BFing very hungry boy! Some advice please.

[ninipops]

Bit of background - DD is 20 mths and I ebf her till 6 mths gradually reduced and stopped at 7mths. From 8 wks she was up once a night and fed every 3hrs during the day.

Fast forward to DS - he is 10 wks old and on a good night is only up 3 times (we get about 2 good nights a week). From lunchtime onwards I am lucky if I get more than an hour between feeds and he really is feeding not just comfort suckling.

When does this calm down - I am exhausted and feel like DD is spending every waking moment not in nursery in front of CBeeBies because her DB is constantly on my boobs. She is still a bit jealous and I can only distract her with tv while feeding.

If this goes on much longer I will be pushed past breaking point - please tell me there is hope!!

There's always hope, don't panic :) How's his weight gain? Is he happy and healthy?

Happy and healthy boy with good weight gain - its just me thats not very happy!

It will change, I promise.

But until DS no longer needs this level of feeds, what have you tried to maximise your rest ATM.

Learning to nurse lying down is a skill well worth having. As co sleeping can give you more rest at night, no getting up and down to feed baby.

You mention DD is in nursery, could you lie on your bed and feed DS lying down to give you both a chance to nap and if you can't relax enough to sleep, just lying down and closing your eyes will give you a boost.

Sending you {{{Hugs}}}, it is so hard to function without a full nights sleep but you will get through this.

Have sort of tried cosleeping but I can't relax properly - I keep thinking I'm going to roll over and squash him! Going to have to give up on trying to keep a lid on the chaos that is the house and do what you suggest Babies. but yes it is so hard - at the moment I am sitting watching DD pull the kitchen apart because a) I'm too tired to stop her and b) at least shes not watching telly!

Well, I would say that you are giving DD a chance to play with pots and pans. something I loved to do as a child. Nothing wrong with that.

Do you have a friend who could take DD out to the park for an hour ? Or stay and chat with you and make you a cup of tea ? Do you have a partner coming home at 5pm With my first DC I found Friday's the last hardest stretch before getting some proper sleep the weekend whilst my DH looked after the baby.

I found learning to cosleep a skill in itself. i.e. Making sure I was following the safe sleeping guidelines (I'll link them if you want) and having my arms in the right position, so I knew here was no way I could roll onto DD1. Once I knew it was safe I could relax enough to sleep properly. But it took me a further two children, until I am happy enough to throw baby into bed and roll in after them with no worries.

At first co-sleeping feels like that for everyone, in my experience, and we all wake up panicking that they're under the duvet... but it does get easier quickly and soon becomes sooo easy to do nights with a high needs baby.

Have you got a cot that you can make into a 3-sider?

We have a sacrificial kitchen cupboard full of interesting, but unbreakable things! All others have child locks on. Works brilliantly :)

Have you had your DS checked over by someone qualified? While his feeding patterns are within normal for a high needs baby, it might be that he has something like a sneaky tongue tie which makes it harder for him to extract the milk and therefore on the boob for longer than he might be otherwise.

Your DD did sound very much on the easier end of the spectrum and it can be a real shock when the second is so different! It does get so much easier though, and is likely to pretty quickly. :)

babies those guidelines would be great cause I think that might be the way to go.

carrotcake I don't think that a tongue tie is the problem cause I have a very abundant supply and he is definitely keeping it under control!

thanks for the support!

UNICEF Guidelines for safe cosleeping

UNICEF Leaflet

Kellymom page with list of articles at bottom of page.

Good picture of a safe cosleeping position

Personally I don't tie my hair back, or have pillows at knees or behind my back, but this might help you get use to the right position. Notice her high arm she bends under her head, I have my arm out straight running over newborn's head or curved around newborn head and that stops you rolling towards baby.

Try it, impossible to roll further that way from lying on your hip with legs and arm curled around baby.

We did this to side-car our standard cot to our kingsize bed, prevent baby dropping off the edge

Hoper that helps

Have you tired feeding in a sling? a streachy wrap at this age would be great and if you can learn to feed baby in it then you'll have more free hand's for your older one.

Luckly DS wasn't quit so high need's feeding but I still think having him in the sling help with sorting out a older one at the same time.

Plus we cosleep to, I'd never had gotten enough sleep to cope during the day otherwise. We ocasionaly whent away when DS was under 6months and even just a couple of nights of having to get up to feed him during the night made me realise how much more rested I was with cosleeping.