We had our little guy in Sunday, so he's 4 days old.It was a long labour - 27 hours.. Plus we stayed in the hospital for about 24 hours after baby was born, so she couldn't sleep then either. Needless to say, she's started parenthood with a massive sleep deficit.Since then, she has slept a combined total of about 6 hours.I am getting extremely worried as the health effects are becoming noticeable. She's having trouble talking, focusing, understanding, etc.The problem... child cannot be away from her. I am (thank god) on a week off work so I have been trying my damndest to help her, but he will not have it.He must be breast fed nearly continuously from about 9pm to 8am. He will eat for 30 minutes, stop for 30 minutes, and so on. Realistically, there is no prospect for her to sleep with that feeding interval. And yes, he's eating, not just using her as a soother (though that's a problem if we aren't careful). If we try to go for 35 minutes? Screaming. Banshee screaming. And yes, he must be held for the entire night or he screams.If we put him down anywhere, he screams. I don't mean fuss, like being stabbed with a knife screaming. From everything I've read, it is damaging to children this young to attempt "crying it out" so we just try to pick him up, tend to his needs, and put him back. More screaming. Eventually... we just have to hold him continuously.We have tried to put him in his crib, a pack & play in the bedroom, in the bed with mommy, in his mama roo, on the couch beside us, in a bassinet, nothing is acceptable for baby except for holding.Mommy has tried holding him and falling asleep herself. But she can't sleep holding him (nervous about hurting him and all that) so it's not helpful for her.During the day time, I can usually hold him and he's good for awhile. This is how my wife has managed the 6 hours of sleep, as his daytime feeding interval is about 90 minutes. With such a short feeding interval, her sleeps are really short... but it's something.We tried to resist using a soother, but as you can imagine we are willing to forego some of the "parenting no-no's" and we added the soother. This helps a lot - we can put him down if he has it - but he drops it every 5 minutes. Once it drops? Screaming. So this does not help with sleeping as we have to return him his soother every 5 minutes.I don't know what to do. It is not realistic that only mommy must be available 24 hours a day. I want to help more but I will go back to work on Monday so we need to figure out something for mommy to manage this.Any ideas are appreciated... we are desperate... via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2blMjoY
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