Hello. I have a happy, active 7 month old and we've moved back from SE Asia. During that time I had no routine (and never read any books either) so just went with the flow and let my daughter lead the way. I am breastfeeding and she was a snacky eater, so we kind of got into a 'breastfeeding to sleep' type of thing.
But I'm concerned she doesn't sleep enough. She hardly naps in the day -- and if she does it's rarely for longer than 20 minutes. I try everything in my power to get her to have a morning nap and an afternoon nap and I've started a bath, massage, bed thing at night.
She will tend to sleep from 9-4.30 but then comes in our bed and generally feeds on and off and thrashes about.
She never self-settles, only nods off when I feed her. Now I've done 7 months I've fed her pretty much every two hours in the day and it's draining me. I also can get nothing done. I cried today as I'd got a tiny bit of wall to paint and I'd managed to get her to nap but she started crying after 10 minutes.
I'm in tears on and off about it because I know I need to help her learn to sleep but can't stomach the crying it out. I tried crying it out today and it felt wrong. But everyone tells me I need to let her cry. Maybe I do?
In the end I walked her down the road in a wrap and after 40 mins she was asleep, but that only lasted half an hour.
I hate this feeling. I was such a confident mother in the earlier months, I don't mind night feeds and was content to go with the flow. But SURELY she needs more sleep? This is really getting me down and making me think I should stop breastfeeding her (which I don't want to do) because at least others can feed her and it would break the reliance on my tits.
She rubs her eyes and gets cranky sometimes, but IS, on the whole, a very happy velcro-ish baby.
I'm sorry it's so long and waffly. I just feel so despondent, lacking in confidence, and feeling like everyone else's baby sleeps loads and takes nice long spaced out breastfeeds every 4 hours.
I just want to be a good mum to her.