I need advice, or someone to tell me this is "normal"
DS2 is 18w and ebf. He's never "slept through", but we have had a few blissful periods of waking twice a night - usually 12ish and 4ish and up for good somewhere around 7am. He's also got a dummy.
He goes to bed around half 7, usually requiring a bit of sshing/stroking/dummy replacement to send him off. This too has turned into a lengthier process.
He now wakes at 10.30pm. Whereas if he did this in the past, he would go back off with a dummy replacement, he now wants a feed. And he does need it, as he takes both sides. Same at midnight.
Around 2am he wants a small feed. This is usually where he wakes me up with a lot of muttering, and he's usually trying to roll onto his front. Replacing the dummy doesn't work, he will up the noise until he's screaming, and then want a short feed.
From 4am its every 40 mins or so - same story. Rolling, grunting, mumbling. He's very awake though, and needs a short feed to send him back off again. No chance at all of getting him to sleep merely in his cot. This goes on til around 6/6.30 if I'm lucky - then he's up for good (but wants to fall asleep again at around 7.30am, just as he needs to be getting up so we can sort out DS1 with breakfast and pre school preparation. He will only have this sleep next to me, though.
Naps in the day - he has 2 x 90 mins and 2x 30 mins. All of these he has to be held or he doesn't.
I can't co sleep. I had awful pnd with DS1 which manifested as hallucinations during the night that he was in bed with me, covered in blood, or that he had slipped under the covers and died. I would wake up in absolute certainty that these were real, and strip the bed in a state of delirium. DS1 didn't co sleep either, but I did feed him lying in bed - but I'd never remember the act of putting him back in his cot.
DS2 is currently feet obsessed, which doesn't help. He can't sleep in a babygrow as he will place one foot on the toes of the other side and drag his legs up within it, meaning they're caught in the crotch. Then he will scream himself awake. I put him to bed in a long sleeve vest instead last night, so he was trying to reach them through the grobag and yelling because he couldn't stretch his legs straight upwards.
I to know this will end at some point. (rationally I know he won't be doing it when he's 15, but you know what I mean). Argh.