11 and a half month old...

[ebmummy]

...is driving me crazy!! (long, apologies in advance!

Sleep has always been a issue for us-he's never really slept properly, either during the day or night. For the first 6 months, he's wake up on average every 45mins-1 hour at night which was sheer hell, but it slowly got better after (waking on average once a night). I can count on both hands the number of times he's actually slept through. For the past 1 and a half months, he's completely regressed back, waking almost every hourly and crying. He's had a routine from 2 months-3 naps during the day (now dropped to 2), bath at 6pm and bed at 6.30. He sleeps by himself-I don't need to do anything to get him off, but it's the constant waking that's getting on my tits annoying. When he wakes I do give him milk-either a quick bf or ebm from bottle. I don't know whether he's hungry/teething (I have given him calpol at night for the past 3 nights which's made no difference). His weight is on the 91st centile, as his height. Our daily routine looks like this:

6.30am: Wake and bf
7pm: Breakfast ('Plum' porridge and banana, with some bread if he wants it)
9am: Bf and nap (30mins-45 mins)
9.45-10am: Bf and play
10.30-11am: Snack (yoghurt pot/half avocado/breadsticks/fruit)
1pm: Lunch (stew/fish)
1.30pm: Bf and nap
2.30pm:Bf and play
3.30-4pm: Snack (breadstick/fruit)
5.30pm: Dinner
6pm: Bath
6.30pm: Bottle (ebm-usually takes 150mls)
9pm-6.30 am: numerous wakings several times a night where I may bf/offer bottle of ebm/offer water.

I know on the face of it, it appears he bfs a lot, but he literally spends 2 mins latched on before he pops off and wants to play. But I don't know what to do-I just don't want to overfeed him with food during the day as I am conscious he is a big baby and don't want him to spend the whole day eating (my parents/brothers are all obese and though I'm a size 10, am constantly battling weight gain). Should I try offering him more food? Someone please help-am soooooo tired!!!!!!!!!!

My initial thought was to stop offering anything at night. At 11.5 mths he is old enough to last the 12 hrs of 'sleep' without any food/drink.
Those with better ideas will be along soon! Good luck!

Thanks star, I think I will religiously have to stick to not giving him milk until 6.30am when he has his bf. I know it probably encourages him to wake cos he's a proper greedy-guts, but I always worry that he may be waking cos he is hungry..

Was thinking of taking him along to the GP but I don't know if there's much that they can do?

My DD is almost 11 months and is the same. She wakes every 60 to 90 minutes through the night. A quick BF sends her back to sleep. Any other way of attempting to comfort her results in an hour long rage before she wears herself out. I work full time in a full-on job so take the easy way out and feed her every time. I was kind of hoping she'd just grow out of it but that was obviously wishful thinking! I too am now at breaking point. Dd laughed in the face of The No Cry Sleep Solution. Going to try gradual retreat at half-term and see if that works. There's a thread about it I posted on an hour ago so have a look for it, it might be helpful.

You have my every sympathy, best of luck with whatever you decide try.

Thanks OPeaches. I have to be honest, and say I left him to CIO yesterday morning at 4am, but he was still going strong 30mins later, and then my DH said I had to go and comfort him (DS cries more when DH goes in) cos it was cruel (which naturally made me feel shit cos it was like I was being a bad mum). It's just that I'm literally at the end of my tether-almost a year of crap sleep and it just seems to be getting worse!

Will read your thread x

DD is the same age. I am here because we have problems with dd settling, but we stopped breast feeding in the night about a month ago. I had had enough, she was waking every 2 hours and I was exhausted. We started on a Friday night and decided that after her 7pm breastfeed, DP would do the nights. She woke at 10pm and it was horrific, Dp went in and she cried and cried. He held her the whole time though as there was no way she would settle with out a jiggle, esp as she used to a breastfeed. He was probably in there for a full hour with her, but holding her the whole time, but she did cry a lot and vomitted on his shoulder a little. It was horrid to hear but i kept reasoning that he was with her, she wasn't alone, he was holding her. She got the message pretty quickly. He took care of the nights for the fri/sat and sun but then was back at work so i had to go in and it was fine, i just had to be strong and not feed her, becuase to be honest, it is easier for me to feed her than not as she does drift off sooner. But her night time wakes changed massively, from waking every 2 hours to waking only once or twice a night. Now, things have gone a bit backwards, and she is struggling with sleep a lot, but i think it might be due to our freezing house or maybe teething, so i am spending a bit of time with her in the night, but she hasn't tried to feed from me once. I know excatly what you mean saying that she doesn't settle with DP, but cries more, but i think maybe just decide that it is time that he learns to settle with DP, and as long as DP is kind and gentle when he goes in in the night then you know even if DS is crying he is ok... as i say, things far from perfect her, that's why i lurking on the sleep threads, but we have cracked the nigt feeding!

multicolouredcat, thanks. I guess I have to bite the bullet and try it. For the past few nights, I have tried him on just water everytime he wakes (approx every 1.5 hours) but tbh, it was worse. So I'm going to go back to feeding him milk tonight, but will try and get DH to do what you guys did. I was so tired today that I was literally DREADING spending the day with my gorgeous little boy. Isn't that terrible? :( Of course it doesn't help that DH is being a royal shit meanie at the moment.

ebmummy you need to give your DH a kick up the arse! To crack this you need to work AS A TEAM and just because you are bf it doesn't mean he cannot help. And as multicolour say, he can actually help a lot. But he'll need to be committed.

