I give up, I'm on my knees here

[boilanegg]

I am fucking knackered.

I need help to get my 7 month old DD to sleep at night.

She's BF and BLW and goes to bed at 6.30pm, wakes and wants fed at 10pm, then again at 1am, and every 2-3 hours thereafter until getting up around 6.30am. She has always refused bottles but I am considering trying again (with formula which is a mark of my desperation because I didn't slog it out getting to this stage BFing only to have the faff of formula anyway :(). For the last 3 weeks when she wakes for a feed that's her wide awake and it takes an hour or so of rocking and patting to persuade her back to sleep. She can't self settle despite putting her down sleepy-but-awake for the last 4 months. She just tries to drag herself around the cot, gets her arms stuck and wails.

I really don't want to do CC - she refluxes when she cries hard, I'm too tired to have any steel about me and I don't really agree with it anyway. But I'm also too tired to know where to start. Back to work in a month and soooo tired :(

Any help, ideas, suggestions, offers of babysitting gladly received.

I also have a sleepless older child and a shift-working DP, haven't slept for 4 years now and clueless about where to start.

I know it's long but on the newborn sleep nightmare thread people have been to sleep consultants and posted the advice. Things like reducing the time you feed by a minute each night. A few people are night weaning next week (or trying to) so post on there if you want some support too. My DS is nearly seven months and is still waking every 2 hours to feed so don't feel I can offer advice. Lots of sympathy though.

Thank you :)

I know persuading a 7 month old to sleep seems like the difficult place to start but DS's sleep is bad due to a health problem which he's awaiting surgery for. And I'll admit I am scared of DD becoming as bad a sleeper as DS, who didn't night wean until he was over 2 years old :(

This won't be a popular suggestion but I'd consider giving a mush meal rather than a BLW meal for her dinner. Probably not all of her wakings are hunger related, but some may be. A filling meal e.g. protein, carbs etc might help. I know the popular view is that weaning does not help with sleep but I know people it has helped who were in a very similar situation. And yes the plural of anecdote is not evidence but in your situation it is a worth a try. You can still BLW for breakfast and lunch so your DC will receive all the benefits. FWIW I do mainly finger foods in the day and the a hearty spoon fed meal for dinner and we are down to 1 night waking for 3 (8 months EBF). The only 100% is that it won't your do your DC any harm at all as long as the meal is something appropriate for her age.

Thanks. She's also a spoon-refuser but maybe i ought to persevere. All the solids she does ingest seems to result in wind and an upset tummy so i don't hold out huge amounts of hope but hey, I'll try almost anything.

Almost anything?

How about co-sleeping? You might be able to BF laying down, and you might find she wakes less anyway or at least settles quicker.

It is also worth asking about her daytime routine, for some babies the more sleep they get in the day the better they sleep at night. How are the naps?

Hmm, mine is just 8 months and also wakes every 2 to 3 hours, but I only wake for about 2 minutes a time as she latches on, so I still get loads of sleep (unless she is teething or ill, and makes more fuss in the night)

Hi Join, and thanks.

We co-sleep some of the night but also have a pre-schooler in the bed some of the night which means space is tight. I agree that frequent feeding isn't necessarily a big thing - until now it has been something I've been coping with - but now once awake she'll frequently be awake for ages and ages, so perhaps it's not hunger. Her naps are better than they were - 40 minutes up to the odd 2 hour one, 2 or 3 times a day.

Tried her with sweet potato mash for dinner which resulted in lots of spoon wrestling and minimal ingestion. Ho hum.

I think you need to cut out all wind inducing food, especially at tea time. Try and get a good balance of meals too - little bit of protein and a good amount of carbs. Do you give her dairy? I'd stop that too as can cause wind. Look out for tomatoes, leeks, green veg etc too for causing wind.

I speak from bitter experience. DS was a terrible sleeper for the first six months. I remember he slept for more than three hours in a row twice in that time.

Then one night he flipped onto his front (I put him on his side from 3 months) and he slept from 7pm until 3am that was the start of improved sleep. Teething and developmental leaps set us back at 9 months (2 hourly hell). Then at 12 months he slept through for the first time from bedtime until morning. Didn't last although now at 18 months I can't remember the last time he woke (which means he will tonight!)

We had massive trouble with wind - he'd wake up wanting a feed, especially in the early hours. I'd feed and he'd parp or burp. So I had to be careful with his diet. He has reflux which, I think, makes him more sensitive to certain foods.

If you want spoon fed try it with 3 spoons (2 for her to hold and 1 for you) keep rotating.