HELP!! im so exausted any advice welcome!!

[loganberry12]

My daughter is 1 year old next week but still is waking all night. I can usually get her to bed by 10.30pm but she will wake every 3 hours or so for a breast feed, untill we get up. She is having plenty to eat during the day and has about 7 breast feeds in 24 hours so i know shes not hungry.
Last night was even worse she wouldnt go to sleep till 1am then woke every hour till 8 am then we fell asleep till 11.30 am, which means a late start to the day.
Ive tried giving her water instead when she wakes but it just makes her wide awake. Please dont suggest i leave her to cry herself to sleep because i cant do that, she is in our room and there is no where else i can put her. My husband has to get up for work and i have a 15 year old who has to get up for school.
I am so tired and exaused im at the end of my teather and beginging to feel tearful and depressed.
I dont even get time to do house work or have a bath in peace.

Please any suggestions welcome

Hi I feel your pain - my 20 mth still gets up in the night at least once - not always cos he is hungry though. Tried it all apart from the screaming it out method...I have tried controlled crying, sitting on the floor in his room edging towards door, feeding etc etc. However, getting up every 3 hrs sounds horrendous and having to feed 7 x a day sounds really exhuasting and way too much for a one yr old. Contraversial but have you tried formula or expressed milk - maybe she associates comfort with the boob....sounds like she has difficulty staying asleep in her light sleep cycle and uses the breast as comfort. try using a bottle instead (at night) and then try and slowly cut down on how many ounces you give her each time she wakes? I am not an expert - if I was I wouldn't be getting up to a nearly 2 yr old every night! but just a suggeston! Good luck!!

My dd2 is older than yours (21 months) but we have been going through the same thing.

Up to recently she was breastfeeding several times a day and regularly through the night and I was really fed up.

I didn't find an answer to the night feeds but I stopped feeding her during the day a couple of weeks ago. I just decided that once we were up in the morning that was it and when she asked I just told her no mimis which is what she says for milk.

She was very upset the first few times and then just accepted it. I am still feeding her to sleep at bed time and if she wakes in the night. The funny thing is I find she is waking less at night and is feeding properly rather than all the messing around, biting and pinching she was doing before and then settling down quickly again.

Maybe this would work for you - a feed on waking and at bedtime but nothing in the day- then she might feed properly once or twice in the night and settle again.

In a couple of weeks I am going to try saying no to the night feeds as I feel a bit more confident that the days are going well.

Hope this was some help to you.

What time do you start putting her to bed, logan? 10.30pm is very late for that age group, does she have a late nap or is it just a really long, drawn out bedtime?

I usually start about 8 pm with her bath and cuddle a breast feed but it takes her till 10.30pm to go to sleep, she also bites & pinches too a lot when feeding. I feed her to sleep unfortunately because she wont go to sleep any other way. She just keeps standing up shaking the cot pulling at her mobile or throwing things out her cot and then crying and shouting. Good ideas Suiledonne i think ill try that, not feeding her during the day it may work, fingers crossed. :)

Two and a half hours is an awfully long time to be spending on putting her to bed each night, I'm not surprised you feel a bit fed up! I think the advice here is probably worth trying as it would make sense to me that she is actually not hungry for the feeds in the evening and at night so is just faffing about.

Other than that could you try starting bedtime a little earlier? Maybe she is overtired by the time you are starting bedtime and IME the more tired they are the harder it is to get them to sleep. My DS2 is only 6mo but the pinching and pulling you describe are sure signs that he is overtired. Sometimes when he is like this actually feeding him, then putting him in his cot and holding his hand or just leaving a hand on him means he drops off sooner than he would at the breast.

I tried not breast feeding her yesterday during the day and giving her a bottle before bed she drunk 9 onches, and starting her bedtime earlier, disaster though, she finally went to sleep at 1.45am and was awake again by 7.30am, so back to the drawing board :(

Just a suggestion if you're really at your wits end...

When my DS was 6 months old and still waking every two hours throughout the night, I phoned Millpond sleep clinic and had a couple of half hour phone consultations. They were brilliant and sorted out his sleep (no immediate quick fix, it took a few weeks, but saw great progress before that.). They were amazing though, and worth £125 even though it sounds a lot. However, I was ok with letting him cry a bit (not full out leaving him though). If you don't want to do that it may be worth saying that first to make sure they can still help you out with other methods. I'm sure they could.

agree with tortoise on bedtime maybe being too late - for all my 3dc 7pm was the magic bedtime... any later than that and bedtime would be a disaster. i would try edging bed/bathtime back 15 mins each evening until you have a 7pm start and see if that helps at all

what worked for us is for dp to do the nights. He would go in give cuddles, water and stroke and stay with her til she went back to sleep. I was feeding 3 times a night sometimes for 2 hours a time but after a week of this, she would only wake up every 3 nights or so and usually would go straight back to sleep. Now she lets me rock and stroke her back to sleep without demanding a feed but tbh is still much quicker with dp.
I am still feeding her to sleep at night and for naps when i am not at work. She is now 19 months and has been night weaned since May.

the problem is she is just not tired till about 10.30pm even though she quite often only has 40minutes nap during the day, she doesnt seem to need much sleep.

i'm not trying to be difficult/annoying, honestly!, but my kids all seem perfectly awake and alert right up until bedtime, and as i said, if we miss the 7pm, they will happily carry on til 11pm... so i really think its worth a try...