I remember reading on here somewhere about the week rule - be consistent for 7 days before giving up. Night three will be the hardest, but hopefully on night four you will start to see progress.

My DS is a bit younger than your DS, but I only had success night weaning once I stopped bf. It happened very naturally for us, but if/when he wakes he will have water and then VERY occassionlly, some milk.

My DH was instrumental in helping it work though. DS learnt very quickly that he could/can have a cuddle and some water if he's thirsty, but milk isn't readily available!

LittleMilla, in fairness to DH, I think it's actually my fault that he's helping less and less at night. Cos DS's always been a bad sleeper, I've always offered to go cos DH 'doesn't know how to do it' which's meant that DH naturally has become more and more lazier reluctant. Just curious, have you stopped bfing altogether? There's a big part of me that just wants to jack it in now we're almost up to a year but another part of me doesn't have the heart to..

ebmummy, don't have any advice for you, but literally, word for word, we are in the same boat. Apart from the night feeds, we have identical children. How are we not coping? The latest 'reason' for the latest string of shite nights is he's teething. Either first molars or the canines are coming through, we can see all of them, anybody's guess which ones will emerge first. He already has 8 teeth.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I was having a extremely bed moment last week when I posted about it on here. Lots of people had very supportive words, and they helped.

Misery is numbers?

Big hug to you.

'in' numbers I meant...

(((hugs))) sounds like you are having a tough time & have gotten some great advice from pp's on dealing with the feeding to sleep. This should really really help the NW's.

I just wanted add one other thing based on the routine you posted. I notice his afternoon nap is only 1hr & is actually quite late given he's only napping 30-45mins at 9am in the morning. I'm wondering if he might also be a wee bit overtired with that - so it could be worth doing this nap a wee bit earlier say 12.30/1pm & see if his nap lengthens at all.

I also think he may be 'snacking' on BF during the day & so if you cut back some of the BFs in the day (maybe cut out 1 at a time) then he might actually drink a bit more at each feed IYSWIM? I would probably aim for something more like this at his age:

6.30 WU & BF
9am - nap
10am WU & BF/ OR give a small snack here
12pm Lunch
12.30/1-2/2.30ish nap
2.30ish BF &/OR small snack
4.30/5 Dinner - do dinner a wee bit earlier & he will have a bit more time to digest dinner before having his BT feed
6.30 Bottle (he should drink a wee bit more here b/c dinner was earlier)

As he heads to 1yr you should be able to drop the mid-morning feed & possibly the mid-afternoon feed so he is just having 1 in the morning & 1 at BT.

Hopefully restructuring his DT feeds will also help with the nights b/c you will know he's had a full feed before BT, which will give you the confidence that he's not waking through hunger during the night.

HTH.x

Thanks omama. I thought that I should give him as much milk as possible till he's 1 (though I know he's almost there). How often should a 1 year-old bf anyway?

boredbuthappy thanks :). Yes, it really helps knowing someone else is in the same boat (obviously not cos I enjoy you being miserable too, but cos it shows as annoying as it may be, that the little monkeys darlings are normal). I don't know whether DS's teething-he only has 2 teeth which only erupted last week! Calpol does crap all though so stopped giving it.

Dreading nights :(

WRT feeds, yes milk is the most important source of nutrition until age 1. But then large volumes of milk should be discouraged as solids are more important for his nutrition. So whilst you want him to carry on BFing, you don't want it to become at the expense of his solids IYSWIM? Does he eat his solids well?

Regardless, my suggestion isn't necessarily to reduce the amount of milk he consumes, but more to condense it into a smaller number of feeds, so he should therefore take more at each feed. For e.g if you consider a formula fed baby 11month old who eats 3oz 6 times during the day, you could condense that into 3 feeds of 6oz so the overall intake is the same IYSWIM? I know its harder to gauge with BF though b/c you can't see how much they're getting.

WRT how often he should BF at 1yr old, this will of course vary child to child, but I would say 2-3times/day should really be adequate, provided he is getting a full feed each time. The guidelines for both BF & FF infants/toddlers are from 1yr minimum of 12oz, maximum of 20oz & that includes dairy in food eg yoghurt, cheese etc.

