Baby sleepwise, I am greatly discouraged & consider I have built a rod for my own back somewhat :( Can you encourage me / gently advise ?[blush]

[mumofdjandbabies]

Please dont shout at me though I am sleepy and sensitive and a bit embarrassed.

Its a long sleep story shall I continue

[dcgc]

Go on...

[ches]

You didn't make a rod. You did what you needed to to get your baby to sleep. Now it's not working and you need to find something else. You're a responsive parent.

[mumofdjandbabies]

aw shucks thanks I do hope youre right!

Basically this is baby 3 all mine have been breast fed total cling ons really but my 2 boys kind of fell into a sleep pattern of their own making and now are pretty good sleepers....no real trauma there phew!

However....... now we have dd who is 10.5 months

Basically she is a boobaholic and requires to comfort suck to sleep (wont take a dummy did try in brief) and is so hit and miss with sleeps, has no ryhme or reason. mostly has short sleeps on my knee whilst feeding but if i pull away the breast she awakens often!

She goes to bed when I go to bed and co sleeps (this is just the way its happened - survival of fittest and all that as we have 3 of 5 and under). She is wakeful in the night quite often as is a live wire or maybe just wants to suck!

I love feeding but am tired of it at the same time cos of the sheer amount she feeds....

She co sleeps but now is so mobile I am scared somewhat to have her in the bed incase she crawls off the edge........

I have bought a nice new cot for her but am scared of the next step.

Dreaded sleep training? Wouldnt know what to do to minimise all our discomforts though she needs better quality of sleep and so do I

I dont want to see her hysterical though.

If any of that makes sense

[mumofdjandbabies]

I am hoping now she is increasingly mobile and eating food that she will be more tired and sleep for longer spells and more deeply....

I have noticed that if I feed her to sleep on the bed she SOMETIMES stays asleep for an hour but its often 20 mins and she cries cos she is still tired.....

are you tired yet of my story

[suiledonn]

mumofdj - I feel your pain and am going to shamelessly follow this thread and see what advice you get

I am in the same situation with my 8 month old dd. In the day she naps in her pram after being rocked to sleep or falling asleep on the boob. She is able to pull to sitting in it now so have to watch her constantly as she could fall out if she sat up and I didn't spot it.

At night we are co-sleeping. I have a bedrail on my side but she is rolling over now and catching on to it and pulling herself up.

I have tried to settle her in the cot but she is not used to falling asleep herself. She gets hysterical very quickly. I feel bad cos I know the problem is of my own making, not her fault at all.

If I feed her to sleep and put her in the cot I might get an hour but she always wakes up looking for a feed. And latches on several times a night. I am drained from no deep sleep.

Maybe we can go through this together.

[dcgc]

No, sorry not replied as have been at the docs for more dreaded injections! Keep going!

[mumofdjandbabies]

oh suiledon how similar - I am rather relieved there is someone else in the same boat! I thought it was prob just me

dcgc - eek to injections, recently been there - all 3 of mine at the same time

[ches]

Could she be teething? Mine is STILL (29 months) a total boobaholic and I've been gently weaning him for months now. (Yesterday he had just the one massive morning feed, usually huge at morning, huge before bed, one in the middle of the night and one before naps on weekends, and those are just the ones I agree to!) Nevertheless, the only time he'd incessantly comfort suck was when his teeth hurt. (Which they still do, no bloody rest since last May when molars made themselves known for the first time.)

With hindsight, I always say if you plan to night wean, do it before they can ask for milk. It's heartwrenching to deny them milk when they're articulating that's what they want and getting v. upset about not being able to have it. You can always start on a Friday and have your her cuddle with your DH and let him settle her through the night. Then once she's off BF you can deal with the co-sleeping.

[mumofdjandbabies]

Some sound advice there thanks honey

yes she is defo teething her first tooth just broke through bless her

tried her in her cot there she was fed and sleepy and she screamed blue murder for 15mins I didnt know how long to let her cry so went in for her

[babyphat]

no answers but i am in the same boat - my dd is 11 months and am slightly dreading going back to work. she sleeps ok-ish (but going to bed at my bedtime or an hour or so before and co-sleeping), but teething is buggering it up a bit - she just bit me really hard on the arm too!

am trying to remind myself that it won't be like this for long but am also half wishing i had tried settling her in a cot sooner, but she was such a terrible sleeper at the beginning i can't see how i could've without a lot of howling.

same problem with mobility too - was thinking perhaps i could feed her to sleep on a blanket or mattress on the floor so at least she won't fall off by mistake, but not sure...

i'll watch this thread and hope things get better for all of us!

[barbareebaa]

Hello!
Am in the same boat - my little one is 8 months also (hi Suiledon!!) and has always been very booby! Have always fed him to sleep apart from when he's in his pram, we co-sleep.
Only recently have I been able to get any time off of an evening. I feed him on our bed (mattress on floor) and he will usually sleep for a few hours in the evening giving me a bit of time off. I am planning to get a double mattress and put it in his room and do what I'm doing now.
I asked for advice on here a short while ago and this seems to work for some.

[kalo12]

18 months and in the same boat. total bosom monster, poor sleeper. no advice. i feel your pain. he wants constant feeding and tantrums if i refuse.

[hambo]

I just stopped feeding mine to sleep in the bed. He is 6 months old. He was getting up about 3 times a night. I have a toddler too and was so tired getting up at night, but worried about waking the toddler if I never fed baby.

I decided on a routine and stuck to it. He cried for a couple of nights, I went in to make sure he knew I was there (every 2 minutes the first day, every 5 mins the second...by the third night he snozzed off within 5 mins)

I put him down at 7pm. He sleeps until 7am!! Then again at 9am - 10am. Then 12.30 - 2 (ish). Sometimes a half hour sleep at 4pm....

I think going cold turkey is a really good way to go. Make up your mind and stick to it. They get into habits - try to create new habits for them and after a while they will forget about their old ones....

Good luck!!

[marmoset]

Hello mumofdjandbabies - my dd is 9m and was a boobaholic at 6m. Basically, I had to break the cycle as I'm going back to work soon. My 1 month plan to crack this became a 3 month plan but the steps were:

1. Settle dd in own room
2. Break night time cycle by refusing to feed between 12 and 6 for 3 nights (not as much crying as I thought there would be)
3. Reducing night time feds down to one after that
4. Reducing naps to one hour around lunch
5. Slowly moving off bf to formula over a couple of months (cup, not bottle as bottle refused!). Not sure if this bit helps anyone keen to keep bf but it was right for us.

Hope this helps - with 3 under 5, you need to look after yourself. You BOTH need a good sleep

[hrc]

Hi I had similar problem re needing to settle my number 2 but had a breakthrough when her teeth actually came through and then miraculously she started sleeping through. I was really beating myself up about the sleeplessness when in fact I think the feeding was just comforting. Don't be too hard on yourself, if you have older children have you tried getting your little one to drink with a sippy cup or even a doidy and clapping when they drink like a 'big person'. Worked wonders for my little one at least during the day time. Good luck

[mumofdjandbabies]

guys I could cry with how many of you understand

cant type now but once my house viewers have been shortly I will be back on as I have some questions

I feel somewhat less utterlycrap alone now

can we start our won thread?

[babyphat]

progress this end as a tooth is nearly through. i do think teething is what takes sleep from do-able to horrible. when it's bad i can't see the wood for the trees and start wishing i'd done gina ford, but actually, i don't mind feeding to sleep and i love co-sleeping, i just don't like teething. And surely even the uber organised types must have bad nights too?

[mumofdjandbabies]

Oh thats good!! You would think so wouldnt you! x