Can't carry on

[Amymac5]

I have a beautiful 10mo DD but I'm so drained I think I've reached the end. She's never slept well and I've also developed insomnia even though I'm absolutely exhausted from her 2hrly wakes. I just lie there getting more and more angry with myself for not sleeping. I'm too scared to do sleep training for fear of not being able to get back to sleep. All the other Mums I know are hitting the gym etc and have great sleeping babies and I'm just dragging myself around all day every day. I'm in a couple of groups but don't fit in well with any of them and can't bear to hear any more about their great sleeping babies and all the things they are out doing because they have energy and baby takes the bottle. That's so petty of me I know but its the truth about how I feel. My DD is ebf and has never taken the bottle and still can't do bottle or cup well enough to give up bf. She's stopped eating well now and everything I make just gets rejected. I am failing her as all the positivity is just draining out of me. I don't know what options I have now other than to leave or carry on in this spiral. I've been to doctors about my sleep but they can't do anything while bf. I have thought about leaving but the guilt is overwhelming and I don't think i could do it to my beautiful baby. Don't know what I'm after really but it is a bit of a release just to type it all out.

I've been there, but maybe biting the bullet and choosing to either stop breastfeeding at night or to sleep train is going to be what saves you! I'm sorry you're going through this

Do you have any help or support? If you do I would definitely recommend choosing a sleep training method, which will be hard work but worth it in the long run.
Please don’t give up, it will get better.

Can you join a local breastfeeding group? From my experience they are endlessly supportive and lovely

Sleep train and give up breastfeeding. Do you have a partner for support op?

Could you give an idea of a typical day op? Naps, food etc?

I stopped bf at night at 9 months. Slept deprivation was affecting me and the whole family.
Sent dh in with a bottle of water. First night he had an ounce. Second night he refused and settled back down. Third night slept through.
=== one happier baby and a better family altogether!!
Imo bf at night isn't necessary at 10 months and certainly not at the expense of your mh...

I had a great sleeper and eater. Nearly a year old and throws things from her tray daily. I'd be surprised if she eats half as much as what she used to. Refuses fruit and veg (which she adored) unless I sneak them in something.

Used to sleep 12 hours a night and we are now cosleeping as ongoing regression and wanting to be with me a lot has her wakened a million times a night. I couldn't focus at work so cosleeping means we all sleep.

Hang in there. How much real life support have you got? Does she have a dummy? I would definitely offer breastmilk in a cup and see how she takes that. They do eventually get the hang of it. Can you leave her with someone so you can get a few hours and she knows mummy isnt always on tap?

You need to see a GP for yourself love! Get rested and feel more like yourself. You sound exhausted! Maybe cutting out breastfeeding is the only way forward. What has your health visitor been suggesting??

I put my bottle refusing son to nursery at 9 months with a sippy cup and some formula. He took a cup while we were apart during the day and we fed on demand weekends/days off. It didn't help sleeping (that was instantly fixed at 17m when I weaned him) but was enough to keep him going during my shifts.
I think (if you feel ready) you should have a little bit of time off. Even a few hours to do your fave thing pre baby and have a bit of me time. She may cry but she will absolutely cope at this age and if she is hungry she will eat something, even if it is custard! You wont need to express as your supply will be totally fine and she will guzzle it down when you get back to her.

Try to get some help with DD, either a part time nursery place, child minder or a babysitter a few hours a week. Then pump some milk, leave it with DD and go get some sleep. Let the person watching her deal with the bottle if she's wanting milk. Or give food or water. My experience is it is very difficult for the breastfeeding mum to be giving a bottle for the first time.

You should try some sleep training. It's hard but know if they're fed, dry and tired then they are okay. They just need to learn to go to sleep. I tend to breastfeed my DS3 to sleep and then put him down for the night. He's never really totally asleep, and gives a few cries as I leave the room. I just leave him to it for about 20 minutes. Usually he's quiet in about 3 minutes.

All my DSs were EBF for more than a year. Sleep was hard, and we weren't sleeping the night until about 14 months old. However, they would wake up hungry to feed and then go back to sleep for a few hours. I was maybe up 2x a night when they were 10 months old, but only for 15 minutes each time. Yes, I was tired but it was bearable.

