yet another 'help he doesn't sleep', but getting desperate

[kayjayel]

I desperately need some help/advice/general sympathy about my lack of sleep. DS is 15 weeks and has never slept more than 4 hours. He's only slept that long on 3 occasions, and for the past month he's only gone for 2-3 hours at a time at night.

He usually goes to sleep between 10.30 and 12 pm, and will wake at about 1-2pm, then around 4, then again around 6.30am. I usually bf him when he wakes (more like dreamfeeds, as he usually doesn't wake properly). I'm not sure he needs all those feeds as he goes often about 4 hours between feeds in the day. And a couple of times he's not fed at the middle waking (though he's still woken up).

So far the only advice I've had has been to put him into a routine, use sleep training, try formula feeds or wean him. I'm quite determined that I don't want to leave him to cry (at least not until he's older), and I feel he's too young for sleep training, cos his needs for sleep and food will change daily at the moment. And he's too little for weaning and I got desperate enough to try formula (had no effect), but generally I want him to stay exclusively breastfed. I also feel worried about having 'nights off' which dp is good about, but I don't want my milk supply to drop off.

The length of time he sleeps is the same (i.e. short) if he sleeps in a cot, pushchair, co-sleeps. Its really getting me down, as I keep having to pull myself together to cope, and it gets harder as now I can't envisage it getting better, especially as at 11 weeks he was going 3-4 hours, and now we're back at newborn stage. The varying advice from HV has made me feel that I was doing something wrong (feeding him too often, feeding him too little, criticised for both waking him up and not waking him up for a nightfeed!).

Any advice? Or it would be helpful just to hear that some babies are just short sleepers, so I didn't feel like it was my fault. Sorry for the huge message!

Hi kayjayel. Sympathies from here too. It is absolutely not your fault!

We had almost exactly the same thing. From about 13 weeks ds woke at least three times in the night and every time I breastfed him and he went to sleep. Even at the time it was some comfort that he did always go straight back to sleep.

At its worst he was waking every two hours during the night. That went on for about a month and was hideous.

I even spoke to a sleep consultant, but I couldn't really put her plan into practice because it didn't feel right. She suggested reducing the time of the night feeds and then not feeding at all when I went in at night, but just comforting him. I tried to reduce the length of breastfeeds but ds went bananas.

Like you I wasn't prepared to do sleep training or to refuse to feed him when I went in at night.

Then about four weeks ago (when he was 24 weeks) he suddenly dropped a night feed and then a week or so after that he started to sleep through from 6.30 pm until 6 am. He sometimes wakes at about 4 am and cries but never for more than about a minute or two and never in a desperate way.

The only things we did differently were that we put him into his own room at 5 months and we started solids at 22 weeks. Both a bit earlier than I would have done without the sleep problem. I was also very careful to put him down in his cot awake when possible.

But I never left him to cry and never refused to feed him when I went in to him.

I think that the real difference was that he stopped growing so fast and reached a different stage of development.

So, you are not doing anything wrong. I also got all the advice and one evening started to give him a bottle of formula because I was so upset with it all. But that wasn't the right thing for us (sounds like not for you either) and certainly didn't so any good.

It is so hard when you are going through it (and it is all sufficiently close for me that I wake up every morning and can't believe he hasn't woken in the night) and so difficult to be objective. But when you think about it, you know that some babies are just bad sleepers and that it will pass and that if there was some magic answer your HV would be a millionaire by now, not slumming it in the NHS.

Whew, sorry - long post. As you can tell it is a subject close to my heart!

Lack of sleep is bad enough, please don't also let it make you feel bad. You sound to me like a fantastic mum who is building close, loving and trusting bonds with your ds.

absolute sympathy Kayjayel can only say they change and it will get better, worse, better...He is totally normal you are following your instincts they know best...and...make sure you grab every possible moment of sleep you can, try not to do too much when he's sleeping...leave that washing up till dp can do it and go to sleep..good luck

Thank you so much! Its so helpful to be told that its normal, that there is hope, and not to feel I've somehow caused this! Also to be reassured that I'm making the right decision not to train my baby, or to teach him that I'm not always going to be there when he needs me (it feels like he can learn that later).

DP and I have just put a plan together which is a coping plan, rather than trying to change our baby we're going to try to change the way we deal with it. We'll accept he wakes me, but if I'm tired ds will come in the bed where I get less disturbed, and I'm going to have 1 proper night off a week to recuperate. I think I'll take on your suggestions to get more help from family/friends - we're lucky in having lots of helpful people who will take him for a few hours.

Thanks again, especially for the hope from your story, deepandcrisp!
x

Sounds like my baby too! He's 24 weeks tomorrow and although last night we were only up 3 times, I've already been called upon once tonight so it's not looking good! Our plan (FWIW!) is to continue without training (apart from keeping the good bedtime routine going, and trying to establish a not too strict one for the day) until he's on 3 good meals a day - we start solids in a fortnight - and then DH will go to him at the 3/4pm wake ups, so we can try and cut out that feed. And then work down from there! Until then, I just nap when I can and rely on people taking him out for a walk for an hour or so, so that I can sleep in peace. DH also takes him first thing in the morning. If it wasn't for that, I think I'd be a raving loony by now. Good luck and you have my every sympathy!