20 week old wakes for feeds every 2 hours at worst, 4 at best and I'm going insane

[ejbab]

I know it's probably normal yadda yadda, and this too will pass (when???? when???) but I'm really close to losing it. DD2 has always woken many times in the night and will only go back to sleep with a feed. Sometimes I think she's just using me as a dummy but most of the time she has a good old feeding session for 10 or so minutes so is obvious she needs/likes/wants more than just a quick suckle.
This has gone on since birth so it's not just a growth spurt or that four month sleep regression thing (how I wish we had something to regress from). We co-slept until a few weeks ago and since then have been putting her back in her cot - next to my bed - after every feed in the hope that a bit of separation from my norks might help. Mostly it hasn't. I don't want to go back to co-sleeping. I just want things to get better. I can't cope with this neverending exhaustion. God, to just have to feed her once or twice in the night - I would happily put up with that for the next year. But this I can't deal with.
Last night she went to bed at 6pm, then woke at 10.30, 12.30, 2.30, 4.30, 5.30 and the only time she didn't seem properly hungry was 5.30. And she'll only sleep for one very precise 45 minute sleep cycle x4 in the daytime so I can't catch up then either.
Help me. Reassure me. Tell me it will get better soon.

[tiktok]

ejbab - sorry you are so down.

Why not go back to co-sleeping, though? Sep beds seems to have made things worse for you.

Do what you can to make things better for yourself now. You can do the sep. beds thing later when you are less tired....what do you think?

[ejbab]

Thanks tiktok. I think things were actually worse when we were co-sleeping. She was waking every hour and just sucking for a few seconds and then going back to sleep. I'm not a very good sleeper either and it would sometimes take me til the next hour to get back to sleep.
It is a shame because it was lovely, but I think things are a tiny bit better now, just not as much as I'd hoped.

[cyteen]

ejbab, sorry I can't offer any sage advice or practical support, but I can tell you that my DS was exactly the same. The 2 hourly waking, the 45 minute 'naps'...I think the only reason I didn't go insane was because I didn't have the energy! Hopefully it's reassuring to know that it did get better and we're both (relatively) sane+well rested now.

[ejbab]

Cyteen... I'm afraid to ask but when did things change?

[tvaerialmagpiebin]

No more tips I'm afraid but sympathy. DS is 3 now but when he was your LO's age he was waking every hour and I wasn't co-sleeping as xp wouldn't let me (prat).

I think all you can do is hang in there, it may be a growth spurt thing (hopeful emoticon) and use that 45 minutes when she i sleeping to sleep yourself it at all possible, or at least just put your feet up.

DS will still wake a couple of times in the night but usually because he feels the need to hit me over the head with Thomas the Tank Engine or suchlike.

[ejbab]

Thank you lankyalto. I think I'm being punished because DD1 slept through at 3 months.

[cyteen]

Um...I think at around 6.5 months he started going longer between night wakings, and also became receptive to being shh/patted back to sleep (this had always been met with loud protest before ). Then at around 8 months he began taking longer naps, by 10mo he started to learn about self-settling and now, at nearly 13mo, he takes 2 long naps a day and more often than not sleeps through the night [undreamed of luxury emoticon].

I didn't really do much to help him learn these things (didn't know how!), he just seemed to start doing them as and when he was ready.

[tvaerialmagpiebin]

Deffo agree with cyteen that they just have to get it by themselves, and it happens at different times for different LOs, a bit like being dry at night. That is why I am so anti-cc and other "training", it just doesn't always work for some LOs although there are gentle things you can do to encourage it (your dd is still v young but for future reference I would recommend Elizabeth Pantley this book

DS did not sleep through the night until he was.... ooh, about 15 months, and then it was never consistent. Still isn't. I used to get green with envy when my SiL told me her DD slept 7pm to 8am from about 6 weeks.

[ejbab]

Thank you cyteen. I think the problem is that it's so much easier to pop a boob in rather than shh/ pat which actually takes more physical activity!

[cyteen]

Oh I know. In fact DS was on the boob last night when he woke up at 11.30 I had just drifted off to sleep and couldn't be arsed face doing anything more complicated

[iwantitnow]

Rather than co-sleep how about moving her to her own room - she may not be truly waking and will settle herself but can smell/tell you are there. My two always slept better when I moved them out of my room, although DS now 6 months and has only slept through once in his life.