Night feeders thread part 3 - Up all night feeding? Come join! [title edited by MNHQ]

[mrsmugoo]

Part 3!

Quick recap - DS, 17 weeks, EBF (stubborn little bottle refuser), crap sleeper! Super knackered Mummy, surviving on 1-2 hour sleeps :(

So I am hoping for a better night tonight seeing as bedtime went smoothly. Last night was hideous and I've eaten a twirl, a bounty and a salted caramel brownie today just to get through the day!

I follow the ethos - never wake a sleeping baby!!! I figure the same, if he's tired, let him sleep. Some days he'll have three 35min naps and today he slept 2.5 hrs and 1.20hrs!! it never seems consistent or to affect his bedtime or sleeping!

DS is still up and whining. He didn't sleep til after 10pm last night as DP's sister babysat so we could go out to dinner. He then slept til almost 11 this morning and napped from 2-4pm so he isn't tired yet, just whiny.

He also strains and grunts constantly and has produced several little pellets of poop today. I am wondering why it isn't going back to his normal consistency as I've cut down on solids for him and upped milk and water. Even Lactulose is having no softening effect, sorry for the TMI!

DS is in his cot just grizzling away. Following his mammoth 2 hour nap earlier he has since had 2x30 minute naps but the latest one was 7.30-8pm. When I just fed him he fell asleep at the breast but as per usual woke up when I winded him and put him in his cot. At the moment he seems relatively content in there but I give it about 5-10 minutes before the crying and screaming starts!!

Have you spoke to the HV about the poo pellets???

Yes, told her about it last week and she advised stopping the baby rice. I got more prunes so will prune him up again tomorrow! At least he isn't in pain like he was last week.

Started bedtime at 8.30pm and he didn't actually go to sleep until 23.15pm.

I can't take much more of this.

Oh Writer. have you tried an earlier bedtime?

Our night was interesting. Z slept till 10:30, fed at 11, woke at 1:50 and settled at 3 after I fed him. He then woke at 5:45 and just wanted to be cuddled so I got into bed with him and he slept till 7:45

Teething us the culprit I think!

His early bed time that we did a few nights ago just led to utter hell!!

He woke last night at 3am, 5.30am and 7.30am. I went to the doctors with him today because when he's waking up he's screaming in pain and showing other signs of reflux too so he's been prescribed ranitidine to start tonight.

He's been awake for 9 hours and only had two naps all day. The first one was 30 minutes long and the second one was only 20 minutes. It's a nightmare. He just won't go to sleep!!

Oh poor little mite :( I hope he feels better with the meds :(

Due to bring shattered he was asleep by 8pm. It never lasts though and I'm predicting a wake up before midnight and then hours trying to get him to settle again

Hi ladies, sorry not updated for a while as I've been at my parents and haven't had a second to myself. It's been really good though to be able to share the load and I'm feeling a lot better than last week!

His nights have been fairly consistent - down around 8pm, up for a feed around 3pm, straight back down until 6ish and then in with me where he sometimes will settle without a feed, sometimes not, but when he does feed he's not that interested in it, it seems to be for comfort but at 6am when it's a case of feed and get 2 more hours sleep or not - then I'm not really up for that battle.

I've stopped doing a dreamfeed now and he seems to be able to make it through to 3am anyway without, and it means I can go to bed earlier if I want - so I've been getting a decent 4-5 hour block in most nights which has made all the difference to my wellbeing.

I'd love to drop the 3am feed but he's quite grizzly by 3am and after 7 hours I think he is genuinely hungry. I'm not going to start actual night weaning until he's properly established on solids, including fats and protein.

Weaning is going well - he will eat the equivalent of about an ounce of puréed veg and is doing well with finger foods too - garlic bread went down a storm as did watermelon. I can't wait to introduce yoghurt and dairy soon.

He is still not drinking from a sippy cup - he just spits the liquid out and gnaws on the spout like a teething toy - he just doesn't understand you have to suck and swallow! A doidy cup has been marginally more successful but still most of it goes down his front.

