16mth old wanting to bf from 4am....please help!

[pantsjustpants]

My ds (dc4, you'd think I'd know what I'm doing!) is 16mths old and a happy healthy gorgeous thing. I ebf until we weaned onto solids and then we did both.

He was waking up anything from 5-10 times a night to bf, but we took inspiration from the Bedtime program on C4 a few weeks and dh slept on ds's bedroom floor and with surprisingly little resistance he dropped the night feeds. Relieved isn't the word!

Unfortunately he's replaced one bad habit with another, and I'm at the end of my tether. He's waking 3 times a night. Generally settling quickly with a shush and covers, but at 4am on the dot he wants feeding. If I do this in his room then he'll go back down until 5-5.30am if I'm lucky. But then he's awake and not going back to sleep, so he ends up in bed with me and dh, constantly bf'ing. Sometimes he'll drop back off, sometimes he won't.

I'm exhausted, pretty hacked off with feeding at this precise moment in time and I just don't know what to do. I'm not a CC/CIO type so that's out of the window, and I have a 6yr old dd at home (the others are 21 & 24 and left home) and don't want her sleep disturbed anymore than it already is.

I'm disappointed that I feel like giving up bf'ing, as I'd really hoped to do bedtime until 3ish or self weaning. But I'm just so exhausted...

Any ideas please?

[dyslexicdespot]

Would you be willing to try co-sleeping with your DS? My DS is 18 months and he BF a lot at night, but because we co-sleep and I am able to BF without either of us really waking up.

[EauRouge]

My 2yo is doing this at the moment, I think she's got her last molars coming in. Is he teething? We co-sleep too, I couldn't cope otherwise. It's not a habit, it's a phase and it will pass even if you do nothing :) Much sympathy though- it's bloody knackering, isn't it?

[feekerry]

oh i know the feeling. my dd is 14m and doing the same. seems everyone else's baby sleeps pretty well. apart from mine.
starting to resent feeding now tbh. i am exhausted too.