How did you survive the newborn phase?

Question

Any tips from experienced moms on how to best make it through the first few months of barely any sleep?

Answer

Coffee, lanolin, Netflix, and a really supportive SO.

Answer

Oh my gosh I thought the newborn stage was a breeze the first 4 weeks or so is literally change, bottle, sleep three hours. Repeat. We went out to dinner, took him to stores, I went in the backyard and swam/tanned for a couple hours. At night he got a feeding at 11pm and then always slept till 3ish and then another bottle back to bed and slept till 7 or even a little later and then we would give another bottle and we all got up for the day at around 10am. My son developed “colic” but it wasn’t at night it was 12+ hours of crying during the day and sleeping well at night.  Every baby is different. Figure out a routine, start early. By 3 months we had my sons sleeping scheduled which made it so easy to transition to sleeping through the night at 6 months. He’s now two and I have consistently slept 8-10 hrs every night since he was just 6 months.  But I have to admit I never thought the newborn early infant stage was tooo hard or felt sleep deprived.

Answer

Co-sleep. It saved me. There are ways to do it safely, just do some research on it.

Answer

Counting down the days to milestones. Six weeks and three months seeming to be the big ones to progress.
Also sleeping whenever you have the chance. If you can get someone to watch the baby even once a week for a bit so you can have a legit nap where you aren’t too worried about them waking up and needing you so you can really sleep instead of going in and out all paranoid.

Answer

I’m not really sure how we survived but we did. Now my daughter wakes up once a night and I complain lol. I have no clue how we did it! Have your husband/bf take some turns feeding or rocking to sleep. If baby wakes up, take to a different room to feed/change/rock to sleep so the other adult gets good sleep. Nap if you. An when baby naps (I couldn’t). Ask for someone to come over and help while you take a nap. Have snacks available for when you don’t feel like cooking or making a meal.

Answer

I just took everyone's advice and slept when the baby slept feeding every 2 hours makes your sleep so broken up it's easy just to nap whenever babies napping

Answer

Sleep when baby sleeps. I found the first couple months way easier than when he hit 4 months or so and regressed and needed to visually see me at all times. Newborns sleep and eat. Older babies need more attention for longer periods of time. I found that more tiring.

Answer

I made crockpot meals, actually using an ipot in large quantities. I stopped using the bottle sanitizer and used the dishwasher instead with a sani rinse. I got 16 bottles so I washed every other day. When my husband got home we ate dinner and I handed off the baby and went to shower & sleep from 6/7pm until midnight when he came in and then woke up for the babys first feed at 2am, and fed him every 2 hours. Every hour when he went through cluster feeding/growth spurt.

Answer

Basically by just knowing it get better. Every single stage of babies is tough for different reasons. You just have to slowly adapt. It’s okay to cry sometimes. And yes nap when your LO naps. My son is almost 18 months old and I still go through moments where I go crazy and sometimes almost wish he was a newborn again because it was easier (again in certain aspects haha). You’ll have hard days and you’ll have good days. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Let other people watch your LO for a little bit so you can sleep or just eat a hot meal. Even though you are the mom you must remember that your mental health is important too and it’s okay to step away for a bit. Your baby will survive without you for a few hours.

How did you survive the newborn phase?

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