Nearly 6 month old wanting to comfort feed ALL night

[ab00]

Ds2 will be 6 months next week & is ebf. Up until 10 days ago he was doing quite well at night sleep in that he would have his last feed (which would send him nicely to sleep) be put in cot & sleep for 6 - 7 hours, sometimes longer, wake for a quick feed then back in his cot for a couple of hours then in with us when he wakes again.

Then he got a stinking cold, while teething. The poor thing couldn't breathe lying on his back & despite our best efforts nothing really helped except extra cuddles & feeds. 10 days on & the cold is much better, but still snuffly at night & the longest he will go in his cot is 2, maybe 3 hours. Then he either wants to be fed unless dh picks him up fast enough then he's happy with a cuddle back to sleep. Unless dh carries on cuddling or puts him bed with us he's awake within an hour.If I pick him up then only feeding will do. Eventually he ends up in bed with me lying down to feed such he does on & off for the rest of the night.

Is this just because he's still a bit under the weather & teething? Could it be a growth spurt? Or both? Have I done the wrong thing letting him feed for comfort & now created a boob monster?

I'd hoped once he was feeling better he'd go back to how he was sleeping / feeding before
should I be trying to stop him comfort feeding & how? He won't take a bottle & I'm trying to get him to take a dummy but he just holds it his mouth & doesn't suck it.

I love feeding him but am worried about the comfort feeding.

[tiktok]

Babies don't progress with their sleeping in a linear fashion - it's well within normal for a baby to regress a bit and to need more comfort at night.

All the research into comforting and soothing is that responding to babies' needs for this leads to confident babies who settle better - faffing about with bottles and dummies and avoiding feeding when he is showing so clearly this is what he needs to settle back to sleep, is all a bit of a waste of time :) It's quicker, kinder and more 'efficient' in terms of your own rest and sleep to feed him....you will get better, and he will get better, at feeding without you staying awake long for it. Or once his needs are met, he will go back to his longer sleeps, once the after-effects of his cold disappear.

Hope this helps.

[ab00]

Thanks tiktok. My gut instinct as a Mummy is to just feed him & cuddle him as much as he wants, the time that he's tiny & only mummy will do will be gone in the blink of an eye. I've only tried the dummy when he's been otherwise fed & settled in the day just to see if he will take it & we gave up on the bottle months ago as he just wasn't having a bar of it!

I think I'm just worried (thanks to well meaning friends, relatives & hv) about those big scary rods & that he will only be able to sleep by feeding - he can find me & latch himself on or get annoyed if he can't quite get what he wants all in his sleep! He'd happily sleep all night feeding if he could!

[JimmyCorkhill]

For the last month my 6 month old has been waking scarily exact every hour and a half for a feed. This is after months of only waking once or not at all. She hasn't had a cold or any other change in routine. She happily feeds for 5/10 mins then goes straight back to sleep. She has become incredibly distracted when feeding in the daytime and I read googled that babies prefer the calmness of feeding at night. She seems perfectly happy with this arrangement .

[ab00]

Jimmy this may make me a bad person but your post has made me feel soooo much better! It's nice to know I'm not alone in thinking everything's tikety boo then it all turning to ..... Sending you some & .

At least I can justify blame this on his cold & teething again so soon, think it would drive me mad if he'd just randomly started doing it! Although he is quite the nosey parker during the day trying to watch what mischief his older brother is up to or which part of the house he is destroying next.

[JimmyCorkhill]

& gratefully received .