in

England

Struggling

Our baby is 4.5 months old and breast fed. We tried to get them used to the bottle, which during the day they will take with some shouting at dad.

I’m really struggling with the evenings and nights though. The baby will only contact nap during the day. The baby will only fall asleep at night if I feed them and won’t go down in the crib unless we are in the same room and insists I have to be asleep too. So we end up me holding and feeding the baby until we go to bed. It’s a struggle to have them spend time with dad, and make and eat food before bed so usually I end up eating whilst feeding them.

When taking the baby up, usually they’ll wake and I have to feed to sleep again. Inevitably we fall asleep and wake just before the next feed window, so too late to transfer into the crib so end waiting until next feed, and the cycle just continues because of tiredness. What makes it worse is the baby in the past week has started to snack between feeds so I’m getting disturbed even more, and I can’t move them until they are dead asleep or I have to feed again! This also means I have no extra milk to express so dad cant keep them accustomed to a bottle so I feel trapped in a cycle.

I feel so tired. I end up awake in night which is counterproductive. And I don’t nap the same as I used to in the day as I feel wired, and trying to come up with solutions. I feel it’s really casting a shadow over my mat leave the past 8 weeks or so. I am not spending the time making the most of each day with them, just feel like I’m living from nap to nap so I can rest.

Because I’m so tired, and trying to get solutions, I’m being quite direct with my partner, and it’s causing friction between us. Not only that, I don’t feel we have any alone time together. We don’t have any support to help either.