My 3 week old DD sleeps really well at night, but every evening it is getting harder and harder to get her to sleep. She used to be able to settle herself and went to sleep around 7pm. But she now won't go to sleep on her on and needs to be fed or rocked to sleep. When she is put down, she invariably starts cryng 20mins or so later. She roots like mad, so I feed her again for about 2 mins and she falls asleep at the breast or on my shoulder and then the process begins again! To begin with this happened twice or three times then she was out for the count: but each night it is taking more cycles of this to get her to sleep (3.5 hours last night!).
She now also only seems to nod off in the pram or car in the daytime. She is clearly not hungry and once she is asleep she sleeps for around 6 hours and after night feeds she goes back to sleep om her own, I am really concerned that this will be the next thing to go out of the window. Tonight DP has gone to give her a bottle to try and break the association with my boobs and see if she is really hungry, but we would rather not go down that route as she only takes an oz or 2 so its a bit of a faff and I would much rather she was breast fed. She does have the occaisional bottle, but I don't want it to be a regular thing- just when necessary/convenient.
So please wise owls-
How can we get her to settle/stay asleep?
How can I get her to stop snacking when tired?
Should I try a dummy? I don't really like the idea, but she hasn't suffered from nipple confusion when given the odd bottle. She has been having bottles to a varying degree since birth as shock from EMCS left me milkless for a week.