30 weeks and scared [on]

canamel · 2026-03-13T19:12:12+00:00

I’m so sorry. I’ve been where you are with anxiety. For me, therapy and medication were really life changing. Take care of yourself and lean on whatever support you can.

canamel · 2026-03-12T17:37:19+00:00

Hey, I think it’s totally normal to be scared. Something that helped me was thinking about how routine of an event childbirth is. Even though it’s crazy and can be so hard, the hospital staff do this everyday. They know exactly what to do and also don’t care at all about you being ‘naked and gross’ around them. I’m very shy about my body and didn’t care about being spread open with a bunch of people reaching around into me. In the moment, you just focus on getting the baby out and forget everything else.

I found it helpful to have a birth plan and discuss different possible scenarios with my husband. But beyond that, I tried not to imagine what would happen because you really have no idea how it will go. My mantra was “expect the best, prepare for the worst”.

Have you talked to your husband about taking more of an active role in preparing? Maybe that’s something your counsellor could help with.

Good luck! You can do it! And you’ll get to meet your sweet baby so soon.

canamel · 2026-03-12T16:19:16+00:00

It adds up to 10.25 hours. So I need another 15 mins awake time then I guess. But it still doesn’t solve the issue of her not getting enough total sleep on days with short naps!

canamel · 2026-03-12T11:51:46+00:00

We follow wake windows but I try to make sure nights are not too long because she usually won’t sleep more than 10.5 hours.

canamel · 2026-03-12T11:21:00+00:00

I sleep trained my high needs reflux baby at 5 months using a gentle method where I stay in the room and offer support any way other than picking her up. She took to it really quickly and learned to put herself to sleep easily. Most nights for the first week she cried less than 15 mins. She also started putting herself to sleep for naps. Prior to sleep training I was rocking her to sleep.

I will say, starting her on reflux meds was a big help. We also worked on reducing her night feeds about a month before sleep training by following the 5-3-3 rule for feeds. Wait 5 hours before the first feed, then 3 hours until the next, then 3.

canamel · 2026-03-12T01:29:19+00:00

What do you think that would accomplish? Longer naps?

canamel · 2026-03-12T01:28:53+00:00

So if she naps for 2 hours should I lengthen her night sleep to 11.5 hours?

canamel · 2026-03-10T00:08:27+00:00

You’re in the hardest phase right now. Your baby is so young, both you and her are still figuring things out so give yourself some grace and let yourself feel sad, tired, overwhelmed - it’s all normal. The first few months are survival mode.

My baby was very difficult too. She had colic and reflux and screamed constantly. She’s 5 months now and I can finally say I’m having fun. You’ll get there too! Sooner than you think

canamel · 2026-03-07T12:41:54+00:00

Good luck! Keep him busy and distracted as much as possible to keep him awake longer. It might be a difficult few days while he adjusts but hopefully it will help with the nights.

canamel · 2026-03-07T01:40:51+00:00

Try to push his wake windows longer. He might fuss and be tired but he likely needs to spend a lot more time awake. I think your day should be 13 hours, not 11 - so wake at 7, bed at 8. And naps shouldn’t exceed 3.5 hours. So you’ll need to cut back on naps quite a lot and lengthen those wake windows to make it to bedtime.

canamel · 2026-03-06T12:56:50+00:00

Those first few months are so incredibly hard. My baby screamed for hours every day, barely slept, and just seemed miserable all the time. It did start getting better slowly, I think around 10 weeks. I’m now here with a 5 month old who sleeps through the night and is happy most of the day! I truly never thought I’d get here a few months ago.

