how do you survive early evening cluster feeding with a toddler?!

[bodenbetty]

Ok so dd (5wks) has decided it would be a good idea to feed conctantly from 5pm until 9pm. I get 15 minute breaks if I'm lucky. how do you mamange to get toodler his tea, bath him, get your own dinner & do anything else? I feel like I'm glued to the sofa even more than I was before!
If I gave her a dummy I presume it wouldn't help if she is actively seeking food all this time. how do you know if its food or comfort they want?

Nightmare! She will be after food (delivered in the most comforting way she knows). I wouldn't bother trying the dummy - we did that with DS and he cried so hard we thought he had colic. But he was just hungry Have you tried a ring-sling? At least you'd be a bit more mobile then.

Cbeebies helped me

This is the time you really need help - do you have someone/partner to do the toddler bath thing? And the dinner thing?

Toddler tea: is there a teenager on school hols who lives nearby who would come in (for payment) for an hour each day to prepare the toddler's tea?

Also multi-tasking - a sling helps with this!

We were like this 12 weeks ago and I started expressing some milk in the morning when I was bursting and then giving it to her before we started bedtime routine with DD1. It was only a temp measure tho as she soon settled down and in fact from 10 weeks was happy going to bed at 7.30 after a feed at 6-6.30pm. Still takes me and DP to do bedtime tho!!
Good luck and stick with it.

I found that the issue was milk quality - I was so knackered by then that my milk seemed "thinner" and didn't satisfy DS2 as much. Try to rest (HA!) and eat loads and loads, it's only temporary.

Bath toddler early and try and give them attention when baby isn't as demanding (easier said than done

folk???

fork

I was there too DD1 was 18 mo when DD2 was born and DD2 was a constantly hungry baby but I just had to let her cry sometimes. Luckily I got into a sort of semi routine whereby DD2 got a feed at 4.30pm which seemed to do her whilst I got all the dinners/baths etc sorted. Then DP was in from work at 7pm so he looked after DD1 whilst DD2 was constantly plugged in.