Breastfeeding and exhausted and not sure what I'm supposed to do

[kapars]

I'm exclusively breastfeeding my nine-week daughter. On the plus side she is thriving, putting on weight, I am through the pain barrier, have lots of milk so all is going well it seems. However, I am just exhausted with night feeds and am not sure if we should be introducing a routine or if this is too soon?
She settles at the breast between 7pm and 9pm and I put her in her cot which is a co-sleeper and she can usually go 4 or 5 hours then before waking around 1/2am then 3 or 4am ten maybe 5 or 6am then up around 7 or 8am..Although last night she woke every two hours. I'm not sure anymore if she is hungry or just wants feeding to sleep??
She also has reflux and possets after every feed so I have to try and keep her upright which is also exhausting.
Daytime naps are really difficult. She only like to sleep if held or in a sling/car seat etc..
Am i worrying unnecessarily? Will thigs improve in time? Or are there things i should be doing differently? or is it too soon to worry?
She is a happy baby and rarely cries but grizzles when tired.

It will get better - her sleep sounds pretty normal to me for that age.

It sounds like you are doing great. It's really exhausting, isn't it? But it will pass.

On the daytime napping, our little girl didn't nap on her own until we introduced a dummy. (I was always anti-dummy but resorted to it in the end) It was fabulous I finally had real rests when she napped. We took the dummy away at 8 months really easily. She had a horrible cold and couldn't use it anyway (as she couldn't breathe) so we just never gave it back again. It REALLY worked a treat for us.

All in all you sound like you're doing wonderfully well. This is just what it's like. It'll take you to the ends of exhaustion but things will improve. Just trust in yourself and your baby. You'll be doing the right things!

try reading 'the baby whisperer' its a flexible routine, you can definitely do a routine at this age.

but itis hard whatever you doat this stage. hang in there it will get easier.

thanks for encouragement! i have baby whisperer on order -should arrive today.
we have introduced dummy from 6 weeks which she loves..but again she wont stay asleep in the house in the day unless held or if i move her along with the cushion i have been feeding her on!

Maybe you could feed her at about 11pm even if she doesn't wake - we did this with DS. It meant that we got rid of the 1am wake up. Basically it was feed at 7pmish, then 11pmish, then 3am, then 6 or 7am ish.

Though of course if she's waking every two hours there's not much you can do - but if she goes back to the 1am wake up, I would feed at 11pm and see if that helps

sleepingsowell - does this mean you would wake ds or you would feel while ds was still asleep? i haven't tried that yet but maybe a good idea...

I used to pick DS up and start feeding - My ds was bottle fed by the way but this method worked for us and also for friends who were bf-ing

He always woke enough to take a good feed and then went straight down afterwards and it did mean that we missed out the 1am feed which helped ALOT

All babies are different of course, I would not have carried on doing this if he only took a tiny feed and woke at 1am anyway, or if he'd been hard to settle afterward.

Just a thought. Good luck, whatever you do. It is so hard when they're so young but (sorry to be annoying and say this) it really DOES pass quickly!

hang in there. that was almost exactly the pattern mine had a 9 weeks. she has now dropped the 1am. she goes from around 7pm to 3/4am, then through to 7-8am now at 14 weeks. she is exclusively bf as a bottle-refuser. i find this new pattern much easier to cope with. so don't worry it doesn't last forever. but - beware the 3month growth spurt, from around 11-13weeks it got worse for a while. good luck and hth

theslumbertaker yes that is what I am hoping for. She was fed every one to two hours first four weeks and I remember when she suddenly slept for 5 hours for the first time and me and my husband were like - wow she's still asleep. So I'm hoping that may happen and she'll suddenly start to miss the 1am feed. we shall see!

i am sure it will get easier for you, it has to! with both of my dds, i have found the hardest part between about 2-3 months. the sleep deprivation really catches up on you, but they aren't really old enough to go through the night yet. you just have to do whatever you need to get through that time, and then it all gets so much easier. from what you said in your post, you seem to be going by your baby's lead, which sounds like the right way to go. good luck!

Funnily enough she went down at 7pm last night, woke up herself at 9.30 when I gave her a really good feed and she slept til 3am..so that was marvellous.