what's normal at 10 months?

[rhetorician]

dd2 feeds a lot, especially at night - so yesterday, bed at 7.30, woke at 9, at 12, at 12.45 and at 3. This seems like a lot to me - and we are struggling to cope with the lack of sleep. It's worse than having a newborn! How can we stop? Would moving to formula improve things? thanks

At 10 months most people would say there is no point using formula but if you did this is what i give my 10 month old at night. Dinner is solids at 6.30pm then a 180ml dream feed of Hipp Organic Follow on formula at 10.30pm and he usually wakes around 6.30am for 120ml. He has 3 meals a day and about 600ml formula total. He sleeps well.

I forgot to say he sleeps from 8.30pm-6.30am. And has 3 hours total sleep in the day.

At 10mo, bf dd was up much more than that.

At 10mo, bf ds was never up at night.

Spectrum of normal is vast and at 10mo there are massive developmental leaps happening which disturbs their sleep. They can't help but start climbing to their feet and trying to make the connections required to achieve walking while still asleep. Common to find them standing up in the middle of the night, distressed, confused etc. It's as difficult for them as it is for us. Chuck in teething, separation anxiety, too hot/cold, calories required for increased mobility etc. It's not a bfing issue necessarily. Babies under a year are programmed to wake up regularly. How they get back to sleep is the thorny issue. Some self settle, some need milk, some wake fully and think it's playtime.

Has it always been like this? What's actually happening during wakings? What have you tried?

yes, I know there's not much point really, but would like to supplement a bit to see if she will sleep better?

If you did supplement with formula you may need to express to make sure you produce enough milk for the next feed. Good luck.

no, hasn't always been this way - there was some point in the dim and distant past where she was waking for one, at most 2 feeds and settling back in cot. Lots of disruption over the summer (trips away etc) and then an ear infection, now a virus which she is recovering from. It depends, often she wakes, feeds and goes back to sleep, but at the 3am feed she is quite often properly awake and has to come in the bed and snack her way back to sleep. I should say I don't expect her to sleep through, but thought we might be down to 2 feeds by this point. There is a lot going on for her though - but it's a been a brutal few weeks and we are on our knees which seems a bit unfair (1) to dd1 and (2) to the people who pay me to do a job!

oh and as to what we've done - tried to break the feed to sleep association, whcih has been relatively successful, but is more time-consuming (if anything) than feeding her to sleep. Want her to sleep better so that we can put her in with her sister and so we can resume our relationship!

I know most people do the 12 hour awake e.g. 7am-7pm but i found that if he sleeps a 10 hour shift he sleeps much better 8.30pm-6.30am. the day sleeps are 1.5 hours in the morning and 1.5 hours in the late afternoon. My DS uses a comforter (a soft dog). This has been a godsend! Could you try one?