feeding to sleep - how can I break this habit?

[Cha]

Sorry this is so long - but please, please, can someone help me? I am dying from lack of sleep and my two kids are suffering as a result. My ds is 3 months old, a healthy 15lbs (6kg ish) and breastfed on demand.

I am going spare because he will not, cannot go to sleep without being fed. The only other way he will drop off is in the buggy, which is not practical in the middle of the night!
I already have a 2yr old dd who has recently decided that she does not want her pm nap anymore - this means I cannot sleep in the day as I used to, to catch up. Ds has almost always woken 2-3 times a night and will go back to sleep on the breast, usually after a feed of about 5-10 minutes. The second / third waking he is less hungry and goes to sleep even quicker. This made me think he does not need to feed so often in the night and I have been trying to 'drop' the 2pm feed for the last couple of weeks or so and only feed at 4/5pm.

The rationale behind this is that the reason he wakes 3 hours after his last feed is because he 'expects' the 2pm one and can't got to sleep without it. That's what the books, health visitor, friends say. Everything I read just tells you to 'drop' this feed - as if it is something you just do and the baby is quite happy with it. Ds SCREAMS the house down. Literally. Dp wakes up, Dd wakes up, the neighbours wake up. I try patting his back - he shrieks even louder, I walk him around, he stops crying but remains wide awake, I have even resorted (in sleep deprived desperation) to leaving him in a moses basket in the living room to scream his head off - which he does endlessly.

I will be eternally grateful if anyone has any ideas how to break this feeding to sleep thing. I read that you should 'rouse' your baby if he falls asleep feeding before you put him down. Ds is either impossible to rouse (like a sack of potatoes) or wakes up completely and will not go back to sleep again without feeding (and lots of irritable screaming because he is overtired).

The problem I have is that I think that he is too young to be left to cry himself to sleep. He will do it, eventually, but I feel so guilty and to be honest, i don't think he has 'learnt' anything by it - the next time I leave him to cry, the time is not reduced, he still seems to go on and on and meanwhile, I am wide awake and fretting that I am doing the wrong thing, so I don't get any sleep either. I keep thinking 'how does he know it's 2pm and therefore not ok to feed?' Three times he has woken later (at 4 or 5) and I have fed him then, but how is he to know this? For him it must be that sometimes he wakes up and gets fed, other times he isn't allowed and gets really upset.

We do have a sort of routine, not on the GF level as I have another child who has nursery etc to go to, and he sleeps once in the am (about 1-2 hours) and once in the pm (about 2 hours). These two naps are initiated either by the buggy (walking the dog in the morning) or by feeding to sleep. He goes to bed at about 7-8pm and I 'wake' him for a feed when I go to bed.
Please help someone!!!!!!

Snap, Dinosaur. When mine woke during the night I used to bring them in for a feed and we'd all go back to sleep together. Seemed to help them with working out how to go to sleep, and if they did wake up again all they had to do was snuffle around a bit and the milk was there for them, so they didn't get hysterical.
They're now 3 and 1 and both sleep like logs.

Cha, sorry, it sounds exhausting. I agree with you though that 3mths is probably too young for sleep-training. But it is also true that he sounds like he needs the second feed as a sleep cue to go to sleep, not so much that he is hungry. If you see a graph of their sleeping cycles, they definitely go into a light sleep at regular intervals. Unfortunately, the only way to break the habit is to put something else in its place ie consistency. If you are determined to drop that 2am feed, you must just not feed then. Have you tried giving him EBM instead - gradually watering it down until you have just water? Once you have actually dropped the feeding, you could try then getting him off to sleep by shushing, etc. I would also not wake him at 10pm, because I think if they don't want it, they don't want it! But this is against popular wisdom.

Admittedly, I sleeptrained DS at 6.5mths (just cut out the feeds and did CC), and only cut out feeds before naps and bedtime at about 20mths! So I am not a good judge of what to do at 3mths.

I agree with not waking at 10pm for feed. Even though I followed GF from the beginning my ds never wanted this feed and it made no difference to his night wakings if I gave it to him or not. You don't say whether your baby sucks his thumb or has a dummy. If no dummy than it might be worth a try. If no thumb yet then maybe it will develop soon. My ds started sucking his thumb at about 4 mths and could then get himself to sleep at night. Compared to my ds a 5 or 10minute feed doesn't seem very long - I guess that is not both boobs. Can you try feeding him for longer the first time he wakes up in the night even if it means rousing him to go onto the second. I always made sure to do that and ds only ever woke the once and then it just got later and later till he slept through. I support the taking to bed option as one way to get back to sleep, but still made sure I gave both boobs and then when he rolled off I quickly picked him up and popped him back in bed and he never stirred. Now my ds will drink in bed with me but won't go to sleep there (prefers to play with my nose) as he can't roll onto his tummy, which has turned out to be his favourite position. I know some people who swear that when they were at wits end they started putting the baby to sleep on his tummy and the problem was solved - I know that this isn't currently recommended due to cot death etc, but once your baby can roll over on his own it is OK for them to sleep on their tummy.

