Author Topic: Severe case of accidental parenting TOTALLY LOST!!  (Read 2622 times)

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Offline Antoniosmommy

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Severe case of accidental parenting TOTALLY LOST!!
« on: September 20, 2017, 23:16:10 pm »
Hi everyone,
I'm not even sure where to start or if I'm posting in the correct place but I feel like sleep is my major issue though it seems after binge reading the books I found that I have been doing everything totally wrong since my son was born.  He just turned 20 weeks old yesterday and up until today he had been bottlefed breastmilk every 2 hours which is problem #1 and he's a "snacker".  Since about 3.5 months old his naps went down the toilet and since turning 4 months he's been waking frequently at night. 
When he started sleeping long stretches at 3 months old I started a nighttime routine which was working out great( or so I thought).
Problem #2 is he's never had a routine besides bedtime I always fed him when he was hungry and napped him when he was tired.
 Problem #3 is he has been sleeping in his rock and play sleeper the past month every night.  From 3-4 months old he would sleep more than half the night in his crib then after his feed I would move him to the RnP and he was getting to a point of almost sleeping STTN in his crib.  Then we went on vacation and had no choice but to sleep in him in it and now I'm back to square 1.  I tried a few nights ago to get him in his crib and he did 17 min, 2 hour, 2 hour, 40 min stretches then woke up at 4:15 wide awake looking to play.  By the time he ate he made a huge poopy diaper and it took forever to get him back to sleep, so in the RnP he went! He also napped in it in the living room most days as well.
Problem#3 is I use a bottle to put him to sleep as well as rocking in the glider.  He can't go down on his own he cries hysterically.  He is currently going through what I think is wonder week 19 and since he found his feet he wakes up at night to play.  However Last night I held back and witnessed him put himself back to sleep after playing for 15 mins.  I REALLY WANT HIM SLEEPING IN HIS CRIB.
Problem#4 is a bunch of problems in one.  We used the swing/car seat/stroller/holding him A LOT to get him to sleep.  He was very colicky until 3 months old.  Now absolutely nothing works.  No matter what he only naps for 20-30 mins tops.  Once in a blue I'll get a random 2 or 3 hour stroller or car seat nap (happened maybe 3 times).  I spend my entire day trying to put this kid to sleep.  Dark room, white noise, rocking, bottle, I watch for yawns and eye rubbing, let him sleep anywhere he wants and NOTHING works! I'm at my wits end. He only gets maybe 2 hours average daytime sleep. 
Problem #5 is since vacation at end of august he wakes 2-4 times every night now.  I will usually feed him two of those times.  And he finishes the bottle.  He's not eating enough?? Prior to that he always woke up just once for a feed.  Down by 8:30pm and up at 7am. 
Problem#6 I have no me time what so ever.  I'm back to having a newborn and not showering for 2 days.  Please help. My son is chronically overtired and miserable baby at the moment cries non stop.  He's so exhausted how do I help him? I would describe him as Touchy with a tad spirited. His awake time is about 1.5-2 hours.

Offline becj86

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Re: Severe case of accidental parenting TOTALLY LOST!!
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2017, 08:31:55 am »
Hi, welcome. absolutely happy to hold your hand as you unravel some things and get on track for your little fellow to sleep better!

First off, don't beat yourself up. You've done fine, followed your instincts, decided something needs to change, found some information and asked for support. That is brilliant. As my husband said when I felt terrible "You've done your job. Baby is alive - you're fed, cleaned, etc. as needed."

Also know that your baby has some of these skills already - you witnessed him resettle himself - you know he *can* do it. Once his routine is better for him, he will likely do this/not need to.

Lots of these issues you have will resolve partially or fully by just getting the daytime naps sorted, so lets do that first, then we can tweak/train whatever is left. Making these changes will take some effort - he will likely cry because you're changing things he's known all his life so you have to be ready to stick to it before you start, for his sake and yours. I'd suggest tackling things in this order:
1. Get routine sorted - A times, naps and feeds at reasonable times
2. Getting sleep in crib
3. Night wakings / whatever else is an issue.

FWIW, what I did with my son at 5 months was 2.5hr A times by the clock for a few days (for you, this may be as much as a week just to make sure you're well and truly through the regression that usually happens around 5 days before you start trying to get him into the crib). So you'd be doing this with your props (except feeding to sleep) to get him to sleep and keep him asleep. We'll wean those off eventually but whilst his body is getting used to sleeping proper naps, you can keep some things the same or its too hard with a spirited and things go south very quickly.
I'd suggest a routine like this (shift to line up with your ideal WU/BT, whichever is more important to you):
7 - WU, feed
9:30 - nap
11 - wake, feed
1:30 - nap
3 - wake, feed
5 - nap
5:30 - wake, feed
7:30 - asleep in bed for the night

https://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/milkcalc/
Have a read of this and just make sure you're feeding enough at each feeding/enough through the day. If he's not taking large enough volumes, you can give him a main feed when he wakes from naps, then top up 45-60min after that so he's getting slightly longer between feeds and you can gradually shrink that gap between main feed and topup so he's taking feeds further apart if you so desire. Alternately, you can just keep them and know you'll replace the topups gradually with solids in a month or so. I know what I'd choose with dealing with bottles, but that's totally up to you and what you're comfortable with. Two night feeds at this stage is absolutely normal, so don't worry too much about that.

Its quite likely you'll read what I've written as think 2.5hr is too much, he could never do that, etc. He's got plenty of signs of being chronically OT with those short naps and I get that he will be cranky and look tired at 1.5hr - he's used to that and he's doing it from habit now. That long happy waking at 4:15am - classic sign that he needs more A time. I've just gone for a round figure that is average for this age and we can tweak from there but give it a few days to settle in.

Any other questions, ask :)

Offline Antoniosmommy

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Re: Severe case of accidental parenting TOTALLY LOST!!
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2017, 12:11:26 pm »
Thank you so much for the reply and the reassurance, I know it's a lot to sort through and I feel so relieved that a plan is going into to place to fix things.  I am going to start today!!!  Yesterday I tried to space out his feedings every 4hours and it went pretty well (instead of 6 daytime feeds of 4oz I gave him 4 of 6oz), the only issue I found yesterday and this morning is that first thing in the morning he's never hungry and rarely finishes a bottle.  This morning 45 mins after waking he drank 3 oz, now I'm trying to get the other 3 down, and it's hard to keep him on track for the other feeds. Yesterday he did the same thing in the morning but I managed somehow to get 6 ounces down at once for the other bottles.  Also last night I managed to sneak a few extra ounces into him and he only woke once at 3:30 and drank 5 oz.  it's 8:10 am here in New York and He's started to get fussy and rub his eye ( he's up since 7).  I'll do my best to  keep him up until 9:30 and let you know of my progress!

Offline Lindsay27

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Re: Severe case of accidental parenting TOTALLY LOST!!
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2017, 12:32:46 pm »
Just wanted to drop off some hugs, my DS was also very colicky for the first 3-4 months, and honestly...when you have a colicky baby all bets are off, you just do whatever you can to survive, and that usually means a whole ton of props.  With the help of the lovely ladies here, we were able to teach independent sleep and get to a good place.  It was a long hard road, I'm not going to lie, but you will get there eventually and this community is amazing and here to help along the way.  Good luck!



Offline becj86

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Re: Severe case of accidental parenting TOTALLY LOST!!
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2017, 08:31:22 am »
How are you going?