Breastfeeding and controlled crying - how would it work

[whoneedssleepanyway]

I am at my wits end with DD2 (7 months) she has been a dreadful sleeper from birth, she has silent reflux for which she is taking Omeprazole and is now pretty happy in the day. Everything has been a struggle though, she still refuses a bottle and is exclusively BF, won't touch breakfast so isn't on 3 meals a day yet and sleep is awful wakes up to 5 times a night (e.g. every 1.5 hours) and only settles again if I BF so I am feeding her 4 or 5 times a night. We have tried so many things, cranial osteopathy, chiropracter, co-sleeping, different sleeping positions for her. Basically the paediatrician has told us she has developed appalling sleep associations because we took so long to control her reflux and we had 2 choices

1. sleep train - controlled crying
2. feed her as soon as she stirs and bring her in bed with us to settle her as quickly as possible so OH and I get more sleep

we were trying option 2 but even this isn't working any more e.g. last night we were up 2:15 till gone 3:30 trying to settle her (having been up 9:30, 11:30 and 1 already) and then she woke again at 5.

this can't go on, i feel like my marriage is going to go down the tubes and it is definitely affecting DD1 too.

how do i do controlled crying though if i am still exclusively BF and can i even do this, how can i ever rule out hunger in the night as sometimes she does take a fairly big feed, it is not like solids are brilliantly established as she only ever eats two meals so she needs her milk.

any advice anyone can give would be gratefully received. sorry for such a long post.

That is kind of what my instinct was telling me, but i just don't know what to do. Will have a look at no cry sleep solution, we need to do something, i don't even trust myself to drive the car anymore.

Hello, I bf my 4 month old and she often has a little cry before a nap as she's not fed to sleep then, but... I wouldn't let her cry in the middle of the night. She is probably just hungry so needs the milk. Every 2 hours is a bit much though. Can you leave her for a little while to cry in case she does just settle herself? If you pick her up the moment she stirs you may actually be the ones waking her. When you do feed her can you make sure you don't talk or put any lights on?

Sorry you are having such a rubbish time. I haven't read the no cry sleep solution so can't comment on it. But I used some of the Baby Whisperer techniques which worked well. I worked on the basis that if DD had had a good feed she could last at least 3 or 4 hours. I'm guessing that would be a start? I don't think they will ever turn a feed down.

I would also recommend this website which has a lot of short articles which may help.

www.thesleepstore.co.nz/Sleep+Information/Babies+4+to+12+months.html

HTH.

yes i feed her in the bed with me in the dark, i don't go to her the minute she cries i do leave her a little as she does cry out in her sleep during the night and doesn't wake. she is in our room and i wonder if that is part of the problem but i can't put her in with DD1 until she sleeps better as wouldn't be fair for her to have disturbed night.

i need somehow to get her into at least feedling less in the night like once or twice.

thanks everyone, you are so right Ladyintheradiator, the few times we try to settle her without feeding and we always crack as she gets so upset and i just feel awful that we have probably confused her so much with the sleep that it's not her fault she needs BF and in our bed to sleep.

i agree shouldn't start CC if you don 't have the resolve to see it through which i don't think we do.

i am often going to bed at 830 anyway so do get some sleep.

will look at those articles newkiwi.

Good luck, I wouldn't put her in another room until she can sleep right through, or just wake once - I wouldn't want to get all the way out of bed and cross the hall to see to her. I think it only works as a solution when your aim is to ignore her cries.
My 4 month DD wakes twice in the night to feed and I've just started forcing myself not to lie down to feed her as I end up falling asleep and then I don't sleep so well with her beside me.
I bet in another month or so she'll have settled down a bit.

Hi, i'm not too keen on a routine per say, but what is your 'bedtime routine' with her? Do you have to feed her to fall asleep in the evening? We did control crying with DS1 (don't kill me) at 18 months because I was pregnant and had to stop breastfeeding and simply couldn't do with sleepless nights I had to get some rest.

The trick for us was to give DS some milk before his bath. DH put him to bed with no milk. We let him cry in his cot and checked up on him every two minutes, but without going into the room. DH would go to the bedroom door and say 'it's ok, we're here, we know you are upset but it's time to sleep how' or something like that. There were a lot of tears but after three nights he'd fall asleep on his own, and then he stopped waking up at night. We did give him cuddles if he'd wake up but no milk. It was hard on DH as he had to do most of the work, I'm a complete wimp and oculdn't do it I'd just cry (I blame the pregnancy hormones). Your DD is only 7 months, so the decision is in many ways much harder for you. And if you start, you can't give in as it will be much harder for everyone.

my now 8 mo had silent reflux and was also on omeprazole.We decided to wean him early (18 weeks) so we could get him off the medication and we managed to stop the meds about a month later. It certainly made me much more over protective of him compared with his sister and took longer to get him sleeping.

I would suggest trying to get some more solids in her so you have a bit more confidence that she shouldn't be hungry in the night. Are you feeding her as often in the day? I'm still breastfeeding but thankfully I rarely have to do a night feed now and even with the reflux he was only on one feed a night from around 12 weeks. You really have my sympathy - i'm shattered coping with two small children and they are both reasonable sleepers. You have to do what feels right for you, otherwise you wont be consistent and it will fail. HTH

The no-cry sleep solution has some really good ideas and plans.

After about 12mths I decided that I wasn't going to feed DS2 in the night anymore (bad reflux and meds), he finally slept through or a bit better from 14mths .

I would say he still woke a couple of times a night for another year unfortunately.

I heard that crying would make reflux worse because they are stressed so I couldn't leave DS2 for too long.

A couple of times DH and I moved to the spare room to get a decent night's sleep or took turns sleeping in there, but when we left him to cry, it would always turn out he was ill next morning and the guilt killed me!!

thanks everyone, she is capable of falling asleep on her own as when i put her down in her cot at night i don't feed her to sleep, yes i feed her but she normally goes in there awake and maybe cries a little but more sort of little protests and falls asleep quickly, the fun then starts 2 to 3 hours later when she wakes for the first time and then goes on to wake again and again throughout the night (e.g. last night was 10, 1, 2:30, 5:30, the night before was 9:30, 11:30, 1, 2:15 didn't settle till 3:30, 5 and then 7:45).

i am going to re-read all your replies, have ordered the no cry sleep solution from amazon so will read that too and sit down with OH to work out what we can manage between us to try and improve the situation a bit.

thanks