Do your babies sleep in the dark?

[flaxen]

Hi, Im after a bit of advice.

Do your babies sleep in the dark in the nursery or do you leave a dim light on for them? If you leave them in the dark how do you check on them in the night without disturbing them by turning the light on?

The reason I'm asking is because we are due to start lambing when baby is approximately 1 mth old ( my due date is 7th Jan, ewes due to lamb end of Jan beg Feb) and I do all the night time lambing. I check the sheep every 2hrs in the night.

I have 2 options

A) wrap her up all snug in her winter woollies and take her round to the sheep shed with me in her pram so she is with me. I always take a guard/ sheep dog with me at night as I feel safer and should anyone uninvited be about he will defend me and bite on command. Hes a good dog!!

B) leave her in her cot (if she's asleep) in the house and get a remote hands free type monitor that will cover the range from the house to the sheep shed so I can hear her if she wakes up and check her before I go out and when I come back in.

Fiance will be of no help as he will either be asleep ( a bomb can go off and he wont wake up and doesnt even notice when I get up and do night checks) or he will be at work as he works predominately nights.

I dont want to keep disturbing her in the night as we have normally finished lambing by the middle of april.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[xxbeckyxx]

Sorry to have to say it but your fiance is gonna need to have a kick up the bum and learn to wake up. It's not fair to take a newborn baby out with you in a pram - how is she ever gonna learn what night time is? And as for leaving her - what if you've got a difficult lamb, ewe in trouble etc and then you hear your precious newborn screaming down the monitor for food?
Is there any way your fiance can deal with the lambing? Are you breastfeeding?

When Lizzie was a newborn she would be awake (but sleepy) and feeding on and off every half hour between 11pm and 4am. She had to be laying on my chest for that time for either of us to get any sleep.

You're probably gonna need to come up with another solution, best one being someone else does the lambs!

 

[xxbeckyxx]

Just read through my post and realised I sound like a complete cow, sorry if it comes across that way! I know how difficult a farming/rural life can be

 

[Dragonfly Fi]

hmmm, i dont think at a month old you should be worrying too much about 'day, night' things. If you were disrupting her routine at 6 or 8 months i would probably suggest leaving her in the house with a monitor because really, a baby of that age can be awake for 5mins whilst you rush back without having too much stress

Have you thought about a sling? Only that time of the night is awfully cold and dark and baby would be warmed far more by your body temperature than by any amount of warm clothes in a pram. You could just lift her into a snuggly sling and pop a coat round both of you to go and check the lambs She wouldnt mind at all I am sure

 

[xxbeckyxx]

Ooh a sling is a good idea, a nice snuggly moby/kari-me or something To be honest it's hard to plan before baby arrives - when she's here you'll know what you can and can't get away with!

 

[Dragonfly Fi]

i dont think she has a choice! The lambs will need lambing and if her husband works nights...

i imagine babies for centuries have been wrapped up warm against mama's bosom for exactly the same reason

i think if you can encoperate your own body warmth you will be absolutely fine

 

[Momma`Kat]

i think you might have trouble finding a monitor that will have the range, especially through solid walls like old farm buildings! If you go that route tho, Try looking for surveilance camera, cctv type things, you can buy little oens with portable moniters, and you get a lot more range.

 

[Dragonfly Fi]

even so... i dunno if i would want to be that far away from a new born (CCTV or not) the NHS recommend that babies are not left alone to sleep for the first six months. They need breathing and people to keep em regulated. 5mins is quite a long time, to a baby x

 

[Momma`Kat]

agreed bigbump, but if she absolutely has to do the lambing, that could help?
Also to the OP.. you are gonna be EXHAUSTED lol at first lanna breastfed every 2 hours, and carried that on till she was 3 months old (though starting sleeping 11pm-5am from a month) but was HARD! and even now shes 8 months, and still wont go longer than 3 hours lol

 

[Dragonfly Fi]

I agree she has to do the lambing, i dont agree that she has to leave a baby alone in a house for any amount of time... what if some thing happens with a lamb? She will need to stay there and that could create an impossible situation with a lamb in trouble and the baby crying in the house

if it were me i would just make every effort to make sure i was not leaving the baby...

 

[spice]

i think everyone's points so far are quite good! i was going to also suggest a sling, as you'd have your baby with you, and if you were breastfeeding and she needed to be fed you could get her on the boob then carry on with what you were doing

completely not the same, but i've started using my sling round the house as my little man doesn't like to be left alone, so can only leave him when he's completely asleep, and then i constantly check on him!

hope you find something to make it all a bit easier for you x

 

[Momma`Kat]

Lambing can be messy if you have to help a ewe out, personally i wouldnt like to be doing it with a newborn on me.

