Comfort feeding??? All through the night!!

[archiesmummy]

Hi all,
My DS is 7 months now and normally wakes ip a couple of times in the night to feed.
At the weekend the whole family (myself, DS and DH) got some sort of stomach bug with diarrhoea and throwing up.
DS didn't feed very much when he was poorly friday, then I was poorly saturday and he still didn't feed much, then sunday DH was poorly and were recvoring. Since then DS feeding has been little and often. At first I thoughht he was just increasing the supply, but now it's been almost a whole week. He wakes up every 2 hours or so in the night and only sucks very gently, like he is just wanting comfort. Also he doesn't come off, just falls asleep and if I try to put him in his cot he starts looking for nipple again. If I give him blanket he goes to sleep or sometimes he uses his thumb.
Has anyone gone though this? He is probably due to start teething again soon, could this be related?
Last night he woke up every half hour/hour (in total somewhere between 10-15 times) and when we got up at 6 I was exhausted.
Hope you can help me

oh poor you! You must be completely knackered. Can anybody take him out for a walk for a couple of hours so you can get some kip? I think I'd probably go with the comfort feeding for a wee bit longer, just because he's been poorly and it can take their tummies quite a while to get over a bug. Sorry I can't suggest anything more constructive!

Oh, I see, so you think his stomach can't deal with large quantities of milk right now?
This does make sense and as long as there is a reason for it then it doesn't seem so bad, does it?
I'll get DH to take him out for a walk when he finishes work today. Thanx

That nibbling used to drive me mad. It is definitely comfort, not nutritive, suckling. Dd needed it to stay asleep, and if I tried to unlatch would wake up screaming bloody murder. This was even with her in my bed co-sleeping. She started doing this around 1 year+. It was probably related to teething. It got to the point she was waking up to 3x per hour. I finally lost it and weaned her at 17 months. Shortly after, she started sleeping through for the first time in her life.

Archiesmum, if your ds is poorly, there is no harm in allowing it for longer. At least he still allows you to put him in the cot with a blanket/thumb.

If you have diffculty unlatching without waking ds, Elizabeth Pantley in her No Cry Sleep Solution, has a technique for doing this (though it did not work for dd).

I totally understand the feeling knackered