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[PiperG]

My DS is 17 weeks and has never been a good sleeper at night, though recently he has got much worse. He used to manage some 3 or 4 hour stretches but over the last couple of weeks he has been waking every 1 or 2 hours at night - this is really starting to kill me now as I haven't had a stretch of more than 2 hours sleep in weeks, and also have a toddler to cope with during the day.

He starts off the night in his Amby hammock but after the first feed I usually end up having him in bed with me - simply becuase I fall asleep feeding him and never seem to get round to making it out of bed again and over to the Amby to put him back.

Inevitably after an hour or 2 from the last feed (though more of a quick suck really) he wakes crying and grizzling and I have just been feeding him again to get him back off to sleep again - this seems to be the only way to get him to sleep. Now I'm really worried that I have got into terrible habits where he is waking after each sleep cycle and needing my boob to get himself back to sleep again.

So I stumped as what to do - feel really stuck - he's always been a baby who needs a lot of cuddles and human contact and I think he just really wants that all the time, but I need to get him sleeping a bit more on his own before I go nuts! I'm also worried he may be teething - since about 3 months he has been very dribbly with very hard gums and he chomps furiously on anything in sight. So I'm reluctant to let him cry at all - he seems too little anyway - if he may be suffering from that.

What to do??!!!!