I think I've ballsed it up!

[CluelessNewbie1]

I'm a first time mum and have a horrible feeling that I have been doing completely the wrong thing and have created a non-sleeping devil child. I have always breast fed on demand DD is 4 1/2 months. At night when she wakes I've always offered her food and then put her down and she went back to sleep almost immediately. Sometimes she ate a lot some times she'd just fall asleep on me and I'd wake her and put her back down.

I thought this was fine, she woke twice a night. Happy days.

BUT for the last two weeks she has been waking two hourly to half hourly. I don't think she's always hungry but has just got into a habit of waking. I'm so bloody tired. Following advice I have offered her a dummy (she screamed the house down), formula, letting her cry for a few minutes, cuddling her and putting her down. Nothing seems to work.

Please help!

Oh no. I'm beyond help aren't I?

Don't worry you haven't messed it up, there is a thing called 4 month sleep regression that happens very often. Often it's to do with some developmental leap they are going through so you might have a few weeks of bad sleep then your baby will come out the other side with some amazing new skill. Keep reassuring her you are there and feeding if she needs it and eventually she will feel confident enough to sleep for longer stretches. I found the Wonder Weeks chart (you dont have to buy the book, you can google the chart) really helped to recognise times when my baby was going through some new development leap and was therefore a bit more challenging.

Does she really cry every time he wakes, or just make noises? It's taken me a while to learn the difference between my 17 week old's mooching noises (after which he will settle eventually but without crying) and genuine, wants to get up and be fed whimpers.

Ah Smorgs thank you. So this is normal? It's probably the sleep deprivation that is making me desperate and panicky. Any idea how long I can expect to get bugger all sleep it will last?

I feel a bit silly really everyone knows that when you have a baby you will have sleepless nights it's just that it is so hard especially when in the morning DD is bright as a button.

Hi Lorelei well I realised that sometimes she was just stirring and I'd been effectively waking her up. So now I am waiting to determine if it is a cry or not. She sleeps in our room which I don't think helps as every time I hear any noise from Her I am immediately awake anticipating her waking up. She won't take a bottle (I've tried 8 different types) so I'm not able to ask someone to give me a night off.

I was doing (still am) same as you - bf on demand and feeding back to sleep. We started having 45 min wake ups!

To cope I converted cotbed into side sleeper to save my sanity. Also am sort of doing Pantley method of removing baby from boob before completely asleep. During day made sure he was napping plenty (sling or pram).

We are seeing some progress. Now can do 2-3 hr stretches. Sometimes he'll feed and then roll about for a few minutes then go to sleep. He'll go to sleep in pram without tears (which we usually had before). And sometimes he'll wake and put himself back to sleep - so I'd agree with other posters - give it a few minutes to see if its just groans or proper 'I need you' noises.

I've also concluded my wee guy is hungry - he's a bit of a distracted feeder during the day. We've started weaning (at 5 months - against all the advice I know).

So I'd tough it out/ do what you can to cope and know it will get better!

Thanks Emma I really thought I was on my own. One of my friends complained that her daughter woke at 7 and never had a lie in. Her dd sleeps 7-7 I struggled to find any sympathy for her.

I think what got me worried was reading some info on-line which said at dd's age she should only wake for feeding once.