Had a really good night last night - went down just after 8, ignored some grizzling around midnight and he resettled himself and then didn't wake to feed until 5:15am then slept til 7 - almost sleeping through!

I had a really shit night.

He fell asleep at 20.15pm but woke up at 20.30pm when I put him in his cot It then took 2 hours to go back to sleep again when he finally dropped off at 22.30pm - I wanted to cry

He then woke up at 02.15am, had a feed, went back to sleep but woke up again at 05.15am!! He then decided he was up for the morning. I was tired beyond belief and after an hour of listening to him grizzle and squeal I had to go and wake DH in the spare room and tell him we had to swap. I was in tears from being so exhausted.

My DH came and took over and DS continued to refuse to sleep. At 08.30 I went back to the bedroom and to feed DS and he fell asleep in my arms.

I honestly don't know how to cope anymore. I don't understand why he just won't sleep at night. I can't keep going on with such lack of sleep.

In the last 13 hours he's only had about 8 hours sleep spread over three different sleep sessions. No doubt he will be awake most of the day too. I just don't understand why things have gone so backwards.

Every day and night I just feel like crying because if how tired I am

Sorry to hear you're having a rubbish time of it - I truly know what it feels like so sending unmumsnetty hugs x

Do remember that it WILL pass, even though that doesn't help you get through the day, I know that too.

Did you give him the bottle of formula in the end? What about starting to wean? Anecdotally a lot of people do say weaning does help babies sort their sleeping patterns out.

DS are half an avocado yesterday for dinner and had the longest sheep he's ever had.

What are your plans for today?

Sleep not sheep, bloody hell!

I've been lurking on here lately. My DS is nearly 9 wks. I expected to be up all nt feeding but so far I've been very lucky.

Writer you sound understandably exhausted. This might be a long shot but have you considered cranial osteopathy? I know some are very sceptical but I took my DD age 4 mth when I was at my wits end over her dreadful daytime naps & crankiness from resulting exhaustion. She was a different baby overnight. Could have been a coincidence but it felt like a miracle! I was prepared to try anything by that point although she was always reasonably gd at nt except for teething episodes!

Just a suggestion for you. If you do go try & get a local recommendation & find one with a special interest in babies ideally.

Otherwise hope you find something that works or this phase ends soon for you.

All hugs welcome mrsmugoo - I was in dire need. I haven't started a formula bottle at night as some days I'm convinced I'm going to go it but then I think that I really don't want to. I think if I was desperate enough I would have done it by now so maybe deep down I'm just willing to wait for it to pass. I have just put him down in his cot and already the grizzling has started. He's annoyed because he has rolled onto his front but can't roll back - this is a huge problem during the night and definitely one of the reasons he keeps waking.

I had a really good day today as I left DS with DH and I went out with my friends. I was out for about 5 hours in total and it was so nice having a break from motherhood - my boobs were pretty huge and sore by the time I got home though!! Having some time to myself has refreshed me a little and cleared my head and I feel ready to tackle tonight as best as I can!

Hello eyespy and thank you for your suggestion - it's definitely something I have considered and would be very willing to try. My DH on the other hand thinks it's a load of rubbish I think and just rolls his eyes at me when I mention it. I'm going to give things a few more weeks but if the situation continues to get worse then I'm just going to book an appointment. It's easy for DH to be sceptical when he's not the one who has to deal with traumatic nights!!!

Writer, one thing I forgot to mention earlier with regards to my DS constantly rolling over and getting stuck on his tummy - my Mum convinced me to leave him, just to see what would happen...and lo and behold, he fell asleep on his tummy and has happily slept on his tummy ever since. I have to laugh because I've been turning him over and he must have been so cross as all he wanted was to be left alone!

He's even done some longer naps - 1.5-2 hours some days on his tummy as he seems to be able to resettle after first sleep cycle better on his tummy as he can't roll over so he just puts his head down and continues sleeping.

It's been a real revelation!

Well done you for going out! I still have never left DS for longer than an hour. To be honest, I'm not actually that bothered now. I think I was at around 3 months but now I'm happy to wait until he's off the boob and sleeping through (whenever that will be!).

