9 month old bedtime breastfeeding comfort feeding all night co sleeping mom just wants an hour to myself help !!!

[TerryRose]

9 month old
DD. We cosleep as found it easier as she wakes so much since birth , she’s never slept more than 2 hours and I have to feed to sleep .
This means I have had to go to bed with her at bedtime since birth . I assumed as time went on that she would be able to be put down to bed and I would get an hour or two to myself but no .
She feeds for about 40 mins on and off and then she will sleep for about an hour and then it’s waking up for short (5 or 10 minute ) feeds continuously during the night every 1 hour to 2 hours .
She is teething but it’s been this way from the start. I have tried rocking her to sleep and tried bottles of formula and expressed milk but she won’t take a bottle . She eats 3 meals a day.
It’s definitely comfort feeding which I don’t mind as in it helps with her teething and I don’t want her in pain .

But I would love to be able to put her down to sleep at her bedtime and get an hour or two on the couch and time to myself . I can cope with the night feeds but I am tired of having to go to bed at 7 especially coming into the Summer .

People kept telling me it was a phase and she would settle to sleep herself etc etc but I feel like I’ve really messed up .

Nobody 😭😭😭

Ah, sounds like you're doing an amazing job of looking after your little one. But it can be hard when you don't get a break.

Have you tried gently lifting her into a cot once you've fed her to sleep so that you can then go downstairs and relax? If you had a baby monitor next to the cot then you could go back up when she wakes in about an hour and soothe her or give her another quick feed to get her back to sleep? And then you could go back downstairs again.

You need a strategy.

Maybe start with the 7pm bedtime routine. Does she have her own room? With a cot for safe sleeping?

Get that 7pm bedtime routine secured. You may need to do sleep training.

After you have the bedtime sorted, you can turn your attention to other bits in the night. Or the sleep training might work so well that she sleeps through.

Also, are you alone in this or is there anyone else? I find that dd gets exhilarated around me at bedtime, so dh is the one to put her in the cot. We also use loud white noise.

The blog and podcast I find useful is ‘Precious Little Sleep’. Good luck!

www.preciouslittlesleep.com/6-9-month-baby-sleep-guide/

Listen to duBief - she is good.

Hello! I'm not in exactly the same boat now, as youngest now 1.5, but still bed-share at night and I'll feed if he wants so we can all get the most sleep we can. Which is typically very regularly but short episodes! I'd put our baby in the cot once asleep and he'd wake up after a couple of hours, likely less, but a cuddle (from me and me alone) usually settled him quickly and then back in the cot. It might have been more frequent, him waking up, as remember having the travel cot in the living room in the evenings for a while (we watched tellie and the sound didn't seem to bother him if normal stuff) and other times choosing to stay in the bedroom watching loads of shows on Prime etc (nice in a way, but different when it's not what you'd be doing if the baby slept well..). Also, you may or may not already do this, and may or may not want to, but we use dummies for sleep with him. Never even considered it with my first, but my youngest from early months would fall asleep or stop crying sucking my little finger when nothing else worked. I try take the dummy out when he's asleep, then when he wakes/stirs a dummy would often resettle him surprisingly quickly. Also swap the nipple for a dummy when I think he's fed enough at bedtime and it's purely comfort sucking, to cut the time down. We also have our good friend Ewan Deluxe helping with the shh to resettle which helps half the time. It may just happen that your baby changes pattern, but with it being habit etc, it might need dad/someone else to go to her. My husband stepped in with my older boy for a few nights to break the mum/milk/comfort association - tears but comforted, and not a crazy amount - and a few days later he was sleeping through pretty much (at 13 months or so). This reply is probably unhelpful, but you're not alone and certainly haven't messed up in my view, loving mama! I feel the same some days, whether about the dummy use, still bedsharing. .. so the above isn't necessarily good advice/ideas for you! Well, waffled on enough, sending big hugs.. and hope your little girl starts sleeping longer independently soon to give you some time to yourself in the evening :)

Hi @TerryRose if you see this I’m wondering what happened and how things changed… same boat for me right now.