Unknown

[MummyIsMagic79]

My 19 week old ds has no routine.

He refuses to nap in the day, unless in the pram or a car, and every night he cluster feeds till about 11/12pm, then drops off. I'm EBF and utterly exhausted. I have a 4 year old and a 7 year old too, and I am shattered and strung out.

DH supportive but works long hours, 6 days a week.

I go back to work in June and DS needs a routine! I work 13 hour night shifts, so am attempting to introduce bottles too.

Any ideas on forcing a routine? CC?

Thanks.

Poor you that sounds exhausting. Not sure I can help much but didn't want to read and run. I have to really do a whole calm down routine to get ds 7 mo to nap - lullabies etc and then sometimes he just screams as I cuddle him In a sleep position until I give up. I'm not a fan of routines or cc but for a while the 234 pattern worked to actually get him to nap.it basically means you encourage them to nap 2 hrs after waking, 3 hrs after waking from that nap then bedtimes 4 hrs after they wake from that nap iykwim! It means I don't have to be precious or anxious about nap lengths and until recently I was amazed how he did seem to sleep when I encouraged him at those intervals!

Another fan of the 234 routine here.
Could you try a reassurance technique for nap times and bedtime - bit kinder than CC? You tell them it's sleep time a few times as you put them in the cot, then leave the room, only returning if they get upset - to tell them again that it's sleep time. Only pick them up if they get very upset (rather than tired crying or intermittent crying), calm them down for a bit then start again. It's very early days but we're doing this with DD - she's only 11 weeks but absolutely nothing was helping her to sleep at night (didn't want to be held), except us going to bed with her and shushing her for ages (driving us all mad in the process - when I reached the point that I was practically shouting it at her in desperation I realised we needed to do something else!).
We've done 6 days and I haven't had to go back in so far tonight. Think nap times might be more challenging though...