HTH.x

ebmummy I have now stopped bf. It was quite emotional actually, but now we're on the other side I feel much happier about it. He was just becoming impossible to feed whilst out as he'd get so distracted. So I started to give him a bottle when out. Then that moved to only bottles in the day and a bf in the morning and evening. And then over the weeks, I dropped the morning bf and finally he didn't want me in the evening . But it was inenvitable. He had started to bite me a lot - but that was a combination of teething and my milk starting to dry up I think...so that helped me feel less sad.

Bottles are certainly good for DH being able to help out. ALthough I am on my own mon-thurs so DS still settles better for me. But DH can do it IYSWIM.

Even before I stopped bf though I had moved to every four hours for feeds so that I could have some structure re:solids. Before solids I wasn't very routine-led, but I found I needed to organise myself then so that he'd be hungry enough for food and vice versa.

I'd second the nap thing. DS has two or three naps a day - resulting in about 2.5 hours in total? I read on here about the 234 rule. First nap after he's been up for two hours. Second after three and then bed after four. Works well for us and my DS has been a real sod about sleep in his time! It also means that you can kick it off when they wake up (DS varied between 6-7) and aren't fixed to set nap 'times', which used to drive me nuts.

Good luck! x

Thanks ladies for the advice. LittleMilla, it's good to hear that whilst it's sad giving up the bfing, you actually feel better on the other side of it. I have a mixture of emotions about it, but it's nice to hear something positive about weaning from the breast too, not just the usual guilt trips!

Omama, my problem is that DS never takes a 'full-feed' since he started solids. Even if he goes for 5-6 hours without a bf (say on days that we are out and about), he still only latches on for 1 min tops. I think I'm just not producing enough milk, which's why I'm offering it to him more regularly. I'm also on weightwatchers at the moment, which though catered for bfing mums, is having an effect on my supply I think. So on one hand I'm feeling guilty cos me losing weight is affecting DS's nutrition, but on the other am so miserable carrying round this extra weight :(

Plus the sleepless nights :(

Sorry about the whinge. Just at a bit of a quandry...

ebmummy I felt quite a lot of pressure from other ppl to stop feeding my little man before I was ready. When we started to stop I was beginning to be ready and once my supply started to dwindle and we was becoming less interested, I was certainly ready.

Do it slowly (if you're ready ) and you will be fine. I'd say it took me about 6 weeks from deciding "OK, enough is enough".

Re: weight, I have managed to pretty much lose my last half a stone or so since stopping bf. I have been pretty fortunate re: weight. But you'll continue to hang on to the extra weight until you stop as your body will want to make sure your DS is OK.

Hope you don't think I am trying to infuence youe decision! Just letting you know my experience.

Good luck, xx

I am only giving dd two breast feeds now, once when she wakes and once before bedtime. she won't take a bottle so I just make sure that she has plenty of yoghurt, cheese in the day and lots of full fat milk in her meals and also she is starting to take cows milk in a doidy cup which is good. I started stopping breast feeds about a month ago, but before then i had gone down to a wake up feed, a mid morning feed, a mid arvo feed and then a night feed, and so i have replaced the mid morning and the mid arvo feed with a yoghurt/ cheese sandwich/fruit and cup of milk etc etc and she has been fine with this. I dropped the mid morning feed first, then the week after the mid arvo feed and have kept it like that for a bit. I want to finish breast feeding completely by the time she is 1 more or less, so over the next couple of weeks dropping the morning feed and replacing with a beaker of hot milk, plus extra breakfast and then i'll battle with dropping the bedtime feed which will be the hardest. after the first few weeks i did settle into a routing with dd and so stopped feeding on demand then, it sounds like you are still feeding on demand a little? I do think it is a lot of feeds to be honest. And i really would just stop the night feeds. if dh is being an arse then i think you could try and do it on your own - but you will have to be VERY strong wiilled, as so much easier to not be there and then ds gets the message that there is no milk. I think at this age they don't need milk in the night. I was the same by the way, up until a couple of monhts ago, thinking that dp couldn't settle dd and so i alwyas went in, if he went in she seemed to cry more etc etc, and i felt guilty, but i think you just need to relaise that it is too much to do on your own, and so get DH involved...he will actually feel better for it, dp likes the fact that he can now settle dd, often much quicker than me and is pretty smug about it and it is great for me as now i feel much more supported.

bloody hard work isn't it. I'm battling with dd waking at 3am and wanting to play and not go back to sleep at the moment - if it is not one thing then it is another hey! really difficult. keep us posted on how you get on. [hugs]

Thanks multicolourcat, good advice! Will try and reduce bfs, as has been suggested and see what happens. DH has been a lot more supportive this weekend, so hope that continues..

Really hope the sleep situation gets better soon, though I have surpassed my own expectations, and gone for almost a year with less than 5 hours sleep a day on average. The last time I had a lie-in was xmas day 2010 lol. xx

Hi eb think we have both moved over to the other gradual retreat thread in attempt to get LOs to sleep better, we can continue chatting there whilst we see how this process goes!!