B/F and sleeping

3 replies

suggy · 02/08/2006 10:10

I know I'm asking for the impossible... but tips please...

DD2 is 22 weeks old and still wakes every 3 hours to feed in the night. However DD1 is an active toddler - up at dawn and keeps going til bedtime. I am frazzled as I have no opportunities to catch up on sleep. As emergency measures I introduced a formula bottle at 7pm and am weaning DD2 onto solids. However there is no change and I am tired

Plus everyone I meet at the baby club have babies that are B/F that sleep for 12 hours. What am I doing wrong...

OP posts:

Kiskidee · 02/08/2006 13:14

Everyone says they have bf babies that sleep for 12 hrs. giving formula does not mean they will sleep through. your dd has a bodyclock which is tuned to waking up at certain times. you can try to not feed her at certain times when she wakes up and have her cuddled/patted & suushed back to sleep by you or someone else (preferably) after a couple nights, they drop the waking. or you could co-sleep which is what i do for part of the night which means that you hardly wake up when they wake up to feed.

quootiepie · 02/08/2006 13:33

hiya... I started a thread about this... good answers on there. My DS is 4+ months and wakes every 1-3 hours for a feed still. Your doing nothing wrong. If you can, maybe express and let a partner take over night feeds while you sleep for a bit?

lazycow · 02/08/2006 13:35

I would definitely try co-sleeping. This didn't work for me and ds but I did keep trying periodically in the hope it would work. I'd particularly try this since you have an active toddler and can't sleep during the day. You may find this solves the problem for you and you feel much more rested

An alternative if you really don't want to co-sleep or it doesn't help is to get someone (dh maybe) to get you dd when she wakes bring her to you and take her away after she has fed and do any necessary nappy changes in the night though she is probably not needing that at night any more. He could do this maybe 1 or 2 times a week so that you have a night you can look forward to without too many interruptions. This disturbs you much less than doing the getting up etc.

Also I know many will say don't give formula but as your supply is well established now and you are giving a bottle anyway, I'd swap the 7pm bottle once a week (or maybe every 10 days) for dh giving a bottle in the middle of the night -
Don't do two in 24 hours though as that can be the slippery slope to weaning (unless you want to swap to full bottle feeding that is)

Another possibility is get someone to give the bottle a bit later (say 10pm - they may need to wake her) - You in the meantime go to bed straight after the toddler and get a few hours sleep while the bottle is given to dd and before she wakes for her first night feed.

My ds slept really badly until he was a year old and I found that if I could just have a reasonable amount of sleep in a row (5 hrs) once a week I could just about cope. Bottles of milk before bed (formula or ebm) never helped ds sleep any better either. Weaning onto solida has be also been shown not to help with night time sleep - sorry.

You do have my sympathy though I can't face another baby because of the hell of that first year.

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