very clingy 8month old DS2 - please help

[fledtoscotland]

i have also posted this in the breastfeeding section in case anyone there can help

DS2 is 8months old, we are BLW and he is breastfed with the occasional bottle.

over the last 2 weeks he has been refusing a bottle, screaming blue murder at DH cos he just wants me. whenever i walk into the room, he starts shouting for me (DH and friends say he's fine until he sees me)

Night times are the worst. We have co-slept but started putting him in his own cot about 6 weeks ago from bedtime at 7pm until his feed at 11pm. this was going ok but now has regressed til the point he wakes at 9pm and kicks/punches/bites me cos he's so angry. he wont go back into his own cot and wants to be with us but instead of sleeping he's constantly trying to feed but is just snacking.

the whole house is knackered. DS2 keeps waking DS1 in the night and last night we had a very cosy 4 in the bed at 4am.

i dont really want to do the whole CC thing but am beginning to think that this is the only option so that he doesnt obsess about me so much (am going back to work in a month's time). am also beginning to hate breastfeeding as he's gone from 2-3 feeds overnight to continual snacking

please save my sanity

i would just feed him tbh. much less hassle than trying not to IME! it'll pass though, it wpon't be forever

yes i agree
is very hard to cope with lack of sleep but it will not last, and is easier IMO than trying to 'train' a baby not to want his mum
it's a really normal stage for him to want to be with you all the time
it co-incides developmentally with him becoming mobile, and is designed to keep him from crawling off into the jungle and being eaten by a lion type of thing
do try to enjoy him being so little, it will not last
have faith in your instincts that tell you to give him what he needs
and get dp to give you lots of rest when possible

thanks. Frannyandzooey - that makes sense as he's been mobile for about a month. I really dont want to stop BFing but am concerned that DH wont cope when i go back to work at the end of may (i work one night shift and two day shifts a week)

i do try to enjoy every moment as i think DS1 grew up so fast and i love the day times its the nights that are a nightmare

well i don't know if this helps
ds2 is 9 months
he goes to sleep about 7 pm but stays on my lap all evening feeding
if i put him down he wakes up - usually straight away, always within an hour
we all go to bed about 10 or 11 pm and he feeds on and off through the night
in the day he mostly wants to be with me or dp and we carry him in a sling a lot
i think the sling has helped him get really close to dp as well as to me - with ds1 i was the only one who used the sling and ds1 never really wanted dp as a baby, only me

ds2 has never slept on his own anywhere ever! i know this doesn't mean i'll be rocking him to sleep when he's 16

for your ds1 i would consider putting on a fan or white noise machine so he isn't disturbed? or just sleep with ds2 again and shove milk into mouth at every whimper which is what works (mostly) for me?

good luck

My DS was exactly the same. At about 7 months we tried CC. He cried until he vomited. I cried and cried. We stopped doing the CC thing and I fed him whenever he wanted. Sometimes in the night he just wanted a cuddle. Or his hand holding. I found that if we brought him into bed with us when we went to bed, he slept through with no need for a feed/cuddle. We all got more sleep. It was much better
On the downside, DS never slept through the night on his own until he was four . But now he is fine in his own room, goes to sleep easily, gets himself up and goes to the toilet in the night on his own without waking us ... In contrast DD (our first child) was a CC-baby. After four nights of the dread CC she slept through (at 7 months) and has never looked back.
DD just didn't/doesn't seem to need us in the night as much as DS.
Do what feels right inside. Babies need their mothers. At least until they declare, at 5 yrs, that they are all grown up now so they don't need cuddling any more!

Wow, did I write this in a sleep deprived haze in the night and forget? Exactly the same situation here, so no answers, just sympathy! How old is your DS1?

DS1 is 19months old and sleeps 7pm til 7am. nothing wakes him apart from his baby brother screaming. we did CC with DS1 when he was about 6months old but we only needed to do it for 2 nights before he slept for 12hrs. he was never really a mummy's boy though. makes me wonder if breastfeeding has made him more of a mummy's boy than DS1 who was bottlefed and would/still will cuddle anyone

i have also wondered if he was cold in his cot so he's got a fleecy sleepsuit in his sleeping bag and he's sleeping sightly better.