Fully BF 18 week old, no routine at all, just wants to feed all night. I want my evenings back!

[purpleflower]

How do I get her into some sort of routine and get her to go longer than an hour or 2 between feeds at night. She feeds most of the day but thats not too bad, it's just the evenings I'm struggling with.

DS was formula fed and by this time had found his own routine, his naps were at the same time each day and he would go to bed nicely around 7 and sleep through almost everynight.

DD on the other hand is just a complete boob monster. All she ever wants is feeding. She powernaps randomly during the day and is only really happy when attached to my boob. The evenings are the worst, she won't go down for the night until around 11pm, generally she has been attached to me for most of the night by then and still wakes hourly for a feed. She does go straight back to sleep after a feed.

I'm serously debating giving her a bottle of formula in the evenings around 8pm and seeing if that helps her go down better but will this mean the end of breastfeeding? She did have a bottle of EBM a few weeks ago just before bed and slept much longer than normal.

I'm just really tired and missing me time. If anyone has any advice at how I can get my evenings back with or prefably without the formula then it would be very much appreciated.

bump

Hi Purpleflower I don't have any advice but I am suffering the same thing with DD although she is only 10 weeks. Added to this, she feeds for up to two hours at a time .
You're not alone and I will watch with interest to see what advice others have.

Have you tried 'stretching' her between feeds during the day? (I mean trying to encourage her to go longer between feeds, by distracting her from feeding in some way, so that when she does feed she is really hungry and has a bigger feed, which then allows her to go longer before the next feed.)

I find this works (most of the time!) so far with 6 week old ds (and worked for my two dds as well).

It seems to be a bit of a circular process really - the longer they go between feeds the more they eat and so they go for longer before the next feed...etc!

HTH

I feel your sleep deprivation. May I suggest a dummy? I know there will be screams but listen.... I had premature twins. One I had to leave in the hospital for an extra week and was told I'd never breast feed her. But she was an extraordinarily sucky baby. She took to both breast and bottle and wanted feeding every 2 hours initially. But she also loved her dummies (she used to have a bagful in bed)and they settled her. (Another tip for the future: muslin cloths from John Lewis as blankies at 6 months - easy to replace and wash: all 3 of mine loved them) You can then get her to give the dummy up later on by saying Father Christmas will give her baby presents if he finds her with one in her bed. Or if you don't do the Christmas thing - cold turkey when she's older and used to sleeping anyway. Good Luck.

You are not alone ds is the slowest feeder in the world, and I am usually up between 2 and 3.30 am feeding each night!

I'd be very surprised if one bottle of formula in the evenings caused any difficulty to your breastfeeding by this stage. Your supply should be well established and she'll have learned a good latch that's unlikely to get messed up by the occasional bottle.

More likely is that she'll refuse a bottle (like my DS1) or take it and it'll make no !£%! difference to the hourly waking (like my DS2). Sorry to be pessimistic! I guess worth a try, but don't get your hopes up like I did when I discovered DS2 would take formula!

It's nice to know I'm not alone pookamoo, I hope it improves for you

When we are out and about she does go longer between her feeds but then feeds even more in the night to make up for it How did you make sure they were getting a bigger feed?

We have tried her with a dummy but shes not hugely interested in it. Occaisonally she will take it but most of the time she will spit it out and then scream until she gets my boob back.

She screams the whole way through me putting DS to bed which means the prcoess is stretched out as he is worried about her. I'm just really thinking formula may be the way forward as DS was soo much better

Purpleflower, I feel for you. My DS is 15 weeks and was considerably more difficult to get into a routine than my DD, both were BF so not sure that it makes a huge difference.

First question that springs to mind is - is she really hungry? Overtired babies often give signals that may be confused with hunger. Such as back arching and crying. I thought my DS was telling me he was hungry when in fact he was tired. I sat down with him in a dark room and patted his back (baby whisperer style) and he started to go to sleep without me feeding him.

Is your DD putting on weight well? Is she on the same centile as when born? If yes (or she is creeping up the centiles) then she is getting enough food. If not then perhaps she is hungry. You could try expressing to see if you are producing enough milk for her. If you are not either give one bottle of formula or try expressing to increase your production.

Other ideas which have helped me settle DS are swaddling him (he was waking up because his arms scare him and not from hunger) and bedtime routine etc.

