10 month night owl

[SleepdeprivedMama123]

SOS.

Hi other mummies! My little one is 10 months and has never slept through the night, which I know can be fairly normal. However, she has typically always woken 3 hourly (with the v v rare 5 hour stretch thrown in on a couple of occasions). BUT now, she is waking every 2 hours. I have always coped on minimal sleep, but I returned to work when she was 9 months old and I am STRUGGLING on no sleep. For context, she has 3 solid meals plus offerings of 2 snacks, I bath her in the evening and try to stick to a bedtime routine of a story before bed la la la. She has 2 naps a day, 9am and 2pm, again, these are very inconsistent with length, ranging 30 mins to 90 mins, but never more than.
The main issue, I breastfeed, despite trying to switch to formula at 6 months, the girl is stubborn and will only drink minimal from a cup, fine, I plan to now go until she’s 1 and then go cold turkey.
During her 2 hourly wake ups over night, she wants the boob to fall back to sleep. In my sleep deprived state, I end up giving it each and every time and fear this could be where the issue lies.
Looking for advice here before reaching out to a sleep specialist.
Husband does offer to try and settle her but she will scream and scream until she gets the boob. Do we need to be cruel to be kind to try and break this habit? I always fear she is genuinely hungry, on my work days (3 days), she will only have BF in the morning and evening, with the offering of formula at nursery, which she rarely drinks.

Id love to hear your experiences, majority of my friends formula fed and have babies that sleep 7-7 from 3 months 🥲

Your nap times are bit unusual. By that age babies usually stay awake longer in the morning, and don't nap until more like 10.30 or even later?

Do you feed her to sleep at bedtime? This is usually the biggest cause of an issue - babies want when they wake up in the middle of the night, whatever they nodded off with at bedtime. If that's mummy....they want mummy. If its boob, they want boob.

Its very normal to wake a lot in the night but the reaaon ff babies might do so less at this age is they don't tend to be fed to sleep for as long, so their parents introduce other less involved methods of helping them nod off, which are stepping stones towards independent sleep.

Ps i doubt its true hunger if she eats well but it could be reverse cycling - i bf my DS til age 1, he slept through from 16 weeks 7pm to 6am, but then i wasn't back to work until he was nearly 14 months old so if he wanted to breast feed during the day he could.

@Peridoteage no, I don’t feed to sleep at the beginning of the night. Re. reverse cycling, on days we are together and not at work, she BF as usual in the day and the night times are always the same, I did think this initially too. She usually wakes 530/6am, so it v grouchy by 9am, but perhaps could try and do this nap later at 10 🤞🏽

Every kid is different my eldest didn't sleep until 18m old she was breastfed and I found bed sharing meant I got some sleep
Middle one slept from being a month old, also breastfed. He stopped sleeping when we stopped breastfeeding.
Current baby used to sleep and now at 8m has decided she parties all night 😂

What I'm saying is don't think just by stopping feeding they'll start sleeping. She might...she might not lol

Sounds like the 9 month sleep regression coupled with you returning to work and her missing the closeness and comfort of you.

For now I would just go with it and put her in bed with you and let her feed when she wants.

You can try and increase touch in the day, maybe a massage after her bath followed by a feed using Breast Conpressions.

Once she’s 12 months, it’s fine to go cold turkey if that’s what you want to do, but you may find it easier to do some gentle night weaning as going cold turkey can increase your risk of mastitis.

I also think that it’s worth bearing in mind that around half of all parents lie about their baby’s sleep, yours does sound fairly typical of this age.

Formula might not help with sleep either, after all ots not a magic formula

And lastly I’d have a read of The No Cry Sleep Solution as it helps with things like sleep associations and early wakings. If she was waking at 5am before I assume that’s 4am today?

@SleafordSods thank you for the reassurance!! Luckily no 4am wake today as I adjusted yesterdays naps and bedtime in line with the clock change 😅 a nice 630am lie in.
Hopefully you’re right and it’s just a regression, I tell myself it’s just a phase!

Hi there, just wondered how you got on in the end? My situation sounds pretty identical to yours, my son has just turned 10 months and I’m about to go back to work. Any tips much appreciated!