I know I am but I'm going to do it anyway!

[mytetherisending]

DD2 is now 6mths, has been bf on demand mostly and is fully weaned on 3 meals with desserts, juice from a cup and the occasional snack. She is still demanding night feeds which I feel she shouldn't need if she took good feeds at 10 and 230. Instead she faffs with these and wants milk during the night. I have now decided to quit breast feeding as she will not take bottles- so it is all bottles or none iyswim. I hope that being able to see how much she takes during the day and a gentle prod to take more will reduce night feeding. I have dusted off the GF book which I used with dd1 (and who has only had a handful of disturbed nights since 3mths!) in the hope that the routine will get me some modicum of sleep. I am knackered.

I know it is unreasonable to give up bf for the sake of my sleep, however, dd1 is constantly tired (2.9mths) and is behaving awfully because of it. The baby disturbs her sleep every night

I just needed to vent sorry! Grrr to all those people who say babies get their own pattern and start sleeping eventually- I can't wait til 'eventually' happens!

I can't believe the reaction you've had about cc. Every 6 month old who is waking at night has a sleep problem not a milk problem imo. Greenmonkies - you realise this baby was sleeping through before and has got into this habit after being offered breast as a comfort not as food.

The thing I don't get is that some people don't seem o think bad sleep is bad for the baby as well as the mum. She should be sleeping through. cc is a quick fix solution. Waiting for another year - 18 months and then doing it (as so many mners seem to do) is no less cruel and there will be many more sleepless nights in the meantime for mum and baby.

I did cc at 6 months as well. Was such a revelation! 2 nights of hiding under a pillow has resulted in 6 months since of long peaceful uninterupted sleep! So no, babies don't just wake up at night - they learn to!
I don't think you have to ff to do cc though.

PathofLeastResistance.

Breastfeeding is comfort as well as food.

It is not natural or normal for a 6 month old baby to sleep through the night, and CC does not teach them to settle themselves, it teaches them that there is no point crying because no-one will come. At the age of 6 months (and until about 2 year) babies and children live in the "here and now", they don't have the ability to understand "mummy is next door, you are not alone" if they can't see you, they get distressed. How can anyone leave a baby or small child to cry? Even for a minute? It's beyond me!

CC is not actually an inevitability, not everyone does it. Some of us accept and understand that our babies and small children have different sleep patterns, and need to be cared for in the night as well as in the day, and just deal with being tired, because we know it won't last forever. We choose to have our children, so they are our responsibility, and you can't just decide you don't like these broken nights and expect them to stop. The end does not always justify the means.

My 5 year old has slept through the night for the last few years, she stopped needing me in the night and stayed in her own bed at some point, I don't remember exactly when. She has never been left to cry, has never been subjected to any form of sleep training, but allowed to develop and sleep in her own time. During this time I have managed to have another baby (now 2), run my house and hold down a job. Yes I'm tired, but it won't last forever.

Children change your life, deal with it.

Babies cry BECAUSE they are tired. It you go and comfort them because you don't think they should be left to go to sleep, they end up crying longer, ime, because your comforting" prevents them getting to sleep efficiently.

I can see why you might feel very defensive of your way of doing it having put up with it for so long, but I firmly believe I have done what's best for my children, not me.

Was it in some way "unnatural" when she was sleeping through before then?

6 months is very young to be fully weaned imo...especially as guidelnes say not to introduce food until 6 months.

make sure that the 'meals' she is having are just as high in calories as milk or depsite her eating all that she may well stll be genuinely hungry

Actually, that is a good point DropDeadFred.

I would up her milk intake and giver her a BIG milk feed after dinner in the evening. Either bf, or ff if that's the way you want to go.
Personally I feel that a few cranky nights is far healthier than months/years of interupted sleep (for both baby and mother). No one functions properly when they haven't slept well.

What do you actually mean by "fully weaned"?

DS2 is still waking in the night. He is 24 weeks.
It happens.
Some babies are just wakers. Sorry, but there you have it.
It could be stomach ache from the food you've given.
Babies of six months are meant to be trying new foods, not eating 3 meals a day.

Have you tried the Baby whisperer. Lots of info if you search on old threads. Bit nicer to the baby than cc imo.

Imo all all babies are wakers - if allowed to be and all babies are capable of sleeping though if allowed to. How you chose to do it is a parenting choice and this mum is choosing differently to you Victoriansqualor.

Wrt the weaning. I think she should have waited until 6 months to wean. This may have prevented problems in later life. But having weaned early there's not much point stopping.

I retract what I said before about waking hungry. Although food is less calorie dense it takes longer to digest so she is unlikely to be waking hungry.

I haven't queried how she deals with her baby waking up in the night, believe me after last night's little fiasco (up every 45 minutes ) I understand only too well how tiredness can affect ones day-to-day life and completely sympathise.

