Baby sleeping problems!

[RachelG]

Hello

This is my first post on mumsnet, and I hope someone can help.

I'm a single Mum with a 17 week old boy, and I'm wondering if anyone knows any way of helping him to sleep. He's fully breast fed, and I'd like it to stay that way - but hopefully start weaning in the next few weeks.

Basically he goes to sleep well at night, but wakes every 2 hours for feeds. He likes to snack rather than feed properly, and will only suck for a few minutes. The longest he's ever slept is 3 hours. I've tried giving lots of feeds during the day to fill him up - no difference. I've also tried making him go 3 full hours between feeds in the day, to encourage him to have proper "meals" rather than frequent "snacks" - again no difference.

He had a nasty cold a couple of months ago, necessitating small frequent feeds, and now it seems to be a habit he can't break. And I'm sure that's why he won't sleep for long - he's used to having a snack every couple of hours.

My health visitor's advice is the same as for everything else - leave him to cry. But I'd rather not do that if at all possible.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm so tired of hearing people telling how their baby sleeps through the night!

Thanks very much

Rachel

Thanks for your comment Aviatrix. It has encouraged me to carry on with breastfeeding.

Several times I have been so close to moving him on to formula because we can't hit that ideal 4 hourly feed target, but we will persevere and if i am still going at 7.5 months i will be more than happy.

Dear RachelG

My son is not quite six weeks and feeds hourly through the day and two to three hourly through the night. He's breastfed, and even when I've expressed and fed him from a bottle to monitor how much he's eating, his routine is unaltered. So hunger isn't the issue - 50mls or 100mls, he's back for more at the same time!

Through the night, I feed him, cuddle him and put him back to bed (he won't take a dummy). At around four in the morning, I change his nappy and bring him to bed with me. He has a sleep positioner, so he lays on his side in it, facing me so he can feed, and we sleep together like this till about 7am when we get up.

I study two days a week, and he is in care where the bottle feed him my expressed milk - and the little sod sleep for three to four hours at a time, and will take a dummy!

My theory is that he just loves me. He loves that way I feel and smell and taste, so he wants me as much as possible.

Unfortuneately, there is no real way to get them ot of this routine - up until four weeks of age, he was feeding hourly round the clock, so two to three hourly was a godsend! The odd thing is - I didn't put him in this routine. One day, he just decided he wanted me every couple of hours instead of every hour.

I'm sorry there's no easy way to snap them into a routine that is a little more easy to live with, but they all do in the end!

Good luck!

Oh, how I have been there! From week 16 to week 23 DS was up a minimum of 4 times a night. I was at my wits end. And then things calmed down. Four months-ish is a really funny time for babies - loads of them seem to turn into all night snackers at this time. It can last days, weeks, or even a couple of months. Solids don't seem to help - in fact, when we weaned at 6 months there was a slight deterioration in his sleep - not for long, but I think it took him a bit of time for his tummy to get used to the new textures of solids.