5mo waking every 2 hours

[waitinggirl]

hello. dd2 is 5mo 1 week and fully bf (not accepting a bottle - won't take a dummy). she sleeps in our room (haven't yet got space for her in a separate room), feeds every 3/4 hours during the day, and is currently on every 2 hours at night. she is about 65% for weight.

i am going a little bit insane and would like some advice:

i suspect she is using me as a dummy. i know she finds it almost impossible to self settle. because of our small house and dd1, we haven't let her do much self-settling to sleep at night - we didn't want dd1 to wake up. so i've been feeding to sleep/rocking her most of the time. i try to shush her and put my hand on her tummy - this has worked about 1 in 10 times, but if the crying starts to escalate, i just get the boob out. at the moment i am giving her 10 mins on the boob (it is so hard for me to gauge when she is actually sucking as i am half asleep myself, so i'm doing it by minutes at the moment) and then i'm putting her back to sleep in her cot. this mostly works. but i am finding doing this every 2 hours is wearing me down to the point of misery and frustration. occasionally i kick dh out of the bed and i can get a bit more sleep by feeding lying down and i keep the baby in the bed with me.

we had a similar problem with dd1, although it became utterly impossible - waking every hour, needing to be held to sleep (one memorable night before i started a new job dh held dd1 for 4 hours in the middle of the night so i could get some sleep). we eventually got millpond in and they helped us to transition dd1's last bf to before bath and to wean her off nightfeeds, and eventually do cc with her (rightly or wrongly, it worked really well and dd1 is now a fabulous sleeper). but dd1 was 9 months old - dd2 isn't even 5 1/2 months old.

i am going to start solids next weekend, which is a little earlier than i would have liked, but i thought it might help. although solids never helped in the slightest with dd1's bad sleep. i am also going to reduce the amount of minutes at the boob she has. tonight i've left her on the boob each time for 10 mins - i thought tomorrow i could do 9 mins each time - and reduce by a minute each day.

we are also going away over most of august - a mixture of sleeping at the grandparent's house and on holiday. alas on holiday, all 4 of us are sleeping in the same room, in a house with lots of other people, so the pressure to get the baby back to sleep as quickly as possible will be on me.

any help/advice/commiserations appreciated. thank you.

[titihood]

What happens if your dh goes to her in the night to soothe her instead of you? Perhaps without the smell of milk as close by she will settle...may take a while, but no harm trying.
Could she need more milk before bed?

[mololoko]

sorry no help or advice, but you're not the only one. I am in exactly the same situation and I am a dribbling, crying wreck.

bumping in case anyone has any answers.

I'm about to re-read the no cry sleep solution....

[JoinTheDots]

At 5 months my DD was like this. Can you try feeding her more frequently in the day in case she is actually hungry and now expects some calories in the night?

I used the no cry sleep solution, but also co-sleep, so its a bit different for us, and I do all the feeding laying down so we all get the most sleep possible.

Implementing something new is always hard when you are about to disrupt the routine anyway by going on holiday. Cutting down boob time sounds like it is worth a try though.

Best of luck, my commiserations, this too shall pass...

[icd]

Do you have any way of having her sleep in another room? I noticed whilst if mine was next to me I'd immediately jump up with the slightest noise (not crying) and feed her, but in her own room she'd just fall asleep again within 30 seconds. She went from feeding every 3 hours to sleeping through the night as soon as she went to her own room. I also suspect that us tossing and turning in the bed woke her too.
Otherwise as someone else said, have DH try settling her. If he doesn't manage it within 5 minutes, just bf and have him try again next time. It will start to work and give him great satisfaction when it does :-) Good luck...

[sleepdodger]

snap..... except I have to feed every 2 hrs in the day too & my ds refuses to nap for more than 10 mins twice a day
I'm also knackered so expressing less milk (seem to get far less when I'm tired) as had found a bottle pre sleep helped a tiny bit...now cant even do that
many people keep saying try formula as it helps, but I dont see how?
sympathies not advice sorry...