For the record I give 1 bottle of formula a day to DS and this does not prevent me from BF the other 5 feeds a day.

cross posts there, will be back later to reply but she is screaming again

Hi my ds is also 18 weeks, he was like this a few eeks ago. Like magpie i found I had to extend the time between feeds, he was just snacking and would often fall asleep feeding but only for 10/15 mins. I also think it helps them to get the hind milk. Still sturggleing to get him to have a decent nap in the day but at night now he is going 7.30- 4.30 or 5.30 or occasionally 6!! Good luck, persevere!

oh, and my one exception is the evenings, I feed him off andon from 4pm usually til 7.30, usually half hour gaps, and theres a bath there too, I think it tanks him up for the night

I think Saladsucks (love the name) has a point. Why not give formula at night? The antibodies are still being produced the rest of the time. And she will soon differentiate between the two.

And have you tried a sucky cup of water sometimes? She may scream the house down but at least you can establish if she is thirsty and introduce - gradually - something different to suck on?

On the dummy idea - try a different type/brand of dummy? Found out accidentally that my DS2 would reject one sort (tommee tippee) but would take another (boots standard silicon teat...)

Also had similar experience to Salad on the tired signals. My second baby would cry quite desperately ~1 hr after a feed - initially assumed he was hungry AGAIN, but eventually worked out that it was actually his 'knackered' signal and if rocked or offered dummy (or finger to suck) he would switch off in to fairly deep sleep after a few minutes. (Don't remember my first baby behaving like that) Better/longer daytime sleep then helped stretch his feeding intervals both day and night - though I'm only talking about going from 60-90 minute gaps to 2 - 2.5hr gaps (ie it wasn't a magic switch to a four hour routine!).

Also, he only seemed to find the dummy useful to help with daytime sleep - generally settled easily at night between feeds. So he could 'tell' the difference between day and night, even though feeding intervals sometimes weren't much longer at night. Don't really know what that means, though.

Much sympathy for your experience - you must be exhausted...

Magpie - what did you use as distractions?

I am the same as plusonemore - ds feeds every half hour/hour between about 4 and 7pm, but then sleeps until 12 - 3am before wanting another feed.

I could feel that they were taking more at the feeds that were further apart - felt 'emptier' at the end of the feed, and also they all fed for longer than usual.

With ds I feed one side, tickling his feet or behind ears to keep him awake! Change him and wind him, then feed that other side until he kind of slips off with a drunken looking face

Hi purpleflower, sympathy from here. Agree with others who have mentioned overtiredness and snack feeding. My DS is 26 weeks, and was exactly like this until about 2 weeks ago. I got so fed up of his nocturnal tendencies that we went to a sleep clinic, Millpond, who gave us a whole new routine to follow. Initally thought that it wasn't my style, but my goodness it works. He now sleeps 7-7 with 1 or 2 wakenings in that time (and we're only 10 days into a 3 week plan), as opposed to 9.30 - 6 and waking every hour after midnight a few weeks ago.

Anyway, there are lots of component parts to their amazing plan, but a big one for us has been daytime naps and an early bedtime. They thought (and I think they were right) that DS was chronically overtired (I really hadn't picked up on this as he is a cheery little soul and seemed just fine, when he wasn't shouting to be fed). He was a real catnapper, he'd just grab 30/40 minutes at random points through the day. Basically I was to make him nap for as close to an hour as I could manage in the morning, and 1 1/2 to 2 hours over lunch. They said to start with just to do whatever it took - so I pushed the buggy, drove round in the car... to my astonishment though, after a few days of that he just fell into the routine, and now naps happily at those times at home. He also now goes to bed at 7, so I have my evenings (plus lunchtimes, plus morning coffee time!) back.

He was also snack feeding, and has now settled into a nice 3/4 hourly pattern. I just kept stringing out the time between feeds using any diversionary tactics that I could. Also for us, feeding when he wakes rather than before naps has helped, as he now doesn't seem to associate feeding with sleeping as much - I think before he was so tired all of the time that he wanted to feed because he wanted to use it as a way to get to sleep...

I am also fully breastfeeding (not entirely through choice but more because of DS's point blank refusal to take a bottle! oh and we've just introduced solids, but literally a couple of days ago so won't be making a difference yet), so I've no idea what he's taking - but he seems to be getting more now from 4 spaced out feeds + dreamfeed a day than he was from 7/8/9 more frequent feeds...

good luck, HTH

stirlingstar I carry ds around facing outwards, or looking over my shoulder, get dh to carry him around and 'show' him things, rock him, face him in towards me (as if feeding) and give him his dummy with him pressed up to me, put him in his swing with lights/music... I try anything and everything I can think of !

