Can I ask for advice re DD's nightfeeding/sleeping?

[legallyblond]

Hope you don't mind... I feel I've hit a bit of a brick wall... I don't know what I've done wrong

DD is 7.5 months and ebf. we're doing BLW and she happily eats 3 meals a day - weaning has been easy interms of getting her to eat solids, she loves it as long as I don't go any where near her with a spoon, so no purees at all, only finger foods! She has always breastfed fairly little and often (every 2 hours or so for about 6 mins, one side only) and has always been 91st centile for weight, so no issues there.

Since she was tiny, I have tried to put DD in her moses basket / cot a little bit awake so she falls asleep in her bed. This has worked fine, together with swaddling when she was tiny.

From cluster feeding and then waking twice a night from a few weeks old, we went through a long period (from about 3.5 months to a few weeks ago) of DD waking sometimes as often as every hour and a half and me giving her a feed to go back to sleep. I got no cry sleep solution and have been trying its methods. DD now goes to be no problem at 7pm (it had been 10 or 11) as a reuslt of a good routine etc.

Partly through no cry sleep solution but also by just "deciding" to feed every 3 hours only and cuddling back to sleep until the 3 hours is up, DD now, usually, does: asleep with bf at 7pm, feed at 10pm, feed at 1am, feed at 4am and feed when she wakes around 6.

My HV assures me this is still FAR too much at night and tbh, I want more sleep too, even though the current situation is a big improvement!

I have tried to drop to one feed at, say, 2.30am and cuddle DD the rest of the time, but she won't have it. At all.

What do I do? I'm feeling a bit rubbish as DD is the ONLY baby I know (of about 15) still waking at night.

During the day DD has 2 naps at 10amish and 2pm ish of max 1 hour each and she goes down for those in the sling. She has of her own accord dropped a day feed so she now has: 6am, 9.30am, 12.30pm, 3pm and bedtime at 7pm.

Help..... please!!! I have reached a bit of a dead end...

Well, compared to my 1yr old, she is fab!

You could get dp to settle her? Or co-sleep and doze through it all? Or take her somewhere quiet and boring to get an extra daytime feed in?

Your hv may say that in terms of calories she doesn't need fed, but it may be she needs your contact this frequently atm? Is she about to crawl or cruise? Plus at 6 mths they realise you can go and they suffer seperation anxiety. she may just need to know you are there?

Both me and loads of my friends have babies who waken frequently. Just the way they are, so don't take it personally! My 1st slept like a dream, ds2 doesn't!

Hang in there. It does pass.

How about moving to 4 hourly at night 7/11/3/7, and then work on moving the 3am feed up to 7am? We did this and ended up with 7/11/6, then dropped the 11pm feed my moving it earlier and earlier each night. Now ds (9.5 months) goes 7pm-6am.

Actually that's not to say he ever always sleeps through but he doesn't feed from 7pm-6am.

Rita - I did think of moving to 4 hourly and progressing on from there, but when I( tried it (tried to go from 10pm to 2am) DD, bless her, was just awake from 12.45 until I caved at 2.... To be fair, she wasn't distressed, its just that when I didn't feed her at 1am, she became wide awake and started playing and chatting away to herself, very loudly!, in her cot.

DH does help.... she settles well with him.

Usually, when its only been, say an hour and a half, she settles with cuddles with about 2 minutes and then will fall asleep in her cot with a few shhs.... when I tried to go longer than 3 hours, she seemed to know!!!! I guess I just need to persevere.....?

Nethuns -thanks for the support!!!!

Another factor is that, if she's happy to drop day feeds, I am reluctant to re-introduce them as I need her to be having no day feeds at 11 months, when I am back at work fulltime (DH is going to be a SAHD!!!)

Eeeek...... She's a bottle refuser, so its solids or nothing during the day by then. I am happy to still be feeding in evenings and mornings of course.

Bump?

there's a big difference between 7 months and 11 tho. my ds1 was feeding 2 hourly around 9 months, but had shifted to morning, noon, evening and through the night by the time I went back to work at 11 months. plus she can get lots of water in fruit, calcium in yoghurt... so don't let worries about what she'll eat then affect what you do now.

am that she goes 3 hours though. I have two 7mo here than don't even manage that, so you're not alone.

We stopped night feeding DD when she was 8 mths and EBF - I was suffering with PND and the doctor suggested we knock night feeds on the head to help my sanity! She told me DD really didn't NEED to be feeding at night which gave me the courage I needed to 'get tough' and for a week when DD woke in the night DH went in to her (she was in her own room) and offered water, cuddles etc. It was actually nothing like as hard as I thought it was, but we were very consistent and DH was 100% on side, otherwise it wouldn't have worked.

Good luck :)

Ha! God know what your hv would think of my 15m ds who wakes and takes me to the fridge in the middle of the night! (sometimes)Plus he still bf's at night. Sorry...not helpfull.

Try not to worry about what other people's babies are doing. You have your baby's needs to meet, not theirs. Sorry if you've already tried it but...cosleeping? It's been a lifesaver for me. I can feed while (nearly) asleep! Therefore i have just ridden out the variations in ds's sleep (and there have been variations, many related to developmental stuff going on). Also, don't look at the clock...it makes you feel worse! Good luck.

Oh god, DS was like this at 7.5 months as well . I think there were lots of things; he's a shite sleeper anyway (he just is - better now at 21 months but still not great), he was ill a few times, he was teething, he had the start of separation anxiety. We did try to drop night feeds with the DH going in thing, and I did end up feeding less BUT this didn't lead to him sleeping better. In fact he got worse, and woke every 2 hours instead of every 3 (sounds a little like you describe your DD).

If she's not responding to the things you've tried then it may be worth taking a different tack and doing as much as you can to maximise your own rest/sleep. I used to go to bed REALLY early, and also got in the habit of lying down whilst he had his morning nap. It helped my sanity more than being stuck in a rut of trying to change something that wasn't shifting. I also started using the NCSS and found it very helpful, as it took the pressure off trying to fix it quickly. We stopped night BF at 10 months - he was ready, it wasn't stressful (BUT he still woke up - we just did something different when he did).

Repeat 'this will pass' a lot. It will. Sorry no magic solution, but do ignore your HV. Your DD is normal, some babies wake up a lot, and those that are sleeping well now may have phases of waking later when they're older. You're not a crap mum because your baby wakes up a lot at night.