5 month old baby latching on and off during the night - argh!

[Saffra]

I co-sleep with my 5 month old DD. She's never slept through the night, but I had been fine with it. However, in the last week or so things seem to have deteriorated and not sure if it's a teething thing or her gaining certain habits/sleep associations.

Where she previously had a quick BF and quickly fell asleep, this no longer seems to work. She wakes up and then latches on and comes off again, and makes noises like she's frustrated. She also seems to want the nipple constantly in her mouth. So frustrating for both of us and my sleep is getting more and more broken. As much as I love her, I don't want to sleep with her permanently attached to my nipple?

Please tell me this is just because she's teething????!

Have been following a few of the No Cry Sleep Solutions, including the Pantley Pull Off thing.... and it's not worked too well so far.

Any advice?

Anyone???!

Sorry I can't give you any advice but I do have lots of sympathy for you, my DD has phases where she does this (we also cosleep), I call them my human dummy nights, it's so frustrating (and sore with the constant on and off). Hope someone's along with some useful info for you soon.

Thanks highheels... Any reason why your DD does this, do you think?

my 7mo dd will do this, lots of reasons like teething, having a cold and wanting comfort, when she was 5mo I could get away with putting my boob in for 1min then replacing it with a dummy, she's clocked on now though crafty bugger. I do find the more I feed her back to sleep the more she wakes up. I think maybe cos shes laying on her side and feeding it causing a bit of wind as she will sometimes latch on, pull off make a few noises and come back on. I wouldnt worry about associations unless u feed her to sleep in the day?

Hmmm.... she was doing the whole latching on/off this morning for ages this morning - plus fiddling with my face(!). Driving me slightly crazy as I really wanted to sleep.

When she's coming off and on, it's like she can't reach the nipple properly. That's how it seems in my half awake state in any case. She can't actually roll yet, so it's like she flings her face back towards my nipple but can't stay on. Have wondered if boobs are less easy to latch onto as less engorged after possible all-night feasting. I have tried tilting us both towards each other with cushions, but that doesn't seem to help. I guess the other possibility is that she's not actually hungry and doesn't want the milk that comes.

Anyway, definitely seems to be teething, so I'll ride this out until things are back to normal.