 

[Hope81]

ofc the ideal would be someone else to do the lambing as i would rather say that you will be so tired to dress etc and get out of the house so many times per night.

but if thats absolutely impossible then i would leave the baby at home with a monitor if its already asleep and not near feeding time and dress and get with me in a pram/sling if its not sleeping or i know that i have to stay with the lambs quite a lot.

but none of those solutions is ideal as getting out in the middle of the winter while its freezing cold a newborn baby its not sth that i fancy especially several times per night
leaving at home a newborn baby while i am not in the house is not sth that i like either
but depending on the baby breasfeeding//bottle feeding a good monitor a sensory mat and good timing i would choose to leave the baby at home while i fast doing whatever especially if my oh is at home too.

believe it or not your oh may start waking if the baby cries as lots of people say that they can't wake up but they do when their baby crys. so you have to wait and see with that aspect too.

as about the light, i am planning for a night light as its really not disturbing the babes sleep and allows you to check the baby fast.

regardless what solution you choose as i am pretty sure that babies were left alone in winter time at home or rushed in the cold outside if needed since ever in this world in rural families i am sure that your LO will have great time growing up in a farm near animals

we may come to visit you to see the baby lambs

 

[hopefulmummy]

I have to say that bar the first couple of nights where he was nocturnal, Arthur had his best sleeps and longest stretches at night from when he was a few days old. With my baby it would have been cruel for me to keep disturbing him through the night to take him outside, but every baby is different.

 

[flaxen]

Thanks for all the replys. There is no one else to do the lambing, and my fiance works nights 5 nights a week so wont be able to help either.

"what if some thing happens with a lamb?"
Do you mean a problem lambing/ dystocia? If so then its no different to any other year I'm afraid, our sheep dont get ceasarians as it costs too much compared to what the ewe and the lamb would sell for so if I am unable to lamb a ewe due to deformity or she has closed then Im afraid she gets a bullet. After all its a business. Sorry if I sound harsh.

I am bottle feeding her and I wouldnt feel happy having her in a sling as I quite often have to catch the ewes to check them and I wouldnt want to drop baby when the ewes weigh as much as I do and they need tipping over.

I dont bother getting dressed to check the sheep at night, I just put my waterproofs and parlour top and coat over the top of my pyjamas- that way if nothing is happening and they are quiet then I am back in the house and back in bed in less than 10 mins.

I am well used to long hard nights, I lamb at night as well as normally work full time days, and have also worked in some of the busiest equine veterinary hospitals in the country and when you are on call its normal to work day shift leading to night duty, be up all night with a colic surgery/ neonatal foal and then work all next day too.

I also have 3 horses to look after so baby will have to come out with me in a pram to do them as they have a routine and get stressed when it is broken and are used to getting done at 6-7 am every day and fiance doesnt finish work til 8am and they wont wait that long.

 

[Piglet10]

sounds like u have it sussed hun!

its each to their own but personally i think if baby is not due feeding and is nice and snuggly and warm and u can find a decent monitor then id go with that

sounds to me tho like u will have a lot on ur plate?hope it all works out! u r gonna be exhausted! xx

 

[jojo_2012]

I used to leave the bathroom light on and the door open a crack, but I always tried to make as much noise and disruption as possible when baby was asleep so he got used to it and it's worked til this day!!!

As for the lambing, I would check the sheep with baby in the house, use a monitor if you can find one.

But obviously if there is anything to be 'done' that'd take time you would go get baby before you do anything.

I feel really sorry for ya having to do this when baby is a month old.

But whatever you chose to do, baby will be fine, it will live, it will be OK!!

 

[Piglet10]

ooooh yeah forgot to say, i have had madison in total darkness form day one xx

 

[cherelle]

You can get monitors which have a camera on them and a heat sensor - theyre expensive, about 100 pounds but i would feel ok using one if i was just nipping out for ten minutes and i could be back to the baby quickly - after all we have to sleep sometime so its unrealistic to think we can be looking over the baby 24/7.

I agree with Hope81 - when your OH is home i think the baby will wake him. My OH used to sleep like a log but its different when you have a newborn, every little sound has you awake and alert its imposssible to sleep through your babies little noises never mind crying.

I hope you get something worked out, looking after a newborn is absolutely exhausting and it sounds like you have a lot on your plate! x

 

[cherelle]

Oh and my LO sleeps in darkness/light silence/noise - i also think its usefull to get them used to sleeping anywhere so youre not restricting yourself in future! x