Context: I’m trying to put myself in my parents perspective.
By “kids”, this includes those that have already reached the age of majority (i.e. adult children)
Context: I’m trying to put myself in my parents perspective.
By “kids”, this includes those that have already reached the age of majority (i.e. adult children)
I have a 6-week-old baby. It’s 3:30 am and I’m attempting to rock her to sleep for the 8th time already tonight. If I place her in her bassinet, she unleashes screams that no living being with such small lungs should logically be able to produce. She’s possibly loud enough to wake the dead in this town and the next two over. I’ve forgotten what sleep is. Also I’m out of caffeinated drinks. Please send help.
It gets better, I promise.
We had no direct family help and our little one was the same for 12 weeks. We ended up finding a rhythm of three hour shifts overnight. It tremendously helped that I had paternal leave for 14 weeks, so I really hope you or your partner have something similar. It turned out that she was full of gas because of issues with breastfeeding, so we switched to formula. Couple weeks later she slept through the night like a champ.
A big motto we adopted during the time is: “I got to take care of myself, so I can take care of her”. So alternating sleeping times was the biggest benefit, since sleep deprivation was a hellscape.
My grandson is almost 6 months. My wife and I several times had to take him overnight or even sleep in their guest room so they could sleep. How anyone manages without family support, I have no idea.
Take solace, though. Right now she pretty much only needs to communicate that she is hungry, tired, or need to be changed. Before you know it she will have a lot more to say, but the tools she uses (screaming her head off) stay pretty much the same. Sometimes words give you context clues, but I find most of us lack the self-awareness and emotional regulation required for clear verbal communication until sometime in our thirties or forties.
I had issues with this as well, in my case it turns out he wanted to be warm, like very warm. I am not kidding, we are talking 3 hot water bags to setup the bed and leave 2 after he was in
6 weeks old is too young to start this, but around 4-6 months we started waiting 15 minutes after putting our daughter to bed before we would come in if she was crying. It allowed her to learn to self soothe and it made such a huge difference.
Can really relate to this. When you can, go read about swaddling, when done right it’s a godsend for newborns
Reproduction is a trap we trick ourselves into.