Aargh - spending half the night sleeping sitting up, what to do?

[RainAndRoses]

So DS is 4 months old, and apart from a brief spell of only waking up once, tends to wake up several times a night to feed. I feed sitting up in bed (have bedside cot) but seem to be unable to stop myself falling asleep during/at end of feeds, so end up sitting up asleep for ages, which is killing my back (he is in perfectly safe position, not worried about that). A typical pattern might be:
8pm last feed, falls asleep in my arms and stays asleep when put in cot
12pm wakes, will only settle with feeding, but takes intermittent sucks, but will wake if I put him down until he's deeply asleep. I eventually fall asleep.
2am, I wake up (sitting up), realise I've fallen asleep again and try to put him down, but often I've woken cos he's stirring, so is in light sleep, so...
2:20am he's waking himself up, wanting to feed to settle

and the cycle continues!

I can't feed lying down (use an at-breast supplementer system as have low supply, but means I have to be upright).

Anyone else experienced this? Should I just not worry and try to be as comfy as poss sitting up? Also, he doesn't eat loads overnight, partly is a comfort/settling thing, but won't settle easily without a bit of food.

I was going to suggest feeding lying down... Hmmm, not sure. Do you definitely need to use the supplementer? Can you cut down on that so feeding lying down is an option?

If not, perhaps when he starts to roll he will chose to sleep on his front, and be more comfy?

I did have this issue, minus the supplementer, it was cause he preferred sleeping on his front, and also because he had allergies I didn't know about, probably giving him a tummy ache. When he slept on his front and I stopped eating the things he was allergic to he slept a lot better in his cot.

Try not to stress too much, he is still so little at 4 months, just because he is like this now doesn't mean he won't get better soon, by a year he'll probably be a super sleeper and you will have your nights back!

do you have decent pillows? I used to do this with DS3 - I had a big beanbag long pillow and about 4 regular pillows and used to sleep sitting up. It won't last - try and get as much sleep as you can however

Are you sure you have low supply? Or is that an incredibly irritating question which makes you want to kill me- if so, then sorry!

Ah thanks for replies. Yes, unf hakluyt we def know. Reckon my supply is max 25% of a full one (discovered at day 5 weighing when he'd lost a lot of weight, cue a stressful month! but now settled into our new 'normal'). No Tommy I don't have good pillows - and good to know others have done this! Keep feeling like everyone else manages to be more 'efficient' overnight! As he doesn't eat loads overnight I have tried feeding lying down without the supplementer but most of the time he just sucks and sucks and doesn't settle when I do this...

Once again, thanks for replies, just nice to get some other opinions!

I took the sofa vision upstairs and fit it to the right angle with pillows on top it was quite comfortable for the few week my DD2 did not want to sleep in her cot.

Are you having support with the supplementer? How long have you been using it? Have the tubes been narrowed? Does your baby spend time feeding without the supplementer?

Sorry for the questions. A SNS is often used as a temporary tool tp help supply can be boost supply, used in combination with other methods, expressing/pumping, feeding at times without the supplementer.

Forgive me if you are having all this support or maybe you need to continue to use the supplementer on a longer term basis for some other reasons.

Thanks McBaby - but what's a sofa vision?

deepbluetr - I have Insufficient Glandular Tissue to the extent that I'll never reach a full supply. When it was first discovered (day 5 weighing) it wasn't clear how much of a supply I could produce as you can only find out with time. For the first 6 weeks I pumped between feeds (hosp grade pump) and also started taking Domperidone/fenugreek (still taking but tapering off). The most I ever pumped at one time - both breasts- was about 35mls/just over 1 oz. The most I pumped in 1 day (at least 8 pumps, both breasts) was just under 200mls. You would expect someone with a full supply to be getting at least 600 (prob more) with that many pumps after having pumped for several weeks. At week 5 we started using the supplementer, and it's made such a difference. For one thing DS nurses for so much longer that I think my supply has improved a bit, but for us this is the way we can get as 'normal' a breastfeeding experience as possible :)

To answer your qs, have used it for 12 weeks now, it's a 'lact-aid' (American system) not a medela SNS, so only one size of tube, and I tend to start each feed without the supplementer, on both breasts. In terms of support we spoke to a lot of people at the start, the most helpful being other women with IGT, but I must say it was a deeply stressful time and I sometimes found the conversations I had more upsetting than helpful, I think because a lot of people's experience is around supply issues which can ultimately be solved, so when faced with one that can't the conclusion was 'of course you'll have to supplement with formula', and also because I would come out thinking I had to do loads to try and improve the latch too, whereas actually I now think that wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Amazingly, thanks to several generous donors we've actually managed to keep him on bm this far, and that in combination with the supplementer means we're now very settled. Am actually off to an LLL mtg now.

Phew, sorry long reply! Thanks for your responses.

Sorry I meant sofa cushion. Typing with left hand while feeding.