When do ebf babies sleep for longer stretches and do I try something new? Struggling!
I am ebf my 7 week old baby. to date, we have had one 5 hour stretch of sleep and a couple of 3 hours but overall I am finding the nights really difficult. I will nurse him to sleep, keep him upright for around 20 mins then slowly transfer him to his next to me crib. IF this is successful, he's currently sleeping about 30 mins to an hour then will wake up again. I try to leave him if he is fussing but with his eyes closed and will just get him and soothe/ feed if he is starting to sound distressed and has his eyes open.
I sometimes get one or two 2.5 hour stretch at the beginning or end of the night but overall my nights are really broken. My partner does offer to help more but he rarely settles on him at night and I want him to get his sleep so a) he can safely go to work, b) he is able to support more practically in the evenings and c) I hate the thought of him struggling mentally in the way that I do from sleep deprivation.
I don't expect him to sleep through the night but my question is, can I expect to get some longer stretches of sleep more consistently soon? The sleep deprivation really impacts my mood and I will feel really low and tearful during the day. If he does manage even just two 2-2.5 hour stretches I feel much more positive and am able to interact with him a lot better. I feel so guilty when I just have no energy and although I do make effort to talk to him throughout the day, I am much less mentally present and am worried that it's having a detrimental impact on his attachment and development. I'm starting to seriously think about introducing formula in an attempt to just get one longer stretch of sleep but I feel a lot of guilt around doing this especially so early on and from what I've read it doesn't always make a difference.
Apologies if any of this doesn't make sense, I write this in the early hours of the morning in desperation!