When does it get better?

[raindayrain]

I have a 6 mo DD who is currently EBF but I return to work early next year. After considering our options, I’ve decided to return with slightly reduced hours and so she’s going to nursery 3 days/week.
DD declines all bottles (can manage a dribble via a sippy cup), and still feeds to sleep. She’s on 3 naps/day (ranging from 15 minutes to 2.5 hours, often in her cot but sometimes contact naps if she’s overtired), with a bedtime of 8pm. She wakes up at least every 45 minutes until 11pm (can be soothed by feeding/shushing hand holding), then normally sleeps until 1am (goes back to sleep with a feed), but then she’s properly wide awake/cooing for two hours at around 3am. She then goes back down at 5am and will sleep until half 7. We’ve tried to manage this split night phenomenon by ensuring she’s having lots of calories during the day (she’s on the 75th centile and gaining weight), pushing her bedtime to 8pm but none of that helped. Would stopping breastfeeding help with this? Does it get better?
I can manage being chronically sleep deprived on maternity leave, but I work in a high pressure/high stakes job where I cannot make mistakes and so I am really worried how everything will go when I go back to work (with feeding to sleep/bottle refusal/sleep deprivation). Mum guilt is really kicking in and I feel so awful going back to work when she’s still so little and needs me.
Anyone got any tips please comment!

If your DD has been having these issues with waking frequently and split nights for at least a week or so, maybe she is now ready to drop to 2 naps.

You may want to look at slowly stretching out the time she is awake between naps. At some point, you will find the 3rd nap has to be v short to fit it in before bedtime and you can then drop it and switch to 2 naps (you might then need to move bedtime a bit earlier so she isn't awake too long before bedtime). Doing this and making sure your DD doesn't have excessive daytime sleep may very well improve your nights.

My DD was 7 months old when she dropped to 2 naps.

It’s because she isn’t self-settling so every time she wakes she is reliant on you getting her back to sleep.

I would look into sleep training because you’re right, this isn’t sustainable as you return to work. There must be lots of threads on here about it if you search?

When do you return to work? I would put off the worrying until about 1 month before your return, as things may change naturally anyway when you start weaning and using sippy cups.

Also going to nursery will itself move things on.

The answer to your title of when it gets better is… depends on the kid!

I’m sure you’ll get loads of tips and advice on here which are worth trying. Just if they don’t work for your kid, you aren’t doing it wrong. Not everything works for every child.

As for the work thing; you’ll get through it. Many children start sleeping better when parents back at work as they are shattered from stimulation of nursery. Some don’t.

My eldest slept through from 4 months and i thought i was a genius. Did all the same stuff with my second and none of it worked. Back to work at 9 months and he didn’t sleep through until 2 years old. It was a nightmare but with coffee i got through it and its now just a memory x

Do you think she’ll take a bottle if you were to stop breastfeeding? Would pumping (and topping up with formula at times) be an option? People always deny it’s the case but I breastfed mine and always gave one bottle of formula as their last feed to see them through the night.

The self settling bit is the hard bit to crack when she’s already in her routine and relies on you to get her to sleep. It probably will involve a bit of resistance at first but the difference will be night and day if she starts to be able to settle herself

Try the Lucy Wolf book (I can't remember the name of it) but it's a gentle method of getting them to settle to sleep x

My daughter at home had a severe bottle aversion and couldn't look at a bottle without trying to flip out of my arms but accepted 2 bottles of hideous tasting allergy formula from our nursery not a lot but enough to get through the day and had good breastfed before and after. A little while later we had to stop breastfeeding cold turkey nursery was instrumental in getting her on to bottle and formula.

The sleep well it gets easier. I have been back at work for 2 years and for most of that time my daughter hasn't slept. She's 3 and going through a bad patch at the moment and I'm lucky to get 2h chunks at the moment. I have to recognise my limits and know that some days I need to prioritise my sleep so instead of settling her in her bed I bring her into mine. My partner some times sleeps in the spare room so that it's less disruptive to her be in our room. I haven't gone down the sleep training route as my daughter has poor sleep due to health problems. We had a good run in spring and summer when she was sleeping through or at least going to 4 or 5 am but then she relapsed and has had horrendous reflux since August. It makes it hard for me to be frustrated with the lack of sleep too. My job can be high pressured too. If I have a lab day coming up which is an intense 24h slot of being completely on it I know I have to get some sleep. My partner is good and gives me a lie in at the weekends.

This ^

I've been there. It took two months for me to figure out why he was waking so often. When I finally pushed self settling at night he was sleeping through again in a week.

If you were to stop breastfeeding, it wouldn't solve the root problem of self settling. Your first step imo is breaking the feed to sleep association.

Hugs 💐 whether you break the habit yourself or if she outgrow it naturally, you will get through this.