During the early weeks of Nora’s life, I was very hesitant to talk to anyone about her nighttime sleep. The truth was that she was a GREAT sleeper. Like, freakishly great. My newborn daughter was super kind to me. I feared that if I dared speak about it out loud, she would change. I was superstitious about it! I also knew that a lot of my friends and family had not had that same experience with their kids, and I honestly did not want it to seem like I was bragging.
From Day 1, Vivienne was also a good sleeper. I don’t think it has been at the same level that Nora was, but still, I wasn’t doing any complaining. I was counting blessings. And I also wasn’t all that superstitious about it like I was last time, so I even mentioned it in my blog post last week. But I said, “Vivi’s a good sleeper” and then went on to add the caveat “So far.” I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, I suppose.
And then she turned three weeks old and it did. Something changed.
Vivienne is still sleeping just fine, for the most part. But I am not.
How is this possible? you might ask. Well, it is because Vivienne is now quite possibly the LOUDEST NEWBORN ON THE PLANET.
The grunting, people. The newborn grunting. I cannot for the life of me figure out how she can grunt—nearly constantly—in her sleep for hours straight.
It started on Friday night. She slept quietly for the first stretch of the night, but after I fed her around 2 a.m., she proceeded to make noise for the remaining five hours until we gave up and got up at 7 a.m. with Nora. In the beginning, I thought she was awake. Fussy. I kept leaning over the side of the bed and stuffing the pacifier into her mouth. The way she was grunting/straining, it sounded like she was trying to poop. So I thought—if she can just get that poop out, we’ll be good. But no. It wasn’t about poop. I wondered if she was gassy. I wondered if she has reflux (she’s also been spitting up… sometimes A LOT, and sometimes projectile). I wondered if she was suddenly hating the swaddle.
And maybe she is one of those things. I don’t know, but I had a lot of time to think about the possibilities as I lied awake in bed, tossing and turning for FIVE HOURS while I silently begged this little angel to be quiet so mommy could get some sleep.
By early Saturday morning, I was Googling because I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed answers. And come to find out, apparently “noisy sleeper newborns” are a thing. And IT’S NORMAL. Which—on the one hand—thank God it’s normal, but on the other—holy hell, there’s nothing we can do?? Apparently some babies are just very noisy during their “active sleep” stages of their sleep cycles, and it’s very common for them to have more “active sleep” in the wee hours of the morning. Thank you, Dr. Sears. But HELP.ME.
I was still hoping that it was a fluke night—she had kept me awake with grunting for a few hours one night earlier last week, but then proceeded to go back to her “normal,” quiet self the next night. But Saturday night was no better. In fact, it was worse. I “woke up” (HA!) yesterday morning feeling like a zombie.
I should note that I do not do well with sleep deprivation. At all. I can handle a few wake-ups to feed her, of course, but being up ALL NIGHT is another thing altogether.
Last night? More of the same. She actually grunted the WHOLE night, not just during the second half of it. And I actually slept better than Friday and Saturday nights, because I had a pillow over my head for the entire night. I’m not even kidding—the entire night with my head sandwiched between pillows. Surprisingly, even that is not enough to drown her out completely, so my sleep was still very broken, but at least I got a little bit of shut-eye. But I must still be in the negative as far as the sleep bank goes, because I feel no better today than I did on Saturday and Sunday.
I just don’t know what to do. The logical solution seems to be to move her to her nursery, but I just… can’t. At least I don’t think I can, not yet. She’s only three weeks old, and I’m too paranoid about SIDS. If we were to move her into her nursery, in order to feel comfortable, I’d have to have the monitor up loud enough to hear the Snuza alarm if it went off, and in that case—I’d still be able to hear the grunting. So how is that helpful?
For now, I’m trying to stick it out. From what I’ve read, the noisiness usually passes—but it could be weeks, or months. So it’s just a matter of how long I can handle this level of sleep deprivation, really.
Add this to the list of things I did not know about babies, even as a second-time mom. I had no idea that I needed to worry about her keeping me awake with her would-be-funny-and/or-sweet little newborn noises… if they were during the day.
Has anyone else dealt with a “noisy newborn”? How long did this last?
And better yet, how did you survive?
19 Responses to The Noisemaker
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About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
Could you try a pair of foam ear plugs? They drown out some noise but I can still hear (muffled) sounds with them in. It may be enough to get you some decent sleep but still hear her when she’s ready to eat.
I feel your pain when it comes to sleep deprivation. I need quality sleep in order to feel like a human being.
First let me say I am so sorry that you have a grunter. Delfina did that for 1 week, Kira had never done it as an infant, and I did not sleep at all that week. In fact I almost made a trip to the ER before I googled it to also find out it was normal. Good luck Mama!
This gives me hope. Only a week, huh? If that’s true for us I should already be halfway through! Fingers crossed.
All of my kids were noisy sleepers. (I have 3). Coupled with a husband who has very
Vivid dreams and sleep walks/talks/acts we had to move to their rooms as soon as momma could move comfortably. What if you put baby in your room but slightly farther way.
