baby is now 8 weeks

i have graduated from the aaaaaaaarrrrrggggggggghhhhhh there is an alien stuck to my nipple 24 7 school, through a variety of techniques and am now onto the

do breast fed babies ever sleep through the night unit

i know i am lucky as in he feeds usually about midnight, again at 2 and then 4 and then six, he stays awake til 8ish and then we take another nap, i pull him out of basket and feed him on my side, nodding off and then he goes back in basket when he is asleep

he then guzzles through the day until the house is full and busy and then there are more distractions

i have accepted that there is no life outside baby, its amazing that even just unloading the dishwasher before dp comes home gives me a sense of achievement these days and actually enjoy the breast feeding and baby time

i have a swing which is a lifesaver, i can take him for a drive and if he will stay asleep from car seat to it i can put him in it and he sleeps for an hour or so some days

slowly ever so slowly though i am finding the lack of a good nights sleep is getting to me, i am getting a bit rattier and bad tempered with each passing day - nothing unbearable but even so with two other children living here (although teenagers) and issues with sd i cannot afford to let this get on top of me

any ideas on how to get him sleep for longer??

cosleep at night and at naptimes?

Have you tried cluster feeding in the late afternoon and evening? And/or a dreamfeed at 10.30pm?

Well done for getting this far! I too am desperate for a good night's sleep and my DS is now almost 15wks! With my DS I have had good phases and bad phases. At the moment he is feeding that much I don't bother to keep track anymore. I have just taken to co-sleeping in the hope that this will help- but no joy as of yet! Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. To get my DS to nap in the day I have a vibrating bouncer and sometimes the hoover helps. However, I have foubd that the older he gets the harder it is to settle him. I am hoping that things will become easier re: sleep when I start him on solids at 6 mths, but from reading other threads I doubt this is going to be the case

cosleep at 8 and in day, cannot sleep with him in bed at night

i am 37 and have been brought up on horror stories of babies in your bed, i know that views on this have changed but my sub concious keeps me awake

if cluster feeding means feeding often - baby demands that any way - we call him velcro baby he is stuck to me so often

moses basket is right next to bed, i hardly have to sit up to get him out

dream feed???????? is that feeding him when he is asleep?? always feed him at midnight, whether he is asleep or awake

thanks for all advice, is very gratefull recieved

Well I went to see the dr yesterday and she said she had 4 and none of them had slept through until off the boob, incl the one she had fed until 2! My dd got to 8 hours a night at around 15 weeks but is now back to waking every couple of hours at 6 mo. I do think to some extent its hereditary, someone at playgroup had a 6 week old who slept through almost every night, she was bfing, I was a dreadful sleeper, even though I was ff and mum started to give me solids at 12 weeks, I think my lo is like me, just too much going on to sleep

You're doing great jammi. Have you tried a dummy? Mine was feeding every hour and the dummy meant she fed for longer at more reasonable intervals also helped get her into a better nap pattern in the day. At 5 months she decided she didn't want it any more.

Don't you just love velcro babies?!

Cluster feeding is feeding often, sometimes every hour or even more. I used to do this with ds when he was small from about 3pm-7pm. Although like you, it was more a case of he asked for it!

Dreamfeed is picking them up and feeding them when they are asleep. We used to do this at 10-10.30pm everynight, and think this then stretched out the time until the next feed (1am-2am). DP used to do the dreamfeed with ebm which enabled me to go to bed at 9 and sleep uninterrupted until the next feed.

nice posts - iliketomoveit

that gives me another question

have no problem expressing - milk pours out, but he will not take it - have tried a few times

what bottles and teats are you using, i am sure the ones we have are no good, i tried sucking out of it and it was hard, which given that my milk flows quite easily must be a huge change for the little one

dummies - i am trying to avoid, my older child had one and was addicted to it, to the point he used to go to bed with three one in mouth and one in each hand, but everytime he couldnt find one he woke up screaming for it - that became its own sleep depravation nightmare that lasted for years

if it is hereditry i am stuffed both me and ds1 were nightmare babies

ds1 was a dream for 9 months - then he never slept through the night again til he was 5

if it is hereditry i am stuffed both me and ds1 were nightmare babies

ds1 was a dream for 9 months - then he never slept through the night again til he was 5

