Need help but not sure EASY is the problem!

[besjoux]

Tried relfux meds and neither med is working (he's getting worse). He was on Zantac for a week and was getting worse and prevacid for 3 days and has MORE Nwings.. 2 nights ago he was OT and woke a lot and tonight his naps were perfect and was our worst night! I have NO CLUE what to do anymore. Even if it's horrid we've thought that maybe we should just have him downstairs to cry for awhile and see if he can work it out. Wouldn't think this but I am depressed and our marriage is seriously on the rocks. I need to do something even if it's not the best for my LO because (frankly) the Y time is non-existent and it's time to put my marriage and my sleep #1 before EVERYONE in the house suffers more. He's a good baby and has a perfect 3 hour EASY (for the most part) so I don't even know if this is the right place to go. But below is our EASY (give or take an hour or so....sometimes he fusses a bit before naps and it does change).

E 7:30
A 7:45 winddown at 8
S 8:45

E 10:30
A 10:45 winddown at 11
S 11:30

E 1:30
A 1:45 winddown at 2
S 2:30 (harder to get down in the afternoon)

E 4 or 4:30
A 4:15 winddown almost right away
S if we are lucky he does this nap, he did yesterday because we put him in his nursery where he has no activity around him. 5 or 6

E 7
A 7:15 bath every other night
E8
S 8:15 if we are lucky. Generally 9 or 10 Last night was below

S at 9
Woke at 10 – resettled without eating
E at 12:45 – this was our longest sleep stretch
E at 2
Woke at 3:15 (resettled)
Woke at 4:30 (resettled)
E 6

As you can see, this is an insane amount of Nwings and I have no clue where to post this or what is wrong! He sleeps in his swing because we thought that he needed to be upright and in motion. That works sometimes, last 2 nights he hasn't been sleeping. Tried co-sleeping, no change....tried bassinet, no change. Nothing is working. He's 2 months old and I'd expect SOME improvement but rather he's getting worse. Please help!

[mkaes]

Oh Julie, I have no advice, just hugs. I am horrible at looking at/tweaking easys. The first few months are truly the toughest.

[Jenn©]

It takes more than 3-7 days to determine if a reflux medication is going to work for a LO.  Sometimes it gets a bit worse before it gets better.  LO needs time to get used to the med.

[We Three]

((hugs))  It does seem like you are really struggling...and the lack of sleep magnifies everything x100!  There are a couple of things that jump out at me in your post...I would implore you not to let lo CIO...in the end it will end up being counter-productive, it is damaging to your lo's sense of trust. Research has shown that when a lo cries alone, the levels of cortisol in thier bodies go up and the effects of that are not reversible.  We will find another way to get you all past this.

Having had a refluxer myself, I can tell you that 2 days on prevacid is not long enough to see a difference. I would watch for *at least* a week to determine if there are any changes.

Also...I have to admit I don't understand your EASY the way it's written?  Do I understand that his A times during the day are an hour?  Just wanting to clarify...

[besjoux]

Sorry, I understood that the prevacid worked within 24 hours (faster than Zantac) or so the pharmacist told me. We did 1 week of Zantac and he was signifcantly worse! That was our worst week yet was the week he was on Zantac. No clue why. My previous refluxer we saw relief quickly but his symptoms are 100% opposite of this baby.

I include E time in my A time....so his total A time is E, plus 15 minutes of true activity (talk with Mom and DS1, play in bouncer, tummy time, etc) and then we do 30 minutes of winddown. He needs a long time to winddown and he needs a quiet room. The reason I'm not thinking reflux is that once we gave him winddown and naptime in a quiet room he did immediately better with going down for naps.

Our waking at night is not crying....he wakes crying but just wants us to come in and feed him or sooth him. It's just that he wakes A LOT. Does that make sense?

Honestly, there have been times I've walked away from the crying because I knew it was better for my baby. When he was crying in my arms, not wanting to go to sleep it becomes frustrating and unimaginable thoughts go through my mind (I am being honest here). I have enough sense to put him down and take a break for a few minutes. I'm with my kids 24/7 with no break (except 2 hours on a Saturday) add that with being completly exhausted I really don't have much patience.