Thanks everyone. I'm thinking of giving up breastfeeding but it just seems she doesn't take much fluids in with a cup and she still isn't taking a bottle. I tried every day for a very long time after she was 4 weeks to get her to take a bottle but she wouldn't. She'll have the bottle in her mouth now but just seems to chew on it. I'm persisting at every meal but to little success. She's never wanted a dummy either. I have DH but he is very stressed at work, he doesn't seem to wake up when she's crying and sometimes I'm awake anyway now due to my insomnia. So it seems bad to wake him if I'm already woken or up. She can self settle for naps but just not in the night so I'm guessing I have created a habit. I think I can cope with the night waking but not when I can't get back to sleep after 1am. Maybe as a lot of the suggestions I should just bite the bullet and do sleep training at night as I'm having rubbish sleep anyway I just find it so hard

Thanks so much for replying I just feel a bit broken and it's helpful just not to feel so alone. I do have people around me but just feel like I'm failing and don't talk to them much so it's nice to read some friendly words

You sound exactly like my friend - and I think she's a great mum. No real advice but just hope you read this and feel less alone. I think you're so brave and your situation is more common than you might think

Honestly it’s really really hard work and I guarantee you that those people you are comparing yourself to have problems too, some people are just better at hiding it or outright lie! You’re doing a wonderful job :)

@Ohnoherewego62 this is my worst fear that my lad will go from such a good sleeper to pure sleep regression and the reason I still go to bed at 9.30 every night without fail ha.

If your baby is hungry she will take the bottle. Really stop breast feeding now. It's benefiting no one.

I went to a sleep seminar a week ago. There was quite a few people in a similar situation with the night feeds. The advice by the consultant if you want to give up night feeds in a more gentle way than cold turkey was to gradually reduce the time you allow your DC to feed. So on night 1 time your feeds. On subsequent nights reduce each feed by 1-2 minutes and keep doing this until feeds are 5 minutes. Then just stop. You may have to go in and settle a couple of times without feeding in the next few nights but then they should be used to not having a bf and then stop waking. This may take 2 weeks or so but could be a more gentle way to train.

@Abouttimemum- just you wait

Ah I'm so sorry you're going through this. It's the pits. I don't have much advice on solving the baby sleep but I wanted to let you know that there are medical options for you even if you're breastfeeding. I had the same insomnia problem as you and started on a low dose of Sertraline (50mg), which really, really helped. I found that I was able to get back to sleep after feeds, which I couldn't do before.

The doctors (GP and psychiatric consultant) were very happy for me to do this, and I breastfed both my kids while on this dose. Honestly, if this is an option you want to explore further I really would. It was a game changer for me.

Do the sleep training, you'll feel much better after the first few days. You need to prioritise your mental health.

Hi OP

Poor you. I think the mental health side of being sleep deprived is really under estimated.

I have been where you are. Upon every 90 month or so to feed and I felt like I was only getting back to sleep (takes me a while) when I woke up next. I started getting so anxious about planning to do anything in the day, as I knew I'd probably be tired and miss the opportunity for a nap, so I became a bit of a recluse and didnt enjoy my maternity leave. I only stuck it out for 7 months before I sleep trained. We got someone in to help because nothing I tried worked.

I could write a massive post on this but we essentially did the disappearing chair method where we sat beside her, patted her, picked her up if the screaming got awful, and over the course of 10 nights moved it gradually further away til it was out thr door. First night every wake up waited 3 min to see if she self settled then the next night 4 min then worked up to 10. She woke up once for a feed thr first night (which I was happy to do and advised to do it since she was only 7 months - but only between 1 and 3am or something) and didnt after that. So was sleeping through on second night. To be honest I wouldnt think she needs feeding in the night at 10 months it's just habit. If she had woken up more, we would have waited the number of minutes and gone and sat with her til she fell asleep again.

This completely changed her behaviour in the day. She was much happier and ate and drank a lot more as she wasnt getting 90pc of her calories during the night. Ans naoowe consistently.

You will need your partners support though, I wasnt emotionally strong enough to do it myself. You really need two of you doing it at the same time to support each other. In fact the sleep trainer advised that my husband did the first 3 nights then I do the next 2 then we alternate every night. So that firstly the first few nights are a bit easier as they get more distressed if they can see the mum and want her milk but cant have it. With dad they accept a bit quicker that they arent going to get fed. Also it ensures they dont get into another bad habit of only going to bed for one parent.