I might get shouted down here but I have 2 (ds 2.5 and dd 15 weeks), both exclusively breast fed....ds slept through the night (7-7 with a 'dream feed' at 11pm, mostly with ebm) from 9 weeks and dd went through the night to at least 6.30am by 10 weeks. Both went from 11pm-3/4am from very very early, then slowly the 3/4 became 4/5 and then 5/6 etc etc...
She is now sleeping until we wake her up in the mornings most days ! So it really can be done!!! I guess I've been pretty focussed on getting the maximum amount of feeds in during the daytime and I also found with both ds and dd that from a certain point (around 7 weeks) they actually fed better and took on more if I didn't feed them less than every 3 hours...otherwise they just seemed to be snacking and permanently hungry! Both kids moved to 4 hourly feeds from about 14 weeks...I suppose I should admit that during the day I would 'wake to feed' and I also tried to make sure that they never slept for more than 1.5-2 hours at a time during the day (anyway, I was feeding every 3 hours on the nose, so they couldn't), so they saved up any long stretches for the night.
Good luck!! It sounds as though you're coping brilliantly and I'm so pleased for you that you're enjoying the baby and the feeding...just relax and roll with it if you're happy...they grow so fast that the bad nights are generally over pretty fast even if you're not as stupidly focussed on getting your sleep as I was !!

I used Avent bottles and teats. We started giving them at the dreamfeed when he was asleep or half asleep (the theory being he wouldn't notice the difference), rather than waiting for when he was wide and awake and screaming for food.

IIRC I started off doing the dreamfeed by bf'ing him. Once I knew he was comfortable with that, I then started off the next dreamfeed by bf'ing him, then halfway through I slipped a bottle in his mouth. He made lots of funny faces (whilst still asleep!) and didn't really do much with the teat on the first couple of attempts. Then when he did start to drink from the bottle, the dreamfeed was all from the bottle.

I've been told the Nuk stuff is good (the shape of the teat mimics a nipple), but tbh I'm not convinced there is a best or worst bottle to give a bf baby. Although I am sure someone will come along and say differently

Feeding from a bottle and feeding from a nipple uses different muscles and a different action, so it is something a baby has to learn. Also I think as you get older you lose the sucking reflex, which is why you couldn't get anything out.

My dd2 is 7wks. She cluster feeds up to 730/8pm, goes to sleep upstairs and wakes at 1-2 for a feed,so I would try cluster feeding up to say 2230 and Lo might go to 4-5. I would definately recommend feeding lying down in bed with the light off (I have to put it on to latch dd, but turn it straight off. I was thrilled to find that I can sleep and feed . I just put dd2 back in her basket when i wake and realise she has finished I have left my long strech early as at least I can go out at night now without needing to use bottles of EBM iyswim. She used to cluster feed up to 2230 and just feed once per night but I had no evening.

To the op - there is hope!
My dd was excl bf until she was 19 wks and she used to sleep midnight til 5 or 6 am from about 3 or 4 wks and gradually slept longer overnight until she slept 8-6 or similar from around 10 wks. She now sleeps 7-6 but is now on formula - my choice

I don't think its anything I've done, my dd just seems to know that night is for sleeping and for that my dh and I are very grateful!!

I really do think all babies are different. Having had two babies that were bf and slept from 9-6 from 8 weeks old I was quite smug and confident no.3 would not be a problem. How wrong I was! We did nothing different, he just continued to demand a feed every two hours day and night til he was 9 mths old, when it got gradually better and by 13 mths he was sleeping through.
I never could get to grips with co-sleeping, and couldn't express a drop, so just went with the flow. we couldn't get the hang of the dreamfeed either, so just muddled along.
It does get better though!

Is he taking a full feed in the night? DS2 will happily feed for ten minutes, go back to sleep and then awaken again a couple of hours later, of course when you wake up to feed you want to go straight back to sleep so after ten minutes you're happy to put them down right?
I've noticed if I make DS2 wake up more and take a more hearty feed (I sit up properly and nudge a bit when he drifts off rather than desperately hope he is asleep) then he sleeps a bit longer, a full feed he'll have at 1am and sleep til about 6am, if I put him down straight away he sleeps for about an hour a time, wakes up has a bit of a top-up and carries on this way til morning.

vs - i am sure that is some of the problem, not a full feed

thx for all advice gratefully recieved