Help, I've hit my own parenting regression - feel rubbish

[NoMoreNurseryRhymesPlease]

I was just getting my confidence about what I was doing and now I'm starting to self-doubt and go round in circles with my thoughts and plans of action

My almost 10 month old DS isn't sleeping well and is BFing loads

He is teething but they all cut through a while ago and have almost fully erupted

Currently he wakes 3-4 times at night. This started 4 weeks ago.

I BF him back to sleep as it's quicker and I'm exhausted, plus I thought he was hitting a regression and needed comfort

The problem now is that

• he bfs for AGES- at night and pre-nap
• his nighttime sleep become terrible from 1-2am. He sleeps solidly from 7pm then it's awake and crying every hour or two. Typical pattern is 1am, 3am, 430am then awake at 5-530 with no possibility of going back to sleep. Even when he was sleeping more, his day always started at 5.
• he is currently having second nap of the day. At 1030am. First nap was what I thought of as a perfect 1h30 nap, in cot, not BFing before (as he'd only bfd a couple of hours previously). He cried for 5-10 mins, I stayed with him, he napped, I fed him on waking.

Great! I thought. I'll start being strong and feeding him after he wakes from now on

Except about 20 mins ago, 1h30 after first nap, he's fussing and inconsolable, pulling at my top. So I feed him aaand- he falls asleep.

I feel awful. Like I'm creating a big problem. This poor child isn't sleeping well from 1am (thanks to me? Sleep associations?) and making up for it in the daytime. This then leads to bad nighttime sleeping. Should I go with the flow? Or wake him up now and be more strict at night?

And what is with the constant LONG feeds. I always give him solids and water before BF now. He eats very very well but I cannot imagine him ever preferring food over the boob

I feel so down and conflicted. There are so many facets to this issue, so many chicken/egg possibilities that I really don't know where to begin. I just feel like an epic failure, when people of my mums generation would have me believe their babies were independent, sleeping bottle drinkers

I cannot believe my confidence has taken such a knock here

I don't really have any advice on except to be kind to yourself! You're overthinking things. I do exactly the same and tie myself up in knots. I've got a 3 year old ds and my dd will be 10 months old tomorrow. All babies are different, and they change from week to week, even day to day. There's no magic solution of do X and baby will do Y. My dd's naps are all over the place. Probably hundreds of reasons why but I'm just trying to go with it. She also wakes 3-4 times a night and is bottle fed, and is often up from 5.30-6 too. But sometimes 7. Once or twice 8.30. Once or twice 4.30! The point I'm making is that it changes all the time and it's not something you can really control. I drive myself mad planning nap times, wake times, feed times, calculating volume of formula consumed etc etc. And I don't know why I bother because it never works! I should have learnt from ds. Anyway, so long as they're fed, clean bum, warm, cuddles when they need it, all you can do is give them the opportunity to sleep and see if they take it. Put them in sling/buggy go for a walk etc. Honestly, it the long run it doesn't really matter. My ds was a nightmare but at age 2 seemed to sort himself out. Dropped his nap, started self settling. Now does 7.30-7 most nights. It'll probably all change again soon! Give yourself a break, you're doing a great job!

Thank you for taking the time to reply, your words have made me feel better. I think all perspective is lost when you're in the thick of it and not sleeping

There's an 8-10 month sleep regression which is generally the pits for a child's sleep - I think we were waking every 45 minutes for a hellish few weeks. Not your fault, this too will pass! I will say, from bitter experience, it is perfectly possible to have a child who falls asleep on their own, has dropped daytime naps and doesn't feed at night any more, who still wakes more than once a night. Unfortunately it's just the luck of the draw - don't beat yourself up about it!