18 week old awake for several hours in the night - help

[FreddieRocks]

My DS has taken to waking up at around 2am for a feed and then not going back to sleep for several hours. For about the last 10 weeks his routine has been bath between 7 and 8pm, bottle to sleep then bed. We then dream feed at our bedtime around 11pm. In the past he has just started to surface around 2-3am when I've given him another dream feed, then he started to surface around 6am when he was given another dream feed before waking for the day around 8am. I realise we were pretty lucky with this.

I feed him exclusively on expressed breast milk (he just refused to BF, despite all best efforts) so need to express after each night feed (and indeed each day feed) which takes about 45 mins and eats into valuable sleep time.

He's now started going down as normal but waking earlier and earlier for the 3am feed. He is also properly waking up and chatting to himself rather than crying, I'm not sure if this is because I'm not waking so quickly as am tired. I feed him and he starts to doze off but as soon as I put him back in his cot he's wide awake and grinning. I've tried shhh-ing and parting his stomach but he just grabs my hands and thinks it's a game so i usually give up and start expressing. He's happy just chatting to himself for a bit but then starts to want some attention, usually while I'm mid way through pumping. My DH is brilliant and will get up with him but he often has a very long commute (150 miles each way) for work so I don't want to be worrying about him being knackered as well.

I'm feeling completely exhausted as getting about 5 hours interrupted sleep a night. I know I could go to bed at the same time as DS and get a few extra hours, and do sometimes, but sometimes I want some supper and to talk to my DH! I'm also worried I'm creating a routine of waking for several hours in the night. It's really beginning to get me down and my stress induced IBS is flaring.

Does anyone have any ideas that might help? I really need to make a plan. He isn't great at napping in the day, and I'm trying to get into a routine of napping after every 2 hours of being awake, this is usually in the pram or car, or on me on the sofa, so I don't get a chance to catch up on sleep then.

Crikey, its an essay, sorry. Any help gratefully received if you've managed to get this far.

I know it's not easy but remember... This too shall pass

I've not got any advice really, but didn't want to read and run.

My LO is 24 weeks, and has recently started to self soothe. Before then, like ur LO, he would wake up in his cot as soon as he was put down. We googled 'transfering from arms to cot'. Ur not the only one to go through this and u will find some good advice and tips.

I used to go to sleep as soon as LO went down. Now that he can settle himself, I tend to stay up and spend time with DH.

Not much advice I'm afraid, but please take reassurance that it won't last forever.

Take a look at the 4 month sleep regression thread - there is a good chance this is developmental and not down to anything you are doing, especially as he is just awake and happy. There are a few of us going through the same thing, we had a 4 hour middle of the night awake time on Saturday and its tough! I think it's just a 'wait it out and it will improve' type situation.

I feel for you with the expressing, I had to do the same with my first DD and its really tough. It will get better though, I promise!