I desperately need some ideas to improve DS2's sleep. He is nearly 6 mths. After some reasonable-ish newborn sleep (once 5 hrs in a chunk) up to about 12 weeks, he then dropped that for a more common 2 hrly snack feed.
I was being very relaxed about the frequent wakes/feeds - cosleeping safely, feeding whenever, assuming it would sort itself out at some point. But his wakings have increased and for the past month it has become constant feeding. Often with a poo in the night due to so much milk.
The problem for at least the past week or so is that he will only 'sleep' while feeding, and if I detach him he wakes within 10-30 mins (sometimes I get a magic 45 mins). At least twice a night he does a weird thing where he latches on and off, as if he's gone off me, but if I take the option of feeding away (e.g. cuddle or rock him) he screams. A typical night is:
8pm fed to sleep
8.45pm wake, only feeding will get him back to sleep (rocking/cuddling, someone else etc/ bottle = screaming A LOT)
Sometimes 1 hr sleep after re-settling
Then I come to bed and he feeds on and off throughout the night. I rarely check the time (as it makes me feel worse), but had to last night and I saw every hour. Any attempt to detach from me leads to broken heart screaming.
Wakes happy and lovely for the day around 7am.
Tonight we had the added bonus of a 3am massive poo.
I don't know if its connected but for the last 2 months almost all his poos have been fairly green. Some more green than others, but very very rare to have a yellow one. He also flinches and jerks a bit in his sleep as if in discomfort - could this be all the milk? But if I don't offer milk he screams.
He is of course teething, but having calpol makes no difference to the sleep, and he is very happy and lovely in the day. In the morning he usually has a long nap (in a rocking chair) of 2-3 hrs. This doesn't work at night.
So please anyone can you give me some ideas of what to do. I have some support next week from DP to regain some naps for me, and recover, but I need things to improve a bit (my very modest goal would be to get 2 hour chunks of sleep again!), as I have to manage two other DC, and back to work.
I won't do CC or CIO.
I did have No Cry Sleep Solution (for other two horrendous sleepers!), and I've been doing the pull off technique with no effect - I can get him off me using it, but he just roots around about 5-10mins later. This is obviously very annoying if I've just dropped off.
Does anyone have any creative ideas about what may be the problem, and what I could do to slightly improve things? My expectations of sleep with a baby were very low, I thought by cosleeping and going with his needs I would be able to cope, and I am doing fine with frequent feeds, but the constant feeding and on-off latching, and pooing at night is not sleep!