6 month old sleep deprived help

[starsdelight]

I have a 6 nearly 7 month old and I'm struggling at the minute mentally and physically. I'm exhausted! I don't think I've got more than 3 hours of sleep a night since she's been born and I need some help/tips on how to get her to sleep better. She's breastfeeding and started weaning a few weeks ago, she co-sleeps safely with me. But she wakes up at least 4/6 times a night minimum, I don't think it's because she's necessarily hungry because she latches on an then settles back to sleep. But then it takes me forever to get back to sleep and by the time I have she wakes up again I love having her in bed with me but I'm not sure how much longer I can function without a proper night sleep. I'm a single parent and also have a 3-year-old so I'm doing it all on my own all day everyday. Feel horrible because I wake up drained and don't have the energy to be the best parent I can be to him either. Every time I try to put her in her cot she screams and screams and I feel awful. Probably my fault as I've always just let her nap on me while feeding. Maybe I need to teach her how to self soothe? I don't know all I know is I'm desperate for some help on how to make things slightly easier? Any help would be glady received.

Anyone?

If she feeds to sleep, she'll need to feed to sleep every time.

To be honest with you, i don't think there's really any way you can break the habit while she's in the bed with you. We did it with DD at this age but she was in a cot in her own room, and there was crying.

I think really it's about what you're willing to live with.

@Ohalrightthen Thankyou for taking the time to reply. Do you think if I tried to get her used to the cot she'd sleep better? Maybe if I'm not beside her I won't disturb her and she'll be more settled? I coslept with my eldest and when he was about 7 months I moved him into his cot and own room and that worked wonders but he was formula fed and also had a dummy as another way of comfort. I just know what I'm doing now is not working 😩

If she's breastfed, in all likelihood she'll wake for a feed til you night wean. We did that at 10m, because i couldn't cope anymore with 4 wakes a night.

I have a 6 month old who is mostly fed to sleep and we often Co sleep.
For the last month or so I have started giving her a cuddle when she wakes up before offering her a feed. It's probably 50:50 at the moment whether she wants a cuddle vs a feed but we are working towards breaking to connection between feed and sleep. During naps if she starts to stir I tried to get her back to sleep without additional feeding and we are making progress with that.
She has allergies that we haven't quite cracked yet so some days I know there is not chance of getting her to sleep in her crib over night but days when she is more settled I try to return her to the crib as much as possible. In the short term it probably increases the number of wake ups I have but I hope it will pay off in the longer term. Our routine is feed and get her to sleep and often I fall asleep too then when I wake up about the 20 minutes later I put her back into the crib. Before the latest period of unsettledness we had got to the point where she spent most of the night in her crib.
Do you know what upsets her about being in the crib?

@Superscientist I could always try and cuddle her and see if that works rather then going straight to latching her on but she definitely does comfort feed as a way to get back to sleep, because as soon as she latches on most of the time she drifts back off after a minute but not always but like you said it's trying to break that connection of her thinking she needs that to go back to sleep. Other than when I'm out and she's in the pushchair that's the only time she falls asleep really without being fed to sleep. Any time I've ever tried to put her in cot within minutes she just cries so much even if I'm in the room and just put her in it to get something done so she isn't crawling around everywhere. She works her self up and gets so upset so quickly only time she's ever really slept in it is if I've fed her to sleep and tried to wait until she's fast on properly and then try and put her in it without waking her up but it only ever last half-hour max before she wakes up. It's like she knows. She won't even take a dummy or anything as a form of comfort.

After 4m sleep regression our situation was dire, 8-10 wakings every night and only boob would settle DC.

At 7.5m we tried all sorts. Hired a sleep consultant and even their advice didn’t change the amount of night wakings.

The only change was night weaning, sometimes he’s in his cot sometimes he’s in with me. I choose now depending on how much room I want and whether I fancy a cuddle. We’ve had 2 nights with no wake ups (were 2 weeks in) and the other 5 nights of the last week he’s only woke up once to twice for a cuddle.

I will add, DC is well into food and has 3 meals and two snacks a day. Would probably have more if I’d offer it, I’d be hesitant before he was eating lots.