However, the baby may be uncomfortable from too much food. By this age they should not yet be having three full meals a day, as per DoH/FSA/WHO advice.

WRT the sleeping my advice would be to use PUPD rather than controlled crying (because IME a baby gets themselves more and more worked up when left to cry, therefore take longer to calm down, if you sue PUPD then as soon as they start to cry you calm them down and put them back, so they realise they are going to go to bed, but they don't get anxious about being alone and left to cry) but get dh/p to do it. Also how is the baby napping during the day?
Last night's little bundle of laughs in our house was because DS had refused to sleep all day. He sleeps best at night (mainly a dreamfeed at 11pm and then waking at around 6:30am) if he has two-three good naps during the day. If he naps well, the most he will wake up is for one feed at 4am then sleep through until 7:30-8am ish.

But could be thirsty?

I think Lavie had a good point about the baby whisperer she has some good techniques for night waking. I havent tried any myself yet as my dd does still wake in the night but I just feed her and jump back into bed asap! (she is only 4 months)

My sister tried 'wake to sleep' as her dd was waking same time every night and it worked in three nights. There is a baby whisperer website with some good info, might be worth having a look at....

I'm not sure why I got so angry over it. In fact i have never left any of ours to cry at night and my first response on this thread was to try anything but cc. What we do sounds more like what Victoriansqualor is describing but I don't know what PUPD is. We did however use cc in its true sense with our first when she was tiny to break some terrible sleep habits we got her into and I do defend it as an option if you're desperate.

Our 17month old has been ill this week and struggled to get to sleep last night. She had a blocked nose and couldn't suck her thumb. After trying every kind of comforting she ended up crying herself to sleep and I suppose that's fresh in my sleepy mind today. Not much else I could have done for her though.

Regardless of sleep issues, if you have BF for 6 months you should be proud of what you have done and not feel guilty about stopping, IMO

PUPD is pick up- put down. Basically every time baby awakes, not stirs and makes a noise, but starts to cry, go straight in, pick baby up, calm them down, put them back into the cot.
If they cry as you start to put them back in just touch the mattress with their back and pick them up again.
The first time we did this DP did it, he spent about ten minutes doing it, up and down and up and down and up and down...
It worked though.
I think it's in the book 'Healthy sleep habits, happy child' It was on a thread I read on here when desperate to stop the 45 minute wakings.
The same book also says that a baby between the ages of 5-9 months cannot and should not stay awake for longer than a few hours (2-3) without becoming overtired, which leads to fatigue and baby being unable to stay settled when in a sleep mode. Hence the naps.

Thanks VS! I did wonder what you did if they started crying as soon as you put them down! Am resolved to try this tonight.

I think we could do PUPD with our dd2 for 12hours and she'd nap in our arms while we just yo-yoed all night getting no sleep at all. She's pretty stubborn.

Ok I haven't had chance to get back on but here goes.

My baby does not have stomach ache, settles straight off at 7pm awake or asleep iyswim when I leave the room, no rocking,patting etc required. We have a cuddle. She wakes around 2-3am (funnily enough when most of the food would be digested with only milk from the 2230 feed left at that point.It takes about 8hrs to digest meat. Cramping would start within 1-2hrs if there was a digestive problem) Also she is fine through the daytime after all meals.

She is fingerfeeding and has gained plenty of weight to the point of jumping up a centile (over the top line) since starting weaning- therefore adequate calories and variety of foods.

I didn't leave dd2 for an hour solid, went in and cuddled but it made her worse, put down to see if not being handled made a difference.

Babies will only eat what they want so she is having the amount of food that she wants, I don't force it down her, when she has had enough she backs away from the spoon- cue stop feeding.

Greenmonkies you might be fine with no sleep- we can't function without it. If you are happy to be a human dummy thats ok, I'm not. On the cc front it does work, we did it with dd1 who is certainly anything other than scarred for life! TBH if I had not listened to all the tree hugging people on here about not doing cc and how cruel it is I would have a sleeping baby by now You might accept no sleep for years but I won't.

Like others have said cc is more cruel at 18mths/2 because they have had so long getting attention at night and then it takes far longer to sort out. At 6mths, maximum of 1wk and the sleeping is resolved.
IME babies are happier and function better after sleep too.

Thanks grammaticus and daddyj for your support.

VS dd2 was a big baby (16lb6 at 13wks from bf) I could not physically carry on feeding her 15 times per day. I was exhausted and getting very low in myself (previous PND) I weaned because I wanted to bf for at least 6mths. If I hadn't weaned then she would have been ff from 13wks so DH could help.

Bubbalov she is weaned in the sense of eating 3 meals per day and the odd baby snack. Eats family meals that are pulsed such as casseroles, stews, shepherds pie etc eats fruit such as banana in chunks, baby biscuits, soft fruit.
Her meals are small pot sized as opposed to ice cubes iyswim. Approx size of 7mth old jar at many meals including lumps. She is able to chew effectively.