Please give me help and top tips for dealing with reverse cycling (sorry it's long)

[LazyJournosCutAndPasteFromMN]

DS2 is 23 weeks on Tuesday and he's EBF. He's never been a great sleeper and I normally feed him at 7pm, 10pm, 1am, 4am and then a small feed at 8am. He will quite often just have small top up feeds in the day whereas his evening/ night time ones tend to be full feeds.

He can, and does go for six hours during the day without a feed. I offer him the breast (often) but he's just not interested.

I really want to turn this round. I love/need my sleep. He goes in his own cot in his own room until the 1am feed when we co-sleep for the rest of the night. I've been trying the No Cry Sleep Solution incase all the feeding is the only way he can get back to sleep. Not got past step one though!

I wonder if I can get him to flip his times. I had thought about not offering him the breast between 11pm and 6am and getting my DH to try to settle him during those times. I'm just not sure if he's old enough to do this (although realise he's quite capable of going that long when he wants to).

If any of you have managed to turn this around I'd love to hear how you did it.

Co-sleeping is not really a long term option for me. I want my bed back!

[number1]

I totally understand where you are coming from.

I understand that your DS is EBF but have you tried giving him water in the middle of the night instead of a feed? Maybe that way he will work out an apetite for during the day? I did that with my DS and it worked (although he was not EBF so taking a bottle was easy). I also pestered him during the day and stimulated him a bit so that he wouldn't sleep too much. Worth a try?

Hang in there, your bed will soon be yours!

[AngryWasp]

Lazy I can see that you are frantic, but you need to get some perspective.

Between 10:30ish and 8am, there are 9.5 hours. You feed twice in that time which probably comes to about an hour?

That leaves you with sleep to the tune of 8.5 hours per night. If you go to bed earlier and leave baby with dp then you can have even more.

Often if you just let be and go with it, things sort themselves out. Your lo will learn that whilst you don't anxiously reject him in desperation for sleep in the night, neither are you up for a round of peekaboo. Secure but bored is what you are after.

As for milk. It is very bad idea and in some cases can be dangerous for an EBF baby.

[AngryWasp]

Forgot to add. Could your ds be hot at night and therefore extra thirsty?

[LazyJournosCutAndPasteFromMN]

Angry now you see there's the rub. The little monkey can often take up to 1 hour each time to feed and get settled back down in his cot. Sometimes a little bit more. It will then take me another half an hour to get to sleep as I'm quite awake by then.

That's why I've started to take him in to bed with us as I'll fall asleep while he's feeding.

I have a thermometer in his room and dress him according to the grobag guide on the back. His being hot is something I'm obsessive careful about.

He tends to wake up at about 5am but luckily DH will go downstairs with him then. But he's due to go back to work next week and I'd hoped to turn this round before then as he won't be able to do that for me then.

I don't mind being tired per se but it does hugely affect my mood.

You said that the milk could potentially by dangerous for an EBF baby. I presume you mean witholding for a certain period of time? I suppose that was the bit I was concerned about as he's still fairly young.

Thanks both of you.

[AngryWasp]

Sorry, - I meant water not milk. Water can be dangerous for a bf baby.

I have to say that my 2 babies didn't go to bed until 10-11pm each evening because there was no way on earth my dh or I were going to get up at 5am. If you tried this for a few days do you think it would help?

You can go to bed for a few good hours but leave baby with DH at night instead of morning?

[Feierabend]

Lazy, my DD2, who is 18 weeks, does the same - feeds beautifully and frequently at night, and is not interested in milk during the day, I feel your pain and I want a solution too. 'This will stop eventually' and 'It's just what babies do, roll with it' doesn't help me much when I am this tired and frustrated. I do believe you can influence a baby to change their pattern, the question is how far are you prepared to go? I am currently thinking that if I can get her to at least go 4 hour stretches in between feeds at night, that would already help a lot. So when she wakes up, I'd have to wait and not feed her straight away and see if she can hold on for an hour longer. The main problem for me is that in the middle of the night, just feeding her straight back to sleep seems like the easiest solution! Have you had any more thoughts on this?