I think whatever you try you have to give that idea at least a week to see how it works. NOTHING will work in just one day.

I feel you though, my DS did this, woke around 7-8 times a night and was ready to go at 6am! It was hell.

I would do the following-

BF- one first thing in the morning, one mid day and one just before bed. Get this established for a week then impliment the following

Bedtime. After dinner at 5-5:30pm, quiet play time, stories, TV if you allow it, but only for a short 15 minute age appropriate burst. ITNG saved us. Up to a bath at just before 7, then into bedroom, lots of kisses and cuddles, stories, dim lights night time BF.
Then pop off the breast, if asleep, gently rouse. If not, cuddle, kisses, little night time song- same one every night. Into cot. Lay down, rub tummy. Sit on bed. When/if your baby starts to cry, say calmly "its OK, its bedtime, shhhh, I will rub your tummy" Rub tummy, for a minute, and repeat. This time move slightly out the room. Basically each time you want to move farther and farther out of the room with each tummy rub and lay down. Be calm and be firm. Try it for a week.

It is a variation of gradual retreat.

I did CC initially to get my DS to sleep better, and it worked. But it was hard and I NEVER thought I would do that. I guess there just comes a time...

However it unravelled a but for us and we went with Gradual Retreat instead. The Millpond Sleep Clinic Book and website was really helpful I found.

While you are going through this, can I suggest ear plugs for your DH and 15 year old?

what do i do when she wakes again after a couple of hours of getting her to sleep at 7pm she will want to get up? do i breat feed again or water not sure

Is she mobile? I would also suggest trying to tire her out during the day. Lots of fresh air, playing etc.

What is her daytime nap routine? What is the latest time you allow her to nap? What time do you usually get up?

not suprised you are exhausted!!
I didn't bf for as long as you, but thatsnotmymonkeys advice sounds great.
She needs to disassociate sleep with milk and needs to be taught to go to sleep by herself.
Easier said than done, I am off to google Millpond sleep clinic!!!

I found that having the bath as part of the bedtime routine could sometimes have the opposite effect as to what was intended, ie, it made mine more awake not less.

when she wakes at night, it is your call, I would not feed, and just rub her tummy and retreat gradually. It will take a few nights, but I would give it a go. You know yourself that she is getting enough food and drink in the day not to warrant night feeds, so yeah cold turkey it out!

well she's asleep so just waiting for her to wake up now then see how we get on with no feed just a reassuring pat, lol

don't let her sleep in the day time. feed her at bed time. put her in another room ( living room, hall, whatever) and let her cry. she will get tired

We had the same problem. It took only one night of refusing to feed her during the night and she got it. Every now and then we have lapses, but it was definitely worth it. DH still held her and cuddled her but no milk, she shouldn't need it at this age. BTW if your husband can do it, that would be much better for all of you, as she won't smell the milk. And make sure he has staying power, it might take a couple of nights.

Loganberry how did the going to bed go then? what time, I don't want to jinx things, but is it going OK? Did she go down OK?

she woke up after an hour i breast fed her because she didnt have much first time round, she slept for another hour then i tried and tried for about an hour to pat her cuddle her everything to get her back to sleep but she was having none of it, she finally went back to sleep at about 1am. She woke again about 7.30am had a feed, we both feel back to sleep in my bed. She is still sleeping now im going to wake her when ive had my cup of tea. Its not going well really....

Loganberry - is your husband supporting you with this?

If you have a mum or friend who can take over for a couple of nights - they can go to her when she wakes, try and settle her then only wake you if she really needs feeding. I know it's hard to ask people to do this for you but you need some sleep. You need a pair of earplugs if you're going to.

there isnt anyone else really my mum is too old and so is my mother-in-law, we had her late im 44. My husband doesnt believe in letting her cry though and keeps picking her up, which is ok if he's going to get her to sleep but he hands her to me again after 5 minutes

I think she needs gently persuading into a better (for you) sleep routine. If she sleeping from 7.30am till 10.30am (has she woken yet?) and napping later in the day too then she is not also going to sleep for a decent stretch at night.

I would start the day at 7am, which I realise is hard if you've had no sleep, and try and keep her awake until at least 11am. I would let her nap for max 2hrs and then play, play, play all afternoon. I would try and feed her to sleep at 7pm and then see if she sleeps better. If she is still asleep, I would maybe consider a dream feed before you go to bed.