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Finding it hard! 
Hi all,
Not sure where to start really! Think the best way to describe all my confusion as how best to look after baby and todler and try to remain human is just that I'm finding it so hard!
My baby is 4 week on friday and my toddler is 22 months old. Therefore I have to be up all day with my toddler so can't do the usual 'sleep when your baby sleeps' thing.
My baby generally feeds 1-2 hourly for a couple of 5 min stints. I think she is getting plenty of milk as my boob will go from feeling quite full to feeling empty during this time and she has put on 1lbs 6 oz from birth to 3 weeks, so must be getting enough milk!
I know that new borns sleep a lot, but I just want to run by everyone what my daughter is doing. She generally will wake for a feed crying and start rooting as soon as I pick her up, so I feed her, burp her then normally she wants another feed and burp. She comes off the boob either sleeping or crying with wind, but then falls asleep as soon as I start to burp her. If I lay her down she starts screaming unless she is in her bouncy chair and being bounced or in the car, in which case she will go back to sleep and continue to sleep as long as she is being bounced. After about half an hour of bouncing she will continue to sleep for another 2-3 hours, before starting the cycle all over again. She can be taken out of the bouncy chair or car seat when she is alseep like this and remain asleep for the remainding time no matter what you do to her (cuddle, change nappy, put in cot...etc.) During the night she will wake screaming for feed, then as in the day, fall asleep while being burped and will then sleep for an hour or so before wanting more food.
I have tried having her in the bouncy chair at night and bouncing her to settle her when she wakes after an hour for food, but as soon as the bouncing stops she wakes, So therefore I ended up being awake for longer boucning her then had to feed her anyway, so easier to feed her then get back to sleep asap! I don't overly want to use the bouncy chair anyway, as don't want her to only be able to sleep in a chair or being bounced or rocked as that will be a hard one to break later on! Also think it is important for her to have some flat time!
She doesn't seem to have any happy awake time really, sometimes we will have 5/10 mins when she will lay on her play mat and seems happy before screaming again, but generally if she is awake she is feeding, being burped or screaming because she is tired. She doesn't seem to be able to settle herself to sleep at all, always has to be rocked or bounced. (my older daughter used to just fall asleep if she was tired at this age. If she was on the play mat, when she had had enough she would just fall alseep, even if I didn't want her too, she didn't sleep at night either!)
Anyway, i guess what I'm posting about is that, does all the feeding, and sleeping routine sound normal and does anyone have any ideas how I can get a 3 or 4 hour sleeping stint at night?
I am so tired as not getting more than an hour in a row at night and have to be so active with my older daughter in the day! really gets me down and I end up in tears all the time! 
Kat, Avilee (22 months) and Teagan (3 weeks 5 days)
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Thank you!
Thank you all for your words of encouragement.
I didn't really expect anyone to come up with a miracle cure, just needed to get it all of my chest and is reasurring to hear that others are/have had the same problem.
I can't wait for her to be older and therefore more able to go longer periods without food and hopefully sleep longer too! However I feel awfukl about this as I'm wishing her life away and they are so magical at this age.
Will make a conscious effort to try to enjoy her more and not get too hung up on feeding and sleeping routines!
Thanks again for your replies.
Kat
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Sounds familiar
It seems like yesterday that I asked a very similar question on here. My baby was the same. She either slept (but only fell asleep being rocked too) and as soon as I put her down she screamed for ages. She fed CONSTANTLY day and night and I was left exhausted and crying and not knowing what to do. On top of this she suffered from colic. It was awful!
I can't imagine what it must be like for you with a toddler to look after too.
My GP told me that all I can do is wait it out. So I did. And after about 3 months it suddenly settled down. She managed to fall asleep by herself, got into a routine (with feeding every 3 hours and 2 day time naps) and when I feed her at night she falls asleep right away. She doesnt sleep through yet and sometimes I am up every 2 to 3 hours still but at least she will fall asleep right away after the feed.
