I just don't know where to begin and don't have anyone to ask.

[BryonyRobinson4]

My little one is nearly 5 months old and is fully breastfed. We have got into this pickle I think because when he was very tiny was poorly and needed some surgery. All is fine now but the only way I could get him to sleep/rest from crying in pain was feeding him (sometimes for up to 2 or 3 hours at a time).

Our current bedtime routine is, books, bath and feed (aprox 1 hour). He usually falls asleep while feeding or I rock him, which was fine until recently. We do our bed time routine as usual and he is fast asleep but wakes crying soon after or won't let me lay him down, it carrys on for hours. This is a pattern im desperate to end. My little one sleeps in my bedroom in a moses basket inside his cot.

I have only just started using a grobag as he has arms like an octopus and swaddling was the only way to keep him asleep once he'd dropped off. I usually have to swop from grobag to swaddled in the middle of the night just so I can get some rest (my husband works shifts so isn't around to help most nights). My little one usually wakes every 3 hours for feeds and poops 2 or 3 times a night which means he has to be fed back to sleep.

Honestly I don't know where to begin? Should I change the routine? I don't have a clue how to lay him down and start the pattern of getting him to sleep by himself.

I don't really have many friends I can ask. I have joined a few baby groups but I have found making mummy friends hard. I don't feel brave enough to approach mums at the classes I go to. Just beginning to feel that I am stuck in a bit of a rut.

my baby is 5 months old but was one month premature, he currently weighs 12 pounds 9 oz
Any help will be really appreciated. Thank you x

[BryonyRobinson4]

my husband wants to help me getting iur baby to sleep but obviously cant as I have to feed the baby to sleep

[jellymaker]

There are lots of threads on here about sleep and babies. I would suggest you take some time reading some as there are very different views expressed. Everyone has to choose their own way. We went for "Babywise" in the end which advises feeding 3 hourly and putting the baby to bed awake so they learn to self soothe. It's less extreme than GIna Ford but it worked for us. We had 3 nights of crying _ both me and the baby but after that he settled well. The thing about having kids is that no one tells you how to do it! I advise reading some books from the library or some parenting websites or threads on here to get some ideas. Good luck

[BMO]

I agree with jelly that there are a million different ways to tackle this and you have to find what works for you. Just make sure you pick something you are comfortable with as whatever you do you need to commit to it and be consistent.

I can tell you what I did with DS1 at a similar age. First I instigated a really good day time sleep routine, with regular naps (up at 7am, nap 9-10am, nap 1-3pm, bed at 7pm). I didn't worry about self-settling at this point and just got him napping regularly by feeding, slinging, holding or whatever.

Then we changed his bedtime routine so instead of feeding him to sleep in bed, I'd feed him in the living room and then hand him to DH who would take him to the bedroom, give him a dummy and rock him to sleep.

Once we'd broken the feed to sleep thing, we worked on rocking him to almost asleep then putting him in the cot and patting him, then we worked on patting him til sleepy but letting him fall asleep by himself. We did it quite gradually but leaving him to cry wasn't for us, and it probably took two months to go from feeding to sleep to self-settling or settling with a bit of patting in his cot.

[littlesupersparks]

Although there are methods to counteract it, and you should certainly look into them if you need to, I'd just like to reassure you that waking several times in the night is quite normal. People may be telling you that babies should be 'sleeping through' by this age, but it's not my experience. 'Sleeping through' as referred to in books etc actually means 5 hours - maybe from 12am to 5, but could be from 7pm to 12am which is less pleasant as you probably aren't ready to sleep then!!

I fed mine to sleep. I actually found they dropped off so much easier and quicker and found it much nicer than the thought of putting up with crying for hours on end!

So I'd wait it out, I wouldn't want to night wean before 10 months ish personally. I did night wean my youngest at 9 months but that was because I was rushed to hospital and stayed for a week. He was a beast though - I don't know how much he weighed at that age but I do know he was 16lbs at 16 weeks!

My eldest was a right little monkey and never went more than an hour and a half between feeds day and night. We did night wean him using the Jay Gordon method eventually. It feels like it will go on forever but it really really doesn't.

I had my eldest on a co sleeper cot next to me which helped.

Sleep deprivation sucks. Catch some sleep when you can when he naps and see if anyone can give you a break in the day. My children's centre offered me a nap in the sensory room whilst they supervised him next door but I never took them up on it! Xx

[husbanddoestheironing]

It's a few years since that stage for us, but be reassured it will come good for you in the end, however hard it is now. He still sounds quite little in size, so waking every 3 hours in the night is probably to be expected I'm afraid, but obviously you do need some sleep yourself. Your initial routine sounds ok to me (I definitely do not claim to be an expert though, but it's similar to what we did at about that size, which was when mine were about 3 months) you could maybe gradually reduce the cuddling time before putting down? Also possibly try sitting next to the cot and stroking for a minute or two when he starts crying before you pick him up and gradually lengthening that.
Is your health visitor or GP helpful? You could talk it through with one of them if so, but if not then the book idea is a good one- look through several and find one whose advice you feel comfortable with before choosing one to try. I definitely just gives you some ideas to try.
Can you grab a bit of sleep in the day on a day when your husband is there and able to take him out in the pram? Just because when you are so tired it really does feel so difficult, especially if you are coping alone most nights.
It really does sound like you are doing very well in a difficult period, so do hold on to that, you will come through it

[BryonyRobinson4]

Thank you very much all of you for all the advice and support. I am going to try changing his routine on a night to:- feed, bath and rock to sleep to try brake the feed/sleep association. Fingers crossed after a little while when hes bigger I can try some kind of sleep training. I feel alot better about things now thank you again :)