Sleep Part 2

Well we reached what I hope was rock bottom last weekend with DD sleeping for a total of three hours a day and at one point feeding on and off for sixteen hours solid.

By Monday I had to ask DBF not to go to work as I was so exhausted I was afraid I’d hurt her – not by intention, I never felt close to harming her, but I was scared I’d fall asleep with her on me feeding and I was so tired I wouldn’t wake up again so anything could happen. Also I’d left a message with the Health Visitor to seek advice and if we’d needed to take DD to the doctor I needed DBF as I still couldn’t drive after the caesarean.

Anyway, DBF had her asleep on him for three hours so I got some sleep too. That at least cleared my head a bit and we started to talk about what our options could be to assist the situation.

Basically, I knew that one of the main reasons she’d been extra unsettled was that DBF’s family were here for four days and I never feel entirely relaxed around them at the best of times so DD was obviously picking up my stress from that. She was also passed around like a prize and her personal space was constantly being invaded as everyone wanted to coo over her.

So, that problem was easily solved as they left on Sunday so there was no more stress and over-stimulation. The main problem was still there though so we decided to buy a much firmer mattress for the moses basket and also a rocking frame for it. Our reasoning was that the foam mattress we had didn’t seem to support her that well and she likes being rocked but I can’t hold her and rock her for very long as my stomach starts to ache.

Those two things have seemed to help a bit – especially the rocker as she’s now happy to be in the basket whilst awake and her movement causes it to rock which keeps her contented. She doesn’t sleep easily in there still but at least I can leave her for a while and get on with other things, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes.

Anyway, with things a bit more settled during the day we finally noticed a distinct pattern in the evenings. Basically we had her settled during the day but she was unconsolable for two to three hours at night, wouldn’t feed, tummy was all hard, all she did was scream…..

Yep, colic.

I have a book on getting a baby to sleep that a friend leant me and the symptoms they listed in there all fitted. We checked it out on the web and got even more symptoms we could tick off the list so we were left in no doubt about it. So, we’ve invested in colic drops, have been using them for 24 hours and can already see a difference. It’s not a miracle cure but at least the three of us all feel better and are slowly working out a solution.