I am hoping in a few months things will seem very different.

[We Three]

Nobody here will judge you....so your honesty is so appreciated.  Every mom has had moments where they need to remove themselves...we have all been there.  2 hours a week for yourself, especially with a lo with reflux and the NWs...that would be alot for anyone.   I can feel the frustration in your posts...and I promise you if you can find the patience, even though it is hard right now....we will help you get through this. 

I have to run, but will be back later....dh is waiting in the car for me! 

[besjoux]

Yes, the hard part is that he isn't doing well taking a bottle either so I can't get a stretch of sleep because of this. DH is trying to help and doing so much but I'm burned out. I am resentful of the kids and that's a bad thing. The Y time is SO important but it's hard early on. When I read the book I thought "this is really going to be simple/easy" but I've had no such luck in the early days. After 4 months I've been successful but not earlier than that and it makes me feel horrible. We always wanted 3 but I'm done. I never want to be pregnant again or go through the newborn phase again, I am simply too old for this.

[Kimberlina]

oh Julie, sweetheart. I am SO sorry that you are having such a hard time. And I really do know how you feel about not wanting to do this again. (I don't either!!!)

While you're going through survival mode (things didn't REALLY improve for us until 2.5 mo), can you get friends / MIL to give you days off in the week? Do you ever have nights off, where DH is on duty and you can sleep somewhere that you can't be disturbed??

BIG HUGS

[besjoux]

Nope, I never get nights off.... near impossible with having a baby who does not take a bottle. But DH helps by getting up to get the baby and change his diaper. It does give me an extra 10 minutes to sleep. I am hoping that he will sleep longer soon but I was looking back at an old EASY from my first son and it makes me cry! At 3 weeks he was getting a good 4 hour stretch. I guess I'm feeling hopeless. I wish I knew if there was something I was doing wrong or if I just have to suck it up....I just don't know. Everything else is great, but i just can't function anymore with this many NWings.

I'd also ask MIL for help but she doesn't care for newborns and it's really no help. And my Mom is completely self absorbed so I don't even call her. Dad is the best chance I have but he's 2 hours away. I'm working on finding a baby sitter. I know things will get easier at some point.

[Mrs Coops]

Oh Julie {{{{{{{{big, big, big hugs}}}}}}}}} coming your way.

Just a thought but when he wakes at 10pm try and feed him again, maybe the extra feed will keep him going a little longer? With J I just keep feeding him until he eventually stays asleep! It's not ideal but it works for us!

I know you have another LO but can you sleep in the day at all?

[*Liz*]

Julie - what is happening at night now? Are you still cosleeping or is he in the sling?

How does he go to bed at the start of the night?

Have you tried extending those daytime A's a little? I wonder if at 8 week he might need a little more A time during the day - as he is starting to exit the very sleepy newborn phase really.

What do you do for the 30 mins winddown? Is it very low key or is it just time settling to sleep?

EASY wise I think he is having bad nights and then making up for it with short A times and long naps in the morning, then ending up OT at the end of the day and the cycle continues. But it is tough to break in some respects.

Are all naps still in the swing?

Totally agree with everyone that the meds need more time to work - they say 2 weeks to work at all, but up to 4 weeks for maximum effect. Most people see improvement at about the 1-2 week mark.

Sorry so many questions but just want to be clear what we are dealing with - I can give you routine advice but we obviously need to take reflux and sleep prop issues into consideration as well.

And why is he 100% different from your DS1? What is it that makes you feel this isn't reflux?

[*Jo*]

Hun, your story sounds alot like ours, except we had no NW's but almost no daytime naps so it was switched around for us!

Honestly, with reflux we found it took about a week or two to see full results as well and even then the dr told us that no meds fully cure reflux, they just help. leaving your LO to CIO will only make the reflux worse, the more he cries, themore air he swallows and then it brings the belly contents back up again, causing pain... resulting in more crying and the cycle repeats.

