Coming up on 11 weeks and still no sleep in sight

Ugh, these two are terrible sleepers. I was so unprepared for this as my first was the easiest sleeper in the world!

I know these two were premature, so I'm sure that factors into it, but they are waking every 1-2 hours, every night. When they first came home, they used to do 2 three hour stretches, but that came to an abrupt end 2 weeks ago.

Any ideas?

 

how premature were they? are you BF or forumla feeding? where do they sleep and do you swaddle or use white noise?

 

Mine were like that. I think they were just hungry. It didn't get better till they were a little over 4-months old. It helped when they didn't need their night bottles and when I put them down drowsy but awake and they learned to fall asleep without being rocked. One of mine still wakes a few times through the night - but when I give him his paci, he usually goes right back to sleep.

 

they were born at 35 weeks and are exclusively BF. They are in a crib in our room. We haven't tried white noise. We do swaddle.

 

:grouphug: Mine were the same. As pp mentioned at about 4 months they got much better ( I mean 7pm to 7am) All I can suggest is that you and hubby take shifts. Let him feed them from 7pm to midnight while you go sleep in another room. That is the only way we got by.

 

The shift thing is a good idea. It never did work for us though. I am just naturally a lighter sleeper and a control freak. :laughing: That didn't help I am sure. It does get better I promise. I had a hardtime too because my DD slept through the night at 10 weeks and did it once and then did it all of the time. It took longer for my twins and they were full term. Good Luck.

 

Hi there -

Ours are also 11 weeks old and we are primarily, but not exclusively, BFing and bottle feeding expressed BM. I wish I had more advice, but I can only think of a few things.

Do you ever give them expressed BM or are you exclusively feeding at the breast? If the former, night expressed breast milk is similar to formula feeding in that it helps them sleep longer. So, if you feed EBM at night, use night-expressed BM (for this reason, we label our EBM as night or day).

Are they eating well during the day? The more they drink during the day, the less they need at night. If they eat well during the day, some (but not necessarily all) of their night wakings may be for comfort rather than food. This being said, ours were snacking a lot during the day. What I mean by this is that they would eat frequent small meals and then they wouldn't nap well. Once we got them to eat more at one sitting, they started napping better (although I still have one troubled napper) and the good daytime sleep improved their nighttime sleep. It was tough to get them to eat more at one sitting... we had to stretch their feeds for a few days. Not fun, but it worked and now we feed every 3 hours, give or a take a half hour, during the day. And they typically BF for an hour, so they are eating quite a bit at one sitting. (WTH am I gonna do when I go back to work - ha!)

Have you tried cluster feeding before their bedtime and/or dream feeding them before you go to bed?

Lastly, have you established a little night routine? E.g., bathe, pjs, feed, swaddle, white noise, put down? And have you tried an earlier bedtime?

We noticed that ours started sleeping longer the earlier we put them down (and once they were napping better, like I mentioned earlier). Bedtime is at 7pm, dream feed is at 10:30 pm, they awake for another feed at 2:30am and then they awaken between 5:30-7am. We try to feed on this schedule during the day, like I said, give or take a half hour: 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 6:15pm, down at 7pm.

I dunno... I hope this helps!

 

I feel for you! It's so hard!!

You have already gotten lots of great suggestions. The only other suggestion I might have that seemed to work for us is to make a big deal about separating night from day. For example, when they first woke up in the morning I made a big deal of opening up the curtains, using my "IT's MORNING!" happy voice, etc. As we began our night routine we would use quieter voices, dim the lights about an hour to thirty mins before beginning the bedtime routine, and play the same i-tunes mix of "sleepy music" my husband made.It did really seem to help them transition, and I think eventually helped them sleep longer.

Now that they are older we have dropped a lot of the routine or let it kind of organically alter as their needs change. But in the early days it was our way of getting the whole family (myself included) in the bedtime mindset.

Hope that helps! And GL. These days will pass. Promise.

 

Thanks everyone, lots of great suggestions! To answer a few questions...

-I do give them EBM on occasion, but not every day.
-I've tried to dreamfeed, but they just won't wake up enough to feed, so after 20 mins I give up. So frustrating, b/c this worked really well with my older DD.
-They eat every 1.5-2 hours during the day, and cluster feed from 5-8 pm, which is typically their bedtime, with a nap somewhere in there. They are only 45 mins nappers, so they usually eat, have some awake time, then nap. In total, this is usually 2 hours.

I think I'm going to have to tough it out another month. If we're still in this sleep hell in another month, I may try a few things.

So tired.....

 

if i nurse one on my side (with baby beside me also laying on her side) she´ll fall asleep again right away. maybe you can try that.

 

Oh, you poor thing... :hug: Hang in there, it really does get better. I think I have blanked out the true horror f the sleep deprivation we suffered in the first 3 months, but it was pretty awful (we had a severe reflux baby...shudder). My DH still says that he would never live through those first 3 months again for anything, and our girls are 18 months old now!!

You really are almost there...my girls dropped the 3am feed at about 14 weeks. I was just about ready to either shoot myself or strangle them, so it wasn't a moment too soon! By 17 weeks one of my girls was sleeping for 12 hours straight, but my "older" (by 30mins!) DD woke for a feed sometime between 11pm and 1am until she was 9 months old. I BF'd for about 11 1/2 months total...from about 5 months on I woud pump at about 10pm and then go to bed, so my DH would wake up and feed Sofia her late night bottle. He still cherishes the memory of their special time, & I certainly appreciated the extra sleep!

Your babies are going through a huge growth spurt right now, & all they'll want to do is eat, eat, eat. If you need to, please allow yourself to sleep through a feed and have your DH (if he is willing!) give them a bottle of either EBM or formula. It seems hard to accept now, when you are in the thick of things (&, if you are like I was, panicking about your milk supply) but 1 bottle feed is not going to impact your milk supply! But a few hours of uninterrupted sleep will do wonders for your mental health, and your milk production.

Hang in there! You are doing a wonderful, wonderful job, Mama!! :youcandoit: