Hi,
Over the last week or so my 4mo S has been wrestling about wanting to suck his thumb, pausing during feeds for a suck and generally getting worked up. Sometimes he will go to latch on, then veer off to the thumb. Other times he will feed for a bit, then have the thumb for a bit, I will think he's finished feeding, then I go to get up and he panics and latches back on for a good while.
This started just before he got his 3rd jabs and a cold showed up so the last week has been a bit 'trying'.
He seems to have got over the slight fever after the jabs and his cold is better. He spent about 4 days crying and being cuddled a lot, I guess he felt rough.
He slept ok at the weekend, then he has started a feeding frenzy, going every hour at least for some parts of the day. This seems to have coincided with him struggling to get to sleep, crying and needing rocked for ages. I was up till 1.30 Monday night and 12.40 last night with him.
He normally gets sleepy between 9 and 10 at night and falls to sleep (normally sucking his thumb of course) happily himself. He did briefly start looking sleepy between 7 and 8 for a few days once, but if we put him to bed then he woke up after about 40 minutes full of beans, then went to sleep as usual later.
I am guessing this is growth spurt behaviour and I am just feeding him as often as he wants.
Just wondering if I can handle things any better, I am just gently holding his hand to try and stop the thumb interfering for now, he seems to get all worked up latching on, pulling off etc.
He doesn't seem keen to feed when he is worked up at night, in fact if you offer him the breast he sometimes screams louder I am just resorting to lots of rocking and dancing around, also he seems to settle when he remembers his thumb.
Having written this I am aware it's somewhat rambling, sorry - I think the last week has been the hardest since he was born, I am crap at watching him cry and was getting used to 5 or 6 scattered hours of sleep.