Carrying him around in the sling seems to be the best way though - he will sleep for ages held upright against my chest so I suppose that's why he likes the sling so much!

saladsucks - 'You could try expressing to see if you are producing enough milk for her'. Expressing won't tell you any such thing I'm afraid, as the amount you can express is no indication at all of how much milk is there.

pf - there's a thread for those of us with 4 or 5 month olds who are feeding all night instead of sleeping. Will find a link in a mo.

I presume that you have remembered that this is classic big growth spurt time?

I'm in a similar situation.... FlapjakFairy, how did you get the naps to be a decent length? My baby wakes up after 35 mins whatever I do.... whether she's asleep in the sling or the pushchair or her cot, and even if the pushchair is still moving or if I'm still walking with her in the sling. I'm convinced she needs longer naps to help her sleep better at night, but don't know how to achieve it!

Flapjak's routine sounds a bit similar to Gina F's? (Don't all scream at once...) Have you thought about giving that a go???

I loosely followed for DS1 and found it quite helpful (as long as did not stress about following to the letter) but have so far found half-hearted attempts for DS2 have not taken hold - much harder to focus on routine for the baby with a toddler around, in my exp. But also feels like DS2 is not such a 'natural' fit in to the routine - though wonder if that's really true or if it is the distraction of having to fit around toddler too.

Come and join us!

Thank you all for your help.

I do want her to get into a routine but I just really don't know how to push it. Like I said DS fell into his own routine which was brilliant for us.

It's just sods law though that I posted this thread and have now been able to settle her to sleep but I bet I will be back up there in an hour to feed her.

I'm really not sure if it is hunger or not. I tried rocking her in her chair earlier but she just screamed the place down until I fed her. She is growing well but I don't know how much she weighs now. I had her weighed at 14 weeks and she was just under 14lb, she was born at 8lb 10.5oz.

It's just so hard with a toddler running around too who likes alot of attention. I tried feeding her to sleep in our bed the other day for a nap but DS wasn't having it and stood at the edge of the bed screaming until I gave up. I think he thought I was going to sleep too.

At the moment I can't use either the car or a pushchair to help extend her naps as my car is off the road (the exhaust leaks fumes into the car, although I suppose it might help her sleep) and my double pushchair is really rubbish so I can only do really short journeys or my arm aches like hell. DS won't walk very far at all so if I took the single I would end up carrying him and pushing DD and he is very heavy.

She was doing really well and even slept through a couple of times, it was about 5 weeks ago it all went down hill I thought it was a growth spurt at first but can it really last 5 weeks?

I'm not sure about the GF, I'm not the most organised of people so I think I would struggle with it.

I'm going to look at that thread now, thank you CSWS

Aranea - to get the naps to a reasonable length, I just had to do what I did to get him to sleep each time he woke up. So e.g. if he fell asleep being pushed in the buggy and later woke (once buggy was in house), I just rocked / pushed the buggy again until he went back to sleep. Likewise if he'd fallen asleep being cuddled / on rocking chair with me etc. I really had to be persistent about this but after maybe 4 or 5 days it did start to work. The trick was to watch him pretty closely and get him before he was fully awake. Maybe the key is to do what you do to get them asleep once they are fully asleep, and start again if they surface, rather than just keep on pushing the buggy / walking with the sling IYSWIM. Have you tried the No Cry Sleep solution? It has good suggestions for catnappers.

stirlingstar - yes it is fairly Gina Fordish in terms of nap times, feed times etc (although not techniques). And honestly, if you'd told me 3 weeks ago that's what I would end up with I'd have been horrified, but ultimately I've had to sacrifice spontaneity for sleep and have realised that it's not so bad. Although it does limit when you can go out, when I have made it out (mid morning / mid-late afternoon) to meet friends for coffee in the last week or so, I've usually found that DS has been quite happy to sit in a highchair and play with his toys (not going to say "contented"!!)as he's not tired or hungry... previously he'd have wanted a bit more in terms of being entertained, and going out for a civilised lunch was always hit or miss anyway.

Laceknstrand - thank you.

Can'tsleep - fair enough re expressing, I always get lots out so thought others would too.

Flapjak - my DS is EXACTLY the same. Wouldn't take a bottle so exclusive breast feeding. But then I discovered Breastflow bottles. Not cheap (£15 for 3) but AMAZING. Now takes a bottle quite well. Seems that the flow of the breastflow bottles just works for him (he has to suck hard to get stuff out). I bought them from Amazon.

She is still asleep

I should've posted this a couple of weeks ago