Awake all night

[retailgirl]

I could really do with some advice! I'm breastfeeding my 3 wk old dh who until recently was just waking every couple of hours during the night to feed before returning to sleep. Now she's awake and sporadically feeding from 1am until 9am then sleeping until past 1pm if I don't wake her then sleeping and sporadically feeding all day. During the night she will go down for about half an hour then squirm around and wake up crying until I put her back on the breast where she'll fall asleep again and the cycle starts again. I tried a dummy last night but that worked for a bit but she didn't seem very happy with it and I'd rather avoid it if I can (although I'll try anything at the mo!) She's really such a good baby but i'm finding the all nighters really hard and it's getting me down. My midwife told me not to wind her but I do if she seems uncomfortable as she get a really distended tummy sometimes and the doctor thinks she may have reflux (she's thrown up several whole feeds several times). The doc has prescribed infant gaviscon but I'm not sure about giving it to her if the reflux isn't that bad. Sorry if this all sounds very obvious but I'm just too tired to see the whole picture.

Congratulations. You sound as though you are doing a damned fine job of feeding your baby. I've got four children and have very much let them sort out the hours they want to keep in the first few months. I've ended up with good sleepers I reckon - so please don't be disheartened. My advice would be don't worry about the clock. Do you swaddle? I swaddled all mine really quite tight as I reasoned it was very tight in the womb.

Good luck and keep positing.

have you considered co-sleeping?

Thanks to both of you. To be frank in my bleakest moments (ie around five in the morning) I'm feeling a bit of a failure - like i just don't get it but I know that I've got to let her find her own sleeping pattern. I did swaddle her for the first week but she like moving around too much now and I didn't think it was safe. Re co-sleeping - am a bit shy of it as my dh sleeps really deeply and has elbowed me in the face before (by accident!) when he's asleep and flailed around in a dream. And I'm paranoid about smothering her. Do you think it would help?

god yes- only if you're comfortable with it though.

here's some good tips.

I hope you are also sleeping from 9am til 1pm? Make sure you do if you can. How was your night?

I second Swede that you get some sleep between 9am and 1pm.

yes- sleep when baby sleeps....and don't forget to EAT when feeding baby- as too easily with broken sleep to miss proper meals....

I envy and admire anyone breastfeeding- for one reason or another i 'failed' with breast feeding - i have 3 boys- eldest is 14- youngest- 9- and i still yearn to have a contented breastfed baby!!! (through my rose tinted specs!!!)

Yes am trying to sleep when she does - hence the mountainous pile of washing building up The eating thing is true as well - keep missing meals which isn't good. We tried an experiment last night. I stayed downstairs with her until about five in the morning (lights dimmed but TV on) and she was good as gold - eating every two hours. I then moved upstairs with her and she became fractious - needing to feed more. Do you think it's the quiet she doesn't like?

my DS slept in our room when he was tiny and we had dim lights and the TV on - at this stage i would be doing anything to get some rest

in reply to your ealier questions, gaviscon just made my DS constipated and he ended up on some other meds for his reflux

Is it warmer downstairs?

We've got carpet downstairs and floorboards upstairs so the problem may be drafts. The bedroom is usually between 18 and 19 degrees. I know that she doesn't like sleeping in the cot upstairs and I think it's because draft can get through the side bars(luckily we'd bought a carrycot you can use as a moses basket so we use that). We thought about getting a carpet for the bedroom but it's out of the question at the mo as dh has just been made redundant. I usually put her down with a sheet and a blanket doubled over. Maybe I should use another sheet as well - paranoid about overheating her though.

retailgirl - I would stick with going upstairs to sleep. I doubt it's the draughts. I doubt it's the lack of carpets. I doubt it's the cot. But I have no idea what it is.

Don't worry about your washing pile. It really WILL get better very soon.

Mmm - could she be a bit chilly perhaps? I know what you mean about worries re overheating. Put the carrycot/moses basket in the cot and some blankets on three sides to prevent draughts? And perhaps an extra single cellulose blanket. Worth a try? Peraps?

cellulose tsk! lol

Unfortunately the moses basket is too big to go in the crib but I'm going to try and extra blanket and see how we go - just to keep and eye on things. It's so cold at the moment it's difficult to know what to put her in - I've got a temperature moniter but it doesn't take account of a drafty old house! Thanks to everyone for suggestions - we'll plough on and see what tonight brings!

Retailgirl - How are things going?

Hi Swedes - well now my HV disagrees with my GP and thinks she's got wind not reflux and should be taking infacol - I'm now very confused about the difference and how to spot it - I was thinking of posting the question to see if anyone else has any ideas. Had ok night last night mainly due to the fact we gave her a dummy. I'm not keen but it seems to settle her.

Hi there - goodness your post brought back memories of my ds at that age. I remember sitting up all night, watching bizarre tv at 4am and breastfeeding through a fog...
...It's so tiring, I think you are doing really well! I'll give you a few suggestions that were passed on to me - might be worth a shot.

My ds wouldn't sleep in his moses basket for ages (he was born at this time of the year too)and would scream everytime I put him down. I worked out, eventually, that the sheets were too cold and were disturbing him. I slung the undersheet over the radiator for a minute or so to warm it, before I put him in and that helped a bit.

I wasn't keen on the dummy either, but gave him one cos I was beyond caring at some point, and he rejected it, all by himself, when he was about 12 weeks old, so you won't necessarily have a 3yr old with a dummy in his mouth (which was my fear!)

I also read about a study where researchers found that for the first several weeks, babies were as likely to be awake in the dark as they were during daylight hours. At seven weeks, though, almost all the babies shifted to sleeping more at night than during the day. So you've only got a little while to go, hopefully. My friend told me to try and make day and night as different as possible, lots of sound and light during the day and dead quiet at night, but my ds was always asleep during the day, so not that helpful!
Blimey! That was long, sorry. Hang on in there - it gets better really soon.

I think that's a great idea about warming up the bedding on a radiator. I used to put a hot water bottle in between the sheets and then remove it just before putting the baby down to sleep.