You should consider an Angel Care baby monitor. They have a sensor pad to sense breathing with an alarm on your end as well as the babies so you’d be able to turn your volume down but still hear the alarm if breathing stopped. We put our daughter in her crib on the night we brought her home and I felt so well knowing we had that monitor. I also nursed so I understand the waking part. My description doesn’t do the monitor justice, it’s a lifesaver.
Janie was equally loud and we were keeping each other up (her grunting and then me futzing with her b/c I was sure she had to be awake/hungry/uncomfortable….). This why she went into her own room at like 4 the weeks old!
Both my kids were grunters and I am a horribly light sleeper. I slept with a pillow over my head for months. I also used earplugs at various points of desperation with both, which helped but I hate sleeping with earplugs. I also was not within earshot of either when they are in their rooms so I would need a monitor and they are downstairs and we are up so that wasn’t an option for me until a few months in. So yeah I just slept like crap for a few months. It sucked. If I was on the same floor as them I would have for sure put them in the nursery after probably a month though, esp with Luke because I wasn’t as freaked about SIDS the 2nd time around.
Do you think white noise or a gentle sound might block some of the noises out? Not too loud of course because you still need to hear her when she’s up for real. I agree on keeping her in your room…she’s just so small yet.
Hi Heather! Longtime reader, rare commenter here!
My son was such a noisy newborn and he was also such a spitty baby. Reflux. I survived both with the rock n play keeping him at an abgle. I think you already keep Vivienne in that so my only other advice would be to get some good burps out of her before laying her back down. I hope she quiets down soon so you can get some rest!
Hi Heather, Abigail was a grunter too so I do sympathise.
I think that winding them really well helps, and I’m not sure what you think but I think that sometimes there is less of an emphasis on this with breastfed babies. Try to hold Vivienne on your knee to the side, with one hand on her back and the other putting slight pressure on her tummy, and with your index and second finger over her arm and your third finger and pinkie under her arm. Try rotating her gently or moving your leg up and down whilst applying pressure. I hope this makes sense, but it really made a difference to us.
On a less practically helpful note, whenever we go through hard phases with Abigail we remind ourselves that it is just a phase. They have ups and downs all the time and move on from problem to problem so I have no doubt that this will be behind you in a week or two.
Good luck til then :)
My son was a noisy sleeper, we lasted 3 nights of him sleeping in our room before we put him in his crib. Since we had a small house it wasn’t far to go, and we have an Angel care monitor. It worked for us, and he still is a noisy sleeper at 18months, just this morning I heard him chattering on the monitor at 4am.
My son has a mild case of tracheomalacia (a very soft trachea). So he honks, snores, and grunts while he sleeps. Could you run a fan? That’s what I was going to do when it got better. He’s 10 weeks now and it’s almost entirely gone now, but at one point it was so bad that my husband slept in our guest room.
My son is also a spitter. My daughter was too. I call them my ‘regurga-babies’ :) They spit up a TON. My doc says it’s fine as long as they’re gaining weight and not in pain. I just change clothes a lot :-/
I’m completely sympathetic about the sleep thing. I do not do well with the up all night thing either. I second the use of an Angel Care monitor. I understand not wanting to move the baby out of your room for awhile (I felt the same way) but if you are desperate that monitor is a huge blessing. The beeping is so loud that in my opinion there is no way you could sleep through it and could keep the monitor relatively low so you could hopefully get some sleep. Wishing you luck.
My son was a grunter, especially in his sleep, too! We called him our little billy goat. :) I do think it was gas-related and unfortunately, we just had to wait it out. We would do the little leg curls to try to help him work it out, but he eventually sorted it out and outgrew the grunting – probably by 6 weeks. It didn’t last forever. Hang in there, mama!
I have the exact same problem with my 2 week old! The other night I was up for 3 hours thinking each of his grunts were signs he was about to wake up for a feed! 3 hours I could have been sleeping! Thankfully for me, he’s in his own room, which is about 10 steps from my room. I keep the sound off our monitor because if he cries, I’ll hear him, but can still see him on the screen.
My 4 year old, and husband are both active sleepers as well. My oldest son talks in his sleep all the time, and my husband never gets into a deep REM sleep, so whatever he dreams, he physically acts out…makes for interesting nights for me! Hoping that my youngest settles down and doesn’t follow suit!
We had a grunted too. I moved her further away in my room and used a white noise machine it was enough to get me some sleep while I waited it out.
Both girls were in their cribs from day 1….no monitor at all (unless we were downstairs), but we are the room next door. I am a very light sleeper and there is no way we could have shared a room. Plus, I didn’t want to have to transition them either. When we would go to Buffalo to visit, we would share a room and she would keep me up half of the night which just solidified that there was no way I could have her in our room every night. I was a zombie as it was…I didn’t need the sleep noises on top of it!
Any relief?
Yes! She gave us two nice, quiet nights on Tuesday and Wednesday. Second half of last night was a bit noisy again, but I’m hoping we are already over the hump. Thanks for asking!