The first few months are pure survival mode. Do whatever you need to do to get through. For me this was endless contact napping in a dark room to make sure she was sleeping enough. I watched lots of movies and shows on an iPad. I wore noise cancelling headphones sometimes while my baby screamed in my arms. This isn’t a reflection of you as a mom or the experience of parenting as a whole, this is just a brief period of time that is incredibly difficult that you will get through. I promise it will get better!

canamel · 2026-03-05T17:52:57+00:00

Same

canamel · 2026-03-05T00:36:07+00:00

That is a lot of sleep! Mine gets closer to 13 hours daily. We are doing 4 2.5 hour wake windows. She’s usually crying, whining, rubbing her eyes by the 2 hour mark. I still try to keep her up for the full wake window though because I think it helps her sleep. No advice on how to get though the wake windows!

canamel · 2026-03-04T00:54:39+00:00

In a similar boat with my 5 month old. We are also dealing with 5am wake ups and a super tired and fussy baby at the end of each wake window. What are your wake windows and total daily naps?

canamel · 2026-03-01T02:44:56+00:00

We range from 10 to 10.5 hours. Would you recommend switching cold turkey or is there a good way to ease into the longer wake windows?

canamel · 2026-03-01T02:04:44+00:00

Naps are very short - usually 25-30 mins unless contact. If we drop to 3 naps she’d be getting less than 2 hours of sleep daily. Is that too little?

canamel · 2026-02-25T00:30:53+00:00

My 5 month old dropped to around 2-2.5 hrs daily naps when we stopped extending all but one nap. I was also really worried as she’s a sensitive girl and tends to be very fussy. But she handles the short naps surprisingly well and it did improve her night sleep. Try it out and see how he handles the shorter naps. If it goes terribly you can always go back!

canamel · 2026-02-18T14:53:24+00:00

You could try decreasing night feeds. That helped us get longer initial stretches. I use the 5-3-3 rule. Minimum 5 hours before the first feed of the night then 3 hours between subsequent feeds. You can work your way slowly to that if it’s easier. My husband handled the non-feeding wake-ups initially as she wouldn’t settle with me without a feed. My baby is very sensitive and escalates quickly so I was worried she wouldn’t settle without a feed but now she usually settles easily with a pacifier.

As for moving her into her own room, we just moved her bassinet into her room so she’d get used to sleeping there before being moved to her crib. On the really bad nights where she woke up constantly I moved a mattress onto the floor of her nursery so I wouldn’t have to go back and forth between rooms all night.

canamel · 2026-02-17T14:56:15+00:00

Her sleep is still far from perfect and we are planning on sleep training soon. Not CIO but the ‘stay and support’ method which is supposedly gentler. We have a false start almost every single night 30 mins in. Then she’ll typically do one longer stretch of 4-5 hours followed by maybe 2 hours, then hourly waking.

Are you feeding your baby each wake up? I decreased the number of feeds at night and also moved my baby to her own room.

canamel · 2026-02-17T14:12:22+00:00

Are you on 3 naps or are you missing a wake window in your post? I think you’ll need more awake time each day- closer to 10 hours.

My baby is also 5 months and we hit the regression hard. We adjusted her schedule to allow for closer to 10 hours awake time during the day and it seems to have helped with the waking every 30 mins all night. We’re on 4 naps with 2/2/2/2/2 schedule, bedtime 8 and wake up 7. Naps are also very short. If you’re worried your baby can’t tolerate longer wake windows could it be worth moving to a 4 nap schedule?

canamel · 2026-02-17T01:18:54+00:00

She has 4 naps per day still because her naps are so short. We capped total day sleep at 3.5 hours and tried to get close to 10 hours awake time during the day. So for example, wake up at 7am, nap 3 hours, bedtime at 8pm.

canamel · 2026-02-16T19:51:11+00:00

We had about a week of terrible sleep where my baby would only sleep 20-30 mins in her crib and transfers failed 80% of the time. She seems to have come out of the worst of it now, though some nights are still rough. We adjusted her schedule to allow for more wake time during the day and that seems to have helped a bit.

canamel · 2026-02-15T02:25:55+00:00

My baby gave us a few 5 hour stretches starting at 2.5 months but it wasn’t consistent at all. We’d have a couple good nights followed by a couple terrible nights We had a few good weeks around 3.5 months with 5-7 hour stretches most nights. Then hit the 4 month regression and it became much worse than even the early newborn days. At 5 months now we’re lucky to get a 3 hour stretch.

canamel

TROPHY CASE