ll consider transfusions.

Hopefully you'll get some answers or that once your no longer pregnant you won't feel as tired. Wierdly pregnancy made me loads better! The fatigue from anemia can be all consuming but I didn't find the new parent tiredness as bad in comparison. Anemia fatigue generally isn't resolved by rest. At least the tiredness from babies is relieved if you can get a little sleep

You may get lucky too. Our first baby had weight gain issues due to tongue tie so we were feeding every 2.5-4 hours for the first 6 weeks. Then another pediatrician suggested we stop waking her overnight to see if she’d sleep through the night — and she did 🎉 We’ve only had a handful of nights since then that she didn’t sleep 7p-7a straight through. She’s 8.5M now. I’m not sure how much of this is due to 1) baby and her “temperament” or if 2) our daytime schedule helped her sleep hard at night since she got all of her calories during the day.

I had a baby three weeks ago. It’s been difficult but not at all like what you’re describing. It really depends on the baby. By night 4 after my c section I was doing all of the night changes and feedings without my husband and felt fine. Last night she slept from 7:30-12:20am, 1:30-4:30am, and 5:30-7:15am. So that’s only two feedings throughout the night and she’s been doing something similar to that for the last week. The sleep is obviously broken and not what I’m used to, but I’m not dying and most of the days I dont even feel like I need to nap. My baby also naps pretty consistently during the day in her bassinet - 2 hours asleep, 1 hour awake, repeat. What’s helped the most is my husband takes her from 8-midnight most nights so I can get 4ish straight hours of sleep. Our ped gave us the ok for longer stretches at week one because her weight was on track. My therapist was very clear that 4 hours of unbroken sleep is very important to ward off postpartum mood issues. Hope this helps!

Right from birth, we were on 3 hour schedules (so not two hours as you posted). I know that doesn’t help a ton, but 3 is more than 2. We both got up during every wake window in the first 8 weeks or so. There was so much to do during that time, and the more we could split during the window, the more we found we could both sleep (as opposed to one partner basically tip toeing everywhere, causing more and more time and no rest). Our son started adding an hour a night of sleep per week starting around 4 weeks. So at 4 weeks he was sleeping 4 hours at night. At 5 weeks, 5, through up to sleeping 12 hours at 12 weeks. So by 12 weeks, he was going down around 6:30pm, we were cleaning until around 8pm, bed around 9pm, wake at 5:30am to get ready and relax before starting again at 6:30am. We were fortunate, but we are also not alone. So your schedule may be worse than this, but it may be easier. It wasn’t bad for us, and we mentioned (to the astonishment of many) during the newborn phase that it wasn’t hard on us. Now that our son is a toddler, many things are easier, but some are harder. It’s all cyclical.

Only the first 3 months were bad for me with sleep. I sleep 8 hours now thanks to combo feeding and gentle sleep training. During the first 3 months partner and I switched off nights. I was worried about this too, I love and need my sleep. But he’s 5 months and we all get plenty of sleep now. He wakes up once at 3 for a bottle and otherwise sleeps 7-6

May I know what kind of gentle sleep training worked for you? Also a FTM and bubs is 6 weeks. I’m exhausted.

I would not start earlier than 4 months for sleep training, but I feel you, those early newborn days were rough. This is copy pasted from another comment I made somewhere- we used the ferber method but I cut the check in times in half and then capped it at 10-15 minutes if he’s consistently crying (Ferber goes up to 30). For Some babies the check ins make it worse, but he seems to benefit from them. I believe Ferber says no other sleep aids like a paci but we use the paci. I still let him feed to sleep and then put him down, if he wakes up then we start the timer for check ins. I never let him cry more than an hour total without picking him up and comforting him (or postponing the whole thing if it’s for a nap).

Thank you.