8 month old feeds every two hours - day and night. I'm exhausted, help!

[Stopattwo]

I feel like I've created a monster. A booby-loving monster! I had no end of problems bfing DD1 and ended up bottle feeding her expressed and formula milk after a couple of weeks. This time I became very persistent at asking for help (again, no end of problems) and was desperate to make it work and very surprisingly I'm still bfing DD2 after 8 months. I'm very happy we've gotten this far on our bfing journey but I think it might be time for it to come to an end.

The problem is that she feeds every 2 hours day and night. During the day is frustrating because she loves food and eats really well but she still wants milk. I wonder if part of it is a comfort thing? Then at night we cosleep and every feed is a proper guzzling feed, it's definitely not just a comfort suck. I've been trying to put her in her own bed in our room (in a bid to get her to sleep longer as she won't be right next to me) but she still wakes regularly and I'm just so exhausted it's easier to have her next to me and feed lying down.

I've tried giving her bottles and sippy cups of formula but she takes one sip and chucks it across the room. Should I persevere with this?

Is it normal for an 8 month old to want feeds this often? A feed before bed and upon waking would be the dream but I'm worried I'm just going to have to go cold turkey. What do I do?x

[TwoDrifters]

Watching with interest Stop as I have the exact same problem with an 8-month old. Loves his solid food but still demands ultra regular feeds & wakes anything up to 8+ times a night crying for milk & will not accept rocking, hushing, water, etc. The other night he "only" woke 4 times and I awoke refreshed and beaming and floated through my day I am aware this is not normal! for you

[Fluffsnuts]

Mine did this. Then all of a sudden he stopped. At just gone 8 months.

I did two things - offered food more frequently during the day, to distract from boob if nothing else, and did a bit of sleep training. I was very anti sleep training however I got the end of my tether, I was exhausted and ill. I got DH to go in, he did sush/ pat and sang to him, stroked his belly until he fell asleep at every wake up except 1 am and 4am, when I would go in and feed. He now wakes up twice on average through the night.

I had to get to the end of my tether though to do it.

I hope it gets better for you soon. I feel your pain.

[Stopattwo]

Poor you two. Ooh, 4 times? Was that every 3 hours?! Nice. Do you have anyone to help? DH does so much for me during the day but I'm kind of left to it at night as he sleeps in the spare room! We're going to try him doing some shushing and patting this weekend and see if we can get DD to fall back to sleep without a feed.

[Stopattwo]

Thank you Fluff, that's really helpful. Will definitely try both those things. I'm so at the end of my tether. I've lost so much weight, I have bags under my eyes, I have no energy, my neck and shoulders have seized up and I can't take it anymore!

[Iguessyourestuckwithme]

Do you think maybe she's "snacking" could you try and extend the gap in feeding - by distracting/offering food and then offering a feed every 3 hours and then push that to 4 hours?

[TwoDrifters]

I do have help, DH is fab and totally has my back. He takes him off to play before he goes to work every morning so that I can at least get an hour or two of uninterrupted sleep. That helps me cope with the day ahead.

At the moment we are abroad on holiday (first flight with a baby!) and I was hoping all the excitement might have made DS sleep longer or more deeply. Sadly, not yet, though he has let my DH rock him back to sleep a couple of times which is progress of sorts.

[sherazade]

Ds is 6 months old and doing this and my previous child who i fed for two years was also you describe - but it calmed down massively around age 1 so am just hanging in there. At 1 she cut back to1-2 foods and I might weaned her without tears at 18 months. With this baby I managed to reduce dependency on the boob to fall asleep by shushing and patting to sleep not feeding to sleep which seems to have cut the night feeds down as I was becoming a psychotic mess with the sleep deprivation .

[sherazade]

Sorry so many typos that's how tired I am!
Feeds not food and night not might !

[sherazade]

Also forgot to add. On holiday recently he lived in a connecta sling as we didn't take a buggy and actually went longer between feeds.

[IHeartKingThistle]

Without meaning to sound harsh, if she chucks a sippy cup across the room, so what? You know she's not going to starve if she's not fed every 2 hours.

Honestly, I'd offer water and nothing else once she's down for the night. They soon learn! But then I was a horrible mum who did sleep training. It worked though, and we were all much happier for it.

You must be on your knees with this. Hope it gets better for you really soon.