My baby is a boob monster (exhausted)

[beanlet]

DS 11 months used to sleep pretty well at night, waking at 11ish and 3ish to feed and dropping straight off again. He sleeps in a cot by my side of the bed; we're currently in a 1 bed house so he can't move into his own room.

Recently though he has been waking up and yelling about once an hour from 11, which is when we go to bed, and he will not stop until I feed him, which he does very vigorously.

I am getting very little sleep, and am totally beside myself with exhaustion as I am also working FT.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can get him to sleep through, at least from 11 til 6? Do I just have to sleep with a pillow over my head? I can't cope with this much longer.

He may be going through a growth spurt or teething. Rule out these possibilities before panicking. But the answer of course is to wake him at 10pm and feed the little bugger so at least you are going to sleep at a normal hour.

Also with the 3am feed, he may well grow out of it but if he doesn't shift it very slowly (10 minutes or so, every few nights) so if he wakes, cuddle him but don't feed him till 3:10 etc. - so he forgets to wake up at a specific time and hopefully he'll start to sleep through.

My sympathies, I do remember how absolutely horrible it is to feel like a brood cow at o'shit o'clock when you've got to be up in the morning.

That sounds really tough. you have my sympathy.
Can you work out a reason behind like teething/growth spurt (like wmmc said).
Some mothers I've known have gone back to cosleeping for a while just to maximise their sleep. Otherwise maybe a book like the no-cry sleep solution might have some helpful hints?

Yes, he is teething actually - four top teeth at once, so maybe he's in pain and seeking comfort. I guess I could see if Nurofen helps?

I also wonder if we wake him up snoring/coughing/turning over, but there's not much we can do about that at the moment.

We often end up co-sleeping, but as I'm a light sleeper at the best of times I get even less sleep then as he is also on the verge of walking and VERY squiggly.

Sigh.... so tired.

The mner angeldog always has lots of info about developmental spurts, crazy brain goings on that affect babies in wierd ways inc sleep regression.

Ds, 15m, has had several but they have all ironed themself out and he even sleeps through since the last one.

Go for the nurofen for sure...teething is the enemy of sleep. Hope it resolves it's self soon.

Ah, I see MFM has beaten me to it. :)

There's a really common sleep regression at 11 months, leading up to the 46 week developmental spurt. More info here, here and here.

'Good' sleepers tend to go back to 'normal' after sleep regressions. 'Poor' sleepers may persist with the frequent waking after the regression but will almost certainly be easier to persuade to go off again without a bf after the regression is over, which is a good time to try ideas from the No-Cry Sleep Solution.

Teething does mess up sleep too IME - 17 m.o. DS has recently been cutting his incisors, and went from 1 night waking to about 5 or 6, and up for 2-4 hours in the middle of the night every night too. It lasted 2 weeks and now he's back to just one waking again.

Could you take the side of the cot off so you can roll over, feed him and then roll back into a bit more space? Or use a big mattress on the floor (we use two singles pushed together) so you can feed him without having to get out of bed, but then have your own space to sleep in? That worked well for me for a long while before we started 'properly' co-sleeping.

God, they're helpful links angeldog - thank you! I feel slightly less confused and crap now... off to bed to try to get at least a few hours kip!

My pleasure. :) All that stuff has saved my own sanity many a time (DS has never been a brilliant sleeper). It always does get better afterwards.

Easier said than done, but I'd try really hard to go to be really, really, really early as a temporary coping measure.