So yes, what you described sounds all too familiar. It was as if this baby was never happy just lying there. It was a constant struggle and all that would calm her down was driving in the car. It was awful!
I think it is ok to rock her to sleep for now. That is what we did. You can then gradually, as she gets a bit older, start to put her down when she is sleepy but not yet fully asleep and then after a while put her down still awake. She will cry but will learn eventually. For us it was impossible to get a routine together and get her to fall asleep by herself by the time she was your baby's age. This only slowly started around 10 weeks and it happened very naturally with her being awake a bit longer after the feeds and slowly starting a bit of a nap routine.
Hang in there, it will get better! Meanwhile, rest assured that this is what a lot of people go through with newborns....
All the best,
Katy and Ashira 5 months
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Hey hun
I'm sorry to say, but yes it does sound quite normal to me . I know where you're coming from. My daughter was like that a couple of months ago (she's 3 months old now). What we found was that she was suffering from colic, which made her feed very little and even more often than any newborn does. She was very windy and screaming most of the time as well. Same as you, we couldn't put her down for 5 minutes before she started screaming again. Because we also have a toddler (21 months old), we decided that to make our life easier, we would just accept for a while that she needed to be rocked to go to sleep or fall asleep in our arms or whatever was working day after day and night after night rather than trying to find all sorts of solutions which would or wouldn't work... basically we went wuith the flow and decided to "teach" her to settle herself when she was a bit older. It worked for us. I guess it was a combinaison of this and of the fact that she became less colicky which sorted things out. She started falling asleep on her own in her own bed at 8 weeks, and is very good at it now.
I know what it's like to have to deal with your toddler too. It is awfully tiring. I just posted about that and I had replies from some ladies who have 4 or 5 kids; they are really brave and it made me think things aren't that bad after all. But putting things in persepctive isn't always easy when tiredness kicks in. Do you have any family nearby or friends who could look after your toddler for a day or two so that you can catch up on sleep a bit?
Your baby is not yet 4 weeks old, hopefully she will start settling in a couple of weeks; she's still so young.
good luck hun, I know it's not easy but it will change soon.
xxx
Flo, Etienne and Leonie
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I know how you feel
I found the first few weeks feeding really tough.
I thought I'd post and let you know what worked for us.
My GP suggested to me that my dh could offer a formula feed in the middle of the night.
We gave this a go and it worked for us. The formula is thicker and takes longer for the baby to digest than breastmilk. He did the 2am feed which allowed me to sleep through and get at least 4 hours. I would then get up and breasfeed at 6am and exclusively breastfeed throughout the day.
Our ds seems fine with this, he didn't get confused between bottle and breast and we are still offering a formula but at 2 months we moved it to 10.30pm to sustain him through the night. He's now 3 months and sleeping from 10.30 til 5am.
Whatever you try, it does get easier as you know, having been through this once already.
Sarah and Luke (3 months)
xXx
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Hey Kat,
Awwww, poor you, you sound exhausted
I'm afraid I don't have any wise words, as everything I was thinking as I was going along reading your post, you've tried! It does sound like she's got her days and nights a bit the wrong way round doesn ... (infact, if sadclare comes on and reads this, I know she had this prob in the early days and the poor love was virtually nocturnal so she might have some good advice).
There are elements of what you've talked about though that we did have with Isla, (funny how the passing of time makes you sort of forget it or put it to the back of your mind!!) - ie, the bit about being perfectly happy being held or bounced but kicking off when being put down. Unfortunately, and I know this is no help to you, I think she just outgrew it around 10 weeks, which seemed to be this magic point where everything settled down!
When I look back on the newborn stage, I have to say, and I know this is controversial, but I found more downs than ups (esp recovering from horrific birth too), and I've sort of got in my mind that if we have another I'm just in for a really rough time of it to start with until they settle with time again.
I'm sorry I don't have any practical help, but I do sympathise, esp since like you say you can't sleep when baby sleeps because of toddler.
I hope someone else has some tips or things at least settle of own accord soon,
Love N & Isla (1) xx
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having a bad few days 