I've used a cranial osteopath for him - we did about 5 sessions and tbh noticed no difference to his sleeping whatsoever.

I always remember your posts when you used to talk about "Cot Gymnastics" and I could never quite imagine what they were but now I fully understand!

DS fell asleep at 21.00pm tonight which is actually pretty good for him. Strangely enough I just checked on him and he's lying in his front - I decided to just leave him there this time whereas normally I try and roll him over.

I did miss DS whist I was out and admittedly was texting DH quite a lot to check things were ok but having that space has done me the world of good. Things have been difficult between me and DH the last few months and I think one of the main reasons is because of my resentment that his life carries on as normal whereas I'm tied to DS and 90% of his care falls to me. Abandoning motherhood this afternoon for those 5 hours has helped readdress the balance I think as I felt like my life can go on just like DH's does. It certainly won't be a regular thing me going out but it was definitely something I had to do today otherwise I think I would find myself on the verge of cracking up soon!!

The nightmare has started again.

I got the grand total of an hours sleep tonight before the screaming started. He's been going for 50 minutes now and absolutely NOTHING is making him stop.

I just picked him up, took him in the spare room and left him with DH because I can't listen to it anymore.

Writer hope things weren't too bad?
My DH was very sceptical about osteopathy too but I just went ahead anyway. Like you say we're the ones dealing with it all!

All there is to lose is the £ & maybe an 'i told you so' from DH if it doesn't help.

Morning all - Writer I hope you managed to get some sleep and your poor DS whatever is making him cry :(

Not a bad night - he was down and asleep by 7:15 and woke up for a feed at 2am and 5:30 and was up for the day around 6:45 although we stayed just quiet and chilling in bed til 7:30 as that's my rule for getting up!

I could have tried to resettle him without feeding at 2am but I'm on my own at the moment and I'm just not really up for the battle.

Is Cariad around? I wondered what the outcome of going back to milk only for a couple of days was? DS has done some very dry pellet like poos. He doesn't seem to be in any discomfort or straining at all and his BFing hasn't reduced at all since we started weaning but these poos do look quite hard so I'm going to give him a couple of milk only days to get him back to looser poos.

Oh gosh writer sorry it's still not good for you :-(

My DH managed to calm him down a little (I think DS was picking up on my stress) and then we have him done Nurofen in case it was his teething that was making him so distressed. I then took him upstairs, placed him in his cot and he self settled himself off to sleep.

He then slept for 4 hours, had a feed and I kept him in bed with me. He then slept for another 2.5 hours.

So overall a much better night. I feel so much more refreshed. My DH is going to be out all day so won't be getting in the way of my routines and DS's naps so hopefully we'll have a good day in that respect.

Has your DS taken to weaning quite well?? I can start doing it in 3 weeks and parts if me feels excited but the other part of me feels overwhelmed in a "Where do I start?!" way

We have good days and bad days with the solid food to be honest.

The day before yesterday he wolfed down an entire half avocado with a bit of banana in it followed by about half an hour sucking on some watermelon.

Yesterday I gave him avocado with sweet potato and he lost interest after about 4 spoons and wasn't interested in the melon either.

Today I think we'll just focus on sippy cup practise instead of solid food.

I am still here! I cut DS's food back to milk and prunes and I think there's been an improvement. His poop isn't like it used to be but it's not as hard and dry as it was before and he isn't in pain. It's now softer but still of a consistency that can roll off the nappy and be flushed down the toilet. That might be more than you needed to know! He's always straining and groaning but I don't think that's poop related! Apparently if babies are constipated then bananas, rice and apples are to be avoided. I bought some v finely ground oatmeal today so will try and give DS some for breakfast.

He gets a cot tomorrow so let's hope he sleeps in it. I'm so annoyed though - I watched eBay for WEEKS for a cosleeper cot to no avail so got DPs dad to pick up one I saw on Gumtree that was local to them. Naturally since then there are several cosleeper cots now on eBay! Isn't that typical?