How do you resettle him when he does wake?
The thing with refluxers is that they arent the norm when it comes to sleeping, however if you have the time (and the energy) you can still sleep train them, I did with my Caleb, however I know that if I hadve had another child running around there probably wouldnt have been the time to do so.

I also wonder with Liz why the long wind down, for some babes this can be too long and they only need say, 20 mins.

also what kind of bottle are you trying? have you attempted a few kinds?

[besjoux]

Right now he is sleeping in his swing in his room. We are no cosleeping, he is restless next to me now and kicks me all night. I think I am his paci since he won't take a real paci.

When we try to extend the daytime A he fusses to sleep a lot more. The winddown is us rocking and walking around with him. We also give him a bit of time to cry as he usually does. This evening was not great but his room was brighter than normal due to the sun setting and having a lot of sun. I can try to extend A time tomorrow though. Maybe that will help.

Yes, naps are definetly in the swing. Everything is in the swing as he won't sleep anywhere else well! working on one thing at a time right now.

He's different that DS1 in every way. DS1 fussed during the day, DS2 is awake at night. DS1 spit up a TON, DS2 not at all. DS1 took a bottle really well, DS2 not well at all. I could go on and on and on. They are very different. Ds1 also was sensitive, DS2 is easy going.


We have tried a lot of different bottles. Right now he only takes one bottle and it has a defective nipple and nothing comes out without him sucking. We have tried Mam, tommee tippee, Dr browns, Playtex (works best), and a few others that I forgot and he would not even touch.

[~inbalance~]

(((hugs))) Julie, I really could have written your post when F was the same age.  Except instead of the swing, he napped in the wrap.  All day, every day.  I couldn't get him to nap in his own bed, at all!!  It was so frustrating.  I also had no help, we had just moved hours away from all our friends and family, and DH was working all the time.  He wouldn't even sleep on the same floor as us, so I was all on my own for every NWing every night.  Still am actually!    It's so tough.  Don't be hard on yourself, these early months are hard, especially with a tricky baby.  I agree that you need to give the meds more time before deciding whether or not they help.  We tried zantac and I gave it 4wks before deciding it didn't work then was able to switch to prevacid.  We saw a definite, obvious improvement within a week, but it took the whole week.  Things certainly didn't get better right away.  It's been so hard for me to be patient, and so hard to accept that F wasn't going to be an easy, sleepy baby.  I was really angry and sad for a long time.  As for PPD, TBH I think sleep deprivation is a massive massive contributing factor to PPD, and that's so very normal.  It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or that you should ignore those feelings and hope they go away when you get some sleep.  Face it hon, it may be a long time before you get proper sleep on a regular basis!  So in the meantime, be kind to yourself, and talk to someone if you can.  You might need a helping hand to get through the next little while, but once the hurricane passes you'll feel a lot more like yourself again, I promise.   

[besjoux]

I have to thank you all for your kind thoughts and ideas. We did not have a great evening, certainly not horrible. He only catnapped in the early evening and would not take more than 1 1/2 ounces of his bottle...then he would not eat anything from me and would not go back to sleep. He was fussy (obviously OT) but not full out crying unless we tried to do the unwinding and get him to bed. At 8:45 I gave up and fed him one more time and he relaxed and fell asleep (more drowsy than asleep). So I went upstairs and did the winddown in the rocking chair (shhh and pat), put him in the swing and he stayed there until 1:30!!!!! :-0 He woke and ate both sides and has not been awake since. It's now 6 AM and he's still asleep and I had to pump a bit or leak everywhere.

Anyways, I think I've become a bit of a prop. I really only feed him to sleep when I have no other options but I'm really not too worried about that yet because he really is pretty relaxed and I forsee a good transition.

I do think he might need more A time. I am going to try that today. Should I only do a 20 minute winddown then?

I am not expecting good nights like this moving forward.....I know he's still in the swing and we will have to transition out of the swing. Also, we've had one or two good nights in 8 weeks (once we got a 5 hour leg of sleep). Sooooo, this could be a fluke. Regardless, I feel like a new woman! OMG do I feel so much better.