I hope none of this feels too much like trying to teach grandma to suck eggs.

Good Luck

Cha
I'm really sorry that you are having such a hard time at the minute, and it must be so draining when you have two to look after.
I started a thread in the Sleep Section, called "Baby Whisperer" after having had success with getting DS to learn to sleep independent of any props (in his case, rocking in sleep in pram/car in day, and getting cuddled/fed back to sleep during the night). If you like the sound of the Pick Up/Put Down method we followed, I would really recommend the Baby Whisperer book and website. I think it is a really gentle approach to sleep training, but it does take a few days of consistently applying it.

Are you so tired because you can't get back to sleep after the feeds? I actually think two wakings a night for five or ten mins is brilliant (sorry to sound unsympathetic, I am but my ds used to wake five or more times and STAY awake)
If he was in bed with you and you could go back to sleep when he did you might not feel so shattered. I would also drop the 10pm feed if you have to wake him for it. It never helped me either. At least that way a couple of nights a week you can go to bed at 8pm and get a solid six hours before his first waking, which should leave you feeling refreshed in the morning. Good luck.

Thanks for your support and advice. With my first we all co slept for about 4 months (until she started moving around too much and waking me up). I am a very, very light sleeper and an on and off chronic insomniac so yes, it is as much my problem as it is his. I find it hard to share a bed with anyone really as even dp's gentle snoring can keep me awake for hours! So this time round I persisted with putting him in the cot / basket once he had fallen asleep as I sleep better without him in the bed.
I did sleep training with dd from 6 months onwards but she never really slept through until 11 months. It is the thought of this repeating itself which drives me to distraction. Somehow I thought that with my second baby I would know what to do and it would all miraculously slip into place and my dream baby would sleep through much quicker. But it seems like whatever mistakes I made with her, I am doing again.
As to the thumb - he is desperate to find his thumbs, bless him, and sucks earnestly on his fists, especially when he cries. Dd found her thumb at about 3 months and we had about 3 weeks of better sleep until she got a cold and the stuffy nose meant she couldn't suck and breathe. She never sucked it again, worse luck, despite me trying for weeks to get her to again! As to the dummy option - I tried it a few weeks ago and bought one again today. He chews on it quite interestedly but doesn't suck it. I had to hold it in his mouth the whole time. The same is true of bottles, though I think I have to persist with this. it is just so much harder to express with a babe on the other boob and a 2 year old running amok in the house!
Tonight I will try the 2 boobs at 2 option and not feed him now (10.40) as I normally would. We'll see how that goes. Tomorrow I will go to the sleep whisperer website and check out the thread here - too tired now! Here's hoping for a lovely night's sleep....

Message withdrawn

Cha love, I've just posted a not dissimilar question on dropping the 10.30 feed. I really don't want to reintroduce the dummy after getting her off it. It's all pants, isn't it. If you want my copy of Ferber do email me. Hugs from me.

You can 'train' a baby to suck a dummy sometimes by putting it in his mouth and then gently pulling it halfway out - the baby will suck to pull it back into his mouth. Repeat! If you have chronically sucky baby (like mine) this may help. No promises!

don't know how i missed this thread!!!
we had a simlar problem...not that he went to sleep just that he screamed and screamed when the bottle was finished. not hungry
so we had the dummy ready and soon as milk was gone, we swapped the bottle teat for the dummy...he is now 16 months and does it himself now!!!

Well, tried the 2 boobs a 2 option and missing the 'wake up' feed at 10.30. Little blighter woke at 11.30,2 and 5, despite being given both boobs on every occaison. He now has the most disgusting cold so is drowning in snot all the time. Because of this, I am being nice to him. He is also sleeping a lot more in the day (feeling poorly?) which means he now is not going to bed until we do. Oh joys.
Cheers for the tips about the dummy, will try it, though given what motherinferior says, maybe I won't . Will try with the water in the bottle thing too - I KNOW he'll LOVE that one.

Posted this on another thread but just to say I am trying something that I have 'invented' - sure it is out there somewhere else though.

What I have started to do is when it is time for him to sleep and I know he is fed, tired, dry and comfy, I lie down next to him on our bed. He immediately starts to scream at me. I just stay still beside him, stroking his hair, patting his back and talking soothingly. I don't pick him up or feed him. When I can hear he is getting fed up with crying and is starting to slow down, I give a pull on my Ikea lullaby rabbit thingy (it plays that classical tune that you hear on all Walt Disney films when someone is going to sleep / been knocked out) and pat in time with the beat. This seems to be working a treat. I am hoping that he will eventually learn to associate the sound with falling asleep and one day (can't help but dream) when he wakes up in the night, a pull on the rabbit and maybe the odd pat will send him back to sleep. Have only been doing this for a couple of days, nap times and bedtime. Haven't dared try it yet for the nightime wakes... Anyway, will keep you all posted.