Completely lost my grip on this!

[MolliciousIntent]

How is it that even if the age gap is relatively small, you completely forget what you're doing when DC2 comes along!?

DD2 is 11 weeks old. She's an excellent sleeper through the night and for naps, she's either fed to sleep or in the sling and gets good long stretches and is generally much easier than her sister was!

The issue is that feeding her to sleep at bedtime is taking hours. She's usually awake for an hour and a bit (standard wake window for her) before bedtime, which generally starts around 8.30. But we're then upstairs in the dark for two hours while she has one breast then the other then the first again and repeat. I put her down asleep, she wakes 15 minutes later, we repeat. Eventually she goes down at around 10.30ish. I've tried keeping her up and starting bedtime at 10, but it still takes two hours.

Is it feeding to sleep that is the problem? She's barely drinking, just suckling. How does one stop feeding a newborn to sleep!? I did CC with DD1 but that was later and obviously I'm not going to do that with a tiny baby. Do I just put her down and shhhh pat and hope for the best? How do I cut the 2hr bedtime!? I kinda miss my husband, and I spent a lot of money on a sofa I barely get to sit on, because I spend all evening upstairs in the dark in bed.

I tried to follow Eat Play Sleep, but she eats every 40min and only has a wake time of about an hour so she needs a feed at either end of the wake window!

Forget wake windows, it's nonsense and so is drowsy but awake or whatever fuckery.

Small babies need to feed constantly in the evenings, it's what they do. Keep the light low in the front room and you might be able to transfer her to a Moses basket and carry her into the bedroom later on?

DS2 was a bugger for needing hours long rituals and I think he probably just wasn't tired.

Don't worry OP, you haven't forgotten anything. They are just different people with different quirks. My DCs had totally different areas of difficulty as babies (more similar now at 5 and 7yo), and what was a breeze/nightmare with one was the opposite with the other.

DD1 would have stayed attached to me all night given the chance. We persisted with a variety of dummies until she took one. Even all the trips to pop it back in were better than having her constantly latched through the night.

I honestly just fed DD to sleep on the sofa. We'd start about half 7 and she'd be fast asleep by 8. Then I held her all evening and took her upstairs with us when we went to bed. My husband had to wait on me hand and foot :)
I actually kinda miss it! (DD is only 11 months so this is relatively fresh in my mind)

I didn't try to put DS1 to bed in the evening until he was 8 months old. DS2 had a bedtime from around 3 months and DS3 it didn't work until about 6 months.

DS is five months and did exactly the same thing, it took hours. Rather than trying to change it, I decided to enjoy it as a temporary thing, gave him lots of cuddles and watched series that DH wouldn't like and ate my favourite biscuits.

Just switching mindset really helped. He's naturally grown out of it and now I put him to bed at 6.30 walk away and it's done.

When I smell the reed diffuser of that spare room we were in I feel terribly nostalgic now!

Sorry I just read your updates. My post is not helpful in the slightest...

I wish I had some advice for you. Trying to get my baby to sleep is one of the hardest things I've experienced - many a tear shed so I understand your frustration. I really hope someone comes along with something useful for you soon.

Neither of my two went to sleep before 11pm at that stage - just used to keep them downstairs and played pass the baby with DH all evening. I wouldn't be sitting in the dark for hours on end.

All 3 of my DC were like you describe OP.

The only advice I can offer is to try and make it fit in with what you want as much as possible. So if you want to be on the sofa have baby with you, send DH to bring drinks/snacks and hold baby if you need the loo. If you're knackered maybe alternate evenings - early night, sofa night.

With them being dc2 I've assumed you've learnt to feed lying down? If not it's definitely worth it, then you can doze-feed

Sleep expert GP told me going down awake is vital. If they stir and aren't where they fell asleep they wake fully and need resettling for them. Stir in the cot where they dropped off is familiar and can resettle themselves.
Never understood needing props /special rules - making life more difficult...

It's a bore but she's sucking and sucking so your boobs produce loads more milk so she can eventually take in more and grow and go longer stretches.

Can you look at it as an hard work investment now but which will eventually payoff in longer stretches between feeds in the future?

I think posters mentioning drowsy but awake and self-settling are genuinely well-meaning but as OP has identified this won’t become relevant for a little while yet as her baby is just 11 weeks old. Her sleep hasn’t started to mature into adult patterns where self-settling becomes a possibility.

One thing to try could be habit stacking - have a look at Lyndsey Hookway (m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1714003248748156&id=257182427763586). Basically you feed but begin stacking associations on top - white noise, patting in a certain rhythm, pitch blackness, a comforter (ok knotted muslin at this age), a particular song. Then you start to take her off before she unlatches herself but keep the other associations going.

The other thing you could try is unlatching and immediately pressing your thumb against her lips so the lack of pressure doesn’t jolt her awake. Then remove thumb in comically slow micro-movements whilst not daring to breathe.

Just thought I’d mention in case you’ve not come across these ideas. Sending you best wishes!

Baby is probably cluster feeding. It doesn’t last but is important for supply. You don’t need eat, play, sleep routines at this age and they are unlikely to work with a breastfed baby of that age. Once they get to around 4/5months and are down to 3 naps, a natural routine tends to form.

Keep baby downstairs with you then just cuddle/rock/feed when you go up or leave baby with DH so you can get some sleep before she needs feeding again? It’s not forever, you get the couple time back eventually!

Putting them down to self settle May work for some babies, but it isn’t a must. Babies are designed to be held and cuddled and kept close at night - it’s survival for them. Tiring for us of course but you aren’t doing anything wrong by meeting their needs and feeding them to sleep.

I had a very similar experience. For ages I would just feed until fast asleep before putting in bed, but as you say it takes hours. At some point I decided that half an hour feeding would be plenty and so after that I would take her off and put her on my shoulder and rock her to sleep. When she was sound asleep I would put her in the cot (in a love to dream bag - she fed in that) and put my hand on her chest as I put her down so she didn’t clock the transition. It saved me a lot of time! I totally empathise with what you are describing feeling alone and missing out and frustrated. It was so hard not knowing what time I would be done or able to eat dinner etc

I should add I fed to 15 months and never gave a bottle of formula so I don’t think stopping after 30 mins did anything to my supply. I probably did this about 3/4 months