How can I get dd2 to ho just an extra hour or so at night?

[Iwasthefourthwiseman]

I know this is thr age old question but bear with me.

Dd2 is 12 weeks. From about 5 weeks to 10 weeks she went about 12-7.30 at night. Then she started waking at 4am for a week, now it's 6am. I know that is still really good for her age but it is really awkward for me. By the time I've fed her, put her to bed & got back to sleep it's gone 7. Then I can sometimes get another hour or two but that is cutting it fine for varios things that start at 10 or my dh has to go to work and wakes me at 8 for dd1. If I don't go back to sleep or can't for ages I am knackered. I can sustainably last on 6 hours sleep. This week I had a migraine & was throwing up as I was so tired.

I could really do with her going that extra hour again. I can cope with getting up at 7-7.30 even if I'm not in bed before midnight.

Any tips?

i wish i got that much sleep! ds wakes min every 2 hrs, usually more often.

it is bloody hard, but part of having kids and it will end.

can you get a wee rest in the day? i find even half an hour helps big time.

i get days where i get a migraine/hit a wall, but you get through, honest.

come on here for a rant!

oh and aye, i am finding it much harder with second one.

If you can bear it, wake her up at 4.30 and feed her and then she might go longer.

I have noticed from my sample of one (DS) that if he wakes up a bit earlier, his "post feed" sleep is longer/deeper than if he wakes later, so sometimes I get a better night if he wakes at (eg) 4 and then sleeps till 7 than if he wakes at 5 and then just dozes for another hour or so.

Probabyl not the suggestion you were looking for tho'

I know I know, I should be grateful it's not worse, and I am. But she's tantalised me by going through for weeks. I'm just fed up with feeling tired. Had a really shitty pg where I had insomnia for months so I am just really knackered & never get a chance to catch up.

Not sure I could bring myself to wake her at 4, but it is a logical suggestion.

Just bit frustrated today as she didn't go down till 1am last night. She doesn't go down in the evenings.

missing out on evenings is hard, aye. that might change soon though approaching the 3 mth stage.

Here's hoping

how about doing dream feed at 10pm - AND go to bed at 10.30pm - feed in bed, all ready, and get your DH to burp and settle her...she'll probably wake earlier eg at 4am but at least you'll get back to sleep again and you'll have been asleep from 10.30pm.

She doesn't go down till midnight unfortunately, she doesn't sleep in the evenings unless it's on me whilst feeding, so when I have nights like last night when she didn't go down till 12.30 and then woke up at 6 I had 5.30 hours sleep. She went back down till 8.30 but it was gone 7 by the time I got back to sleep!

Can anyone else recommend anything? The last few nights she's not gone down till 1am, then getting up at 6. I'm knackered!

none!! its very common to regress i.m afraid

I think need to work on getting her down at 7pm so you can get some sleep in the early evening, because as you say 5.30 hours sleep isn't really sustainable.

Look at how much sleep she is getting in the day - too much - not tired at 7 and will not settle, too little - over tired at 7 and will not settle.

I have used CLB and Sleep fairy book as a GUIDE to amounts of daytime sleep - I never let them cry or anything like that but tried to guide them towards 3 day time sleeps with a 7pm bedtime: eg 9-10 12-1 3-4, then sleep 7pm-10pm and 11-7 (maybe with middle of the night feed). If they woke at 8pm then DH would try and cuddle back to sleep.

Thanks for the guidance. She's not great at sleeping in the day though (unless it's on me). We are trying but it can be a battle to get her to go down. It's all a bit of a vicious cycle but it's hard to know which bit to tackle first & how.

Can you not take her into bed and feed her at 6am and that way you get sleep too? That is what I always did. The trick is to find where you can snatch sleep, not how you can change a baby's sleeping pattern.

Make sure you go to bed earlier in the evening too, even if it means wakening again. I never found that dream feeds worked with my 4 childeren. Do you always get out of bed to feed? The beauty of breastfeeding IMO is that you can do it and sleep at the same time. I didn't co-sleep - I brought babies into bed for feeds then put them back into their cots when I drifted awake and found them alseep beside me.

There is no time that I can go to bed earlier in the evening. She literally feeds on and off all evening and doesn't settle in her hammock till sometime between 11.30 or if I am really unlucky 1am, except for the hour where I hand her over to DH when I have had enough, but she doesn't sleep and if she falls asleep it's not for very long. I've no idea how to get her to go down in the evenings.

Bringing her into my bed doesn't really work either, although I do try it occasionally, I am even less likely to sleep with her next to me, I just can't co-sleep. She goes back to sleep fine after that waking (though after at least half an hour of feeding/settling) it's me who can't get back to sleep by then.

Although you might not sleep well you do get a few deep snoozes when lying down breastfeeding. You have to grab opportunities for 10 minute 'powernaps' when you can. Please don't think that you will be stuck with a child in your bed. I breastfed 4 babies (to sleep - none of this putting them to bed awake to settle themselves stuff) and once night feeds stopped they were in their own cots no problem. First baby slept all night at 9 weeks, second and fourth were round about 4 months and a bit earlier. Number three was 8 months so I definitely needed to get sleep somewhere as I was also back at work part-time.

Sometimes cluster feeding early evening combined with breast compression can help get babes to sleep a bit longer at night. Dr jack Newmans site has a video on breast compression. its basically squeezing the top of your breast in time to the babes sucking when they have got to that slow suck suck pause part of the feed. the softer the breast the higher the fat content of the milk