Breastfeeding and sleep, please help :(

[CatsMcGoo]

We are at our wits end with our BF baby's sleep and would really appreciate any tips/ideas/words of wisdom that anyone can share, especially if you've been in a similar situation.

DS is 9 months and has never slept 'well'. It reached an all time low around 5 months where he absolutely would not sleep for even a few minutes in his crib, woke every 1-1.5 hours through the night and needed to be fed to sleep at most wakes. He also wouldn't nap anywhere but in a moving pushchair. I ended up bedsharing with him out of necessity, but I barely slept with him in the bed and was probably disturbing his sleep as well tbh.

At 6 months we put him in his own room and really worked on encouraging self-settling, introduced a comforter and tried to break the feed-to-sleep association. We introduced a bottle of EBM at bed time which helped I think. He still woke at 11pm and 2/3am expecting to BF, but mostly slept well in between and went straight back to sleep after feeds. It wasn't ideal sleep for me, but it felt manageable.

In the past month things have gone massively downhill again. He sleeps ok from 7-10.30/11pm, then wants a feed (actually drinks loads, so I think he still needs this one) and from then onwards he wakes every 1-2 hours and often takes up to an hour to re-settle. Sometimes once he falls back to sleep he wakes screaming 10-15 mins later, which never used to happen (previously would at least do another sleep cycle). I try to avoid feeding again overnight, but usually give in around 3am because I'm so exhausted. Sometimes even after a feed he doesn't settle, so I don't think it's hunger. I've tried bringing him into my bed again, but now it's such a novelty he just thinks it's play time and won't go back to sleep.

I've gone back to BFing for the bedtime feed, so maybe this is the problem? Did this because I want to continue some breastfeeding when I go back to work and bedtime will be one of the few I can do.

He's starting nursery next week which I'm worried will make things even worse. I've had to delay my return to work because of sleep deprivation but we had to go ahead with nursery or lose our place. Thankfully we can manage a month or two of nursery fees without me working but no more than that.

We've tried some (very) gentle sleep training but the screaming just gets too much for me. I'm considering stopping breastfeeding altogether in the hope that this will help, but I know there's every chance he still wouldn't sleep well so I'm a bit reluctant.

We just can't go on like this, the exhaustion is killing me and sucking all the enjoyment out of everything. If you can think of anything we can try I would so appreciate it.

Formula won't make them sleep

I coslept for 2.5 yrs. Got bed bumpers so I could relax knowing he couldn't fall out of bed.

@mswales you can only feel shame about your own actions, nothing in my post was shaming in any way whatsoever. Also love how you advise op you use evidence rather than ‘other peoples emotions’ when she has posted on a parenting site! Presumably she is more than capable of googling. My post was based on evidence that I gathered myself having breasted my three children for six years in total and tried sleep training. Personally I found it horrendous and very stressful and when I accepted that babies want to sleep near their parents and feed to sleep, it helped me a lot. Obviously anecdotal but that’s rather the point of these sites.

I’m going through exactly this. Currently trying my hardest to stay awake while baby uses me as a dummy, trying to time it exactly right to get them into the cot without waking! Same as you, she just wants a piss about if I try to co sleep, and it’s too uncomfortable anyway! No advice I’m afraid. I really hope our babies sleep better soon!

I'd also look at his naps and how much total sleep he'd be having if he slept reasonably from bedtime to wake up time plus the naps. If he's wanting to play in the middle of the night, it may be that you're aiming for too much sleep overall, so he just isn't tired enough. You might need to adjust the naps, bedtime or wake time. Or it may be that the last nap is too close to bedtime, and he needs a longer wake window at the end of the day.

Does he need to drop a nap?

The way I stopped cosleeping was just to commit to settling them in their own room however long it took, even though it meant feeding to sleep several times and trying to put them down and sneak away. I didn't leave them crying but I might have waited a minute or two to see if it was calming down or ramping up.

IME having a limit on times isn't confusing, but if you're trying a totally different method of settling which doesn't soothe them I've never got very far with that method. I did the time limit thing because I sort of had to train myself that I could persist and keep going it with it, or I'd just give up part way through the night. Knowing that I only had to keep trying until e.g. 2am was helpful. Then I would give in and cosleep. Moving that time later over time.

9 months is a commonly disrupted time in sleep probably to do with separation anxiety, learning to crawl etc. IME starting nursery does make the cot lava again for a couple of weeks but worth persevering anyway unless you want to delay the whole thing until nursery is more settled.

Could you disassociate the last feed with bedtime? Feed downstairs then bring upstairs and put down? How much food is he eating? You might find as he eats more he is less hungry at night, one of mine didn't really eat that much till 10-11 months and woke in the night till then. In your situation I would sleep train as you need sleep to be a happy mum and to do your job safely. It might be hard in the short-term but you can catch up with sleep once he's at nursery if you aren't going back to work straight away. I co-slept with both of mine when they were babies but once they are in their own cots they don't seem to go peacefully back into your bed when you try so I'd persevere with the cot.