I still breastfed her in the day at set times and by the time she was one did it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. She was a baby who really really needed a strict routine.

If your partner has any holiday over christmas I'd work out a plan of how to tackle this together. It normally works within 3 or 4 nights and a few awful nights is much better than months of awful sleep.

I also had another daughter that woke once a night to feed and we sleep trained her by accident at 8 months as I had a bad back, and my husband got up with her and tried to settle her before coming to get me (as he had to help me sit up and put her back in bed, so it was easier for him) and this was much easier but she was not as strong willed as the younger one who was an awful sleeper and resisted all my gentle methods!

One thing I found though is that the sleep anxiety for me lasted a lot longer than I thought. It wasnt til she was about 18 months old and I realised she had been sleeping well for longer than she had been sleeping badly, that my brain kind of let itself relax properly and I didnt constantly feel like I had to be half listening out for her, or start panicking every time i heard her cough or cry or anything. Also I had a massive hormone crash, with symptoms like headaches etc when she started sleeping through as it was so sudden - my body was used to waking 7 times a night and feeding so probably thought I was looking after newborn twins or something, then went to feeding a handful of times in the day only and it made me feel quite poor for a couple of months while I adjusted. I might have been unlucky here as I havent heard of that happening to anyone else though!

That should say 'up every 90 minutes or so'

Hang in there. I was the same as you when DD was 10 months, then by 11 months she was sleeping 9 hours. At 16 months she’ll do 12.

I never sleep trained. I just cuddled her when she needed and she was developmentally ready. 10 months is a shit time as they are crawling/ cruising/ maybe learning to walk. Plus teething.

Night waking at this age is completely normal. I know it feels awful but in a few months you may find it works itself out.

I found that a bath every night, no TV on after dinner etc. really helped.

People have different levels of tolerance for sleep deprivation. My friend was OK with her kids up constantly and into her bed during the night until they started school.
I wasn't OK. One night, when DC 2 was about 18 months old and I was up again as he screamed in the night, the thought drifted through my mind, "I wonder if he'd shut up if I threw him at the wall".
I didn't, fortunately. But even idly thinking that was a massive wake up call that I couldn't cope with the endless nighttime disruption.
I sleep trained him that night. He cried for a long time, much less the next night and dropped off and slept through on the third night. We were all much happier.

At 10 months my LO was still waking every 90 mins-two hours and would only be fed back to sleep (but did settle without a feed at nap and bed time). I had just gone back to work and was on my knees with tiredness. He’s now 14 months and occasionally sleeps through or will wake for just one short feed.

DH did took on the night role for a week to gradually increase the time between feeds. We had already been using the Lucy Wolfe gentle approach for settling at bed time and just used the same techniques. He would try and resettle and only bring LO to me if he was properly hysterical or if had been more than three hours. I think this was absolutely key - if I had gone in he could smell the milk and so wouldn’t settle. After this week I could then go in and resettle without a feed. LO started nursery then at 11 months, he wouldn’t take a bottle so just had food and water there.
If you want to keep breast feeding you can, just focus on trying to increase the time between feeds and up the amount of solids. If you want to quit, I’d try to introduce a cup not a bottle - you’ll just have to wean them off it when they’re a year old.

Oh amymac5 I really feel for you as I was in the exact same place when DD2 was 10-11mo. She was waking every 45 to 90 minutes every single night and I was really not in a good place mentally.

I night weaned her cold turkey at 11 months. The first night she cried for an hour or so but I stayed and cuddled her until she finally realised she wasn’t getting any milk. The second night she slept for five hours solid for the first time ever. I could have wept with relief. It got much better after that and she dropped down to waking maybe once or twice a night but settling again quickly. She’s 3 now and still not a great sleeper, but she has been worlds better since stopping night feeds. I carried on BFing during the day FWIW. She also started eating better during the day as she was no longer getting most of her calories at the night bar!

If you are looking for a gentle sleep training method I would also recommend Lucy Wolfe as mentioned above. She talks a lot of common sense and is not as prescriptive as most of these experts. She has a book but there are also lots of videos on her Insta account.

I wish you well. I know how hard it is to take the plunge and night wean. I now have a 12mo who I need to stop feeding but he’s having a terrible time teething so it will have to wait for a bit!

If you have any questions then I will try my best to help.