I'm about to lose my mind!!!!
It's 1am for the second night in a row and I'm JUST getting my little monster down...although he is currently fussing in his bassinet, perhaps about to lose his sh*t AGAIN for the 468th time tonight so we may be up again real soon.
I am a FTM to a gorgeous 7.5 week old boy. During the day he is delightful; happy, smiling, wanting to play in his playpen, etc. Around 7:30pm (or ANY time we sit down for dinner), he starts crying, ahem, screaming. Generally after about an hour, we can calm him down with either a bottle (I have to exclusively pump because he has never latched well, even though I continue to try to breastfeed him, which works about 2% of the time), or bouncing on the yoga ball or pacing while SHHHHHing him or singing songs.
The past two nights, we get him to pass out around 10pm and as we either try to twilight feed him or just lay him down, his eyes fly open and he is this possessed little devil and he then SCREAMS inconsolably on and off until 1am. Fun, right? I KNOW he's tired! He's got this pathetic little tired cry but he still won't sleep! Instead he screams and violently tries to rip my hair out, grab my neck fat and/or claw my face. (Sweet little angel...hrmph) Sometimes he'll calm down enough to take another bottle but then after he knocks out, I try to burp him on my chest and try to get him to fall asleep fully so I can transfer him to his bassinet. But then he wakes up and it starts all over again. Today, he took one two hour nap in the morning around 9am (he got up around 7:45am) on my chest and then he only took about three 20 minute naps the rest of the day. WTF?!?! I thought babies were supposed to SLEEP a ton!
I'm SO exhausted. I try to nap when he naps but admittedly I let him nap on my chest on our recliner because I know that he'll fully sleep for hours (and so will I and I FRICKIN' NEED IT). The past two days, I've tried to lay him in his crib or bassinet or even on the couch (in a safe way) for his naps so I can get some housework done but then he only sleeps at the MOST 20 minutes. Ugh. What can I do to get him to nap without me AND to go to sleep at a reasonable hour?!! I'm going insane! I'm home on maternity leave until mid February but if it keeps up like this once I'm back at work, I'll die (probably on the road as I fall asleep behind the wheel). I'm not having my husband help me with getting him down at night past 10pm as he gets up for work at 4:45am, nor do I have him help with the two nighttime feedings because he's working and I'm not. But when we are both back at work, we'll split tasks during the night but I'm HOPING by that point he'll be sleeping through the night. FINGERS CROSSED.
He's a big baby, weighing a bit over 12lbs right now so I'm hoping sleep will come soon (for ALL our sakes)!!!
Please give me advice, words of wisdom, condolences, ANYTHING to make me feel like I'm doing okay and I can get through this! Thanks in advance!!
Achieve your health goals from period to parenting.