Desperate for sleep to go back to normal after starting weaning

[beccala]

Hello,

My LO has slept through the night from 3 months - thought I had the perfect baby. Turns out I don't :-) since we started weaning 2 weeks ago she is waking often 2/3 times a night for a feed. She slept all the way through night before last, but that day I felt like I was force feeding her - trying to insist she finished both breasts at all feeds, finished majority of her lunch of sweet potato/courgette puree and dinner of baby rice and fruit puree. Is it a growth spurt or is she just a devil child?

Any suggestions welcome - considering putting her on ebay at the moment.

How old is she? I'd still be pushing milk as her main source of nutrition to be honest - there's a heck of a lot more calories in it than in purées, so if she's filling up on them she won't stay full overnight! Have solids as an experience more than anything, she doesn't need a lot at this stage.

If I was you I would count myself fortunate for the last few months of good sleep, and be patient.

How old is she? The poster above is right, there is sod all in terms of calories in vegetable purée and a bit of baby rice.

I'm afraid what may have been normal for her might be changing as she gets older. I think it's v common for babies of this age to wake a couple of times.

Good luck.

Your lucky she slept through from three months! I haven't had a good night sleep since baby born and he five months on 25th! At best he wakes 2 times in the night and he went through phase of waking five times a night. Well I discovered it was dairy intolerance. But he still wakes twice a night :-(

She's 6.5months. I know we've been really lucky up until now, I just don't understand where my perfect baby has gone. I've renamed her asbo baby.

She also screams. Really high pitched. Often while smiling and interspersed with oohs. I've googled enough on this to know its normal, but can't find anything to find out how to make her stop. Without sleep my patience with this is very thin.

I am going to be a nasty mummy tonight and not feed her or resort to co sleeping. DH is going to go in instead armed with water and a dummy. I will be wearing ear plugs. Dreading it.

Any other suggestions (not cc - really want to avoid this if poss) how to reform her before I start looking for the receipt? Am I doing something wrong with weaning? Is there some magic sleep food?

Baccala - I am having exactly the same experience! Ds has slept through from 7pm - 8.30am since 3 months. However, since introducing formula and the odd bit of baby rice and formula (instead of exclusively bf) he now wakes between 5-6am. Haven't dropped any milk feeds at all. Thinking maybe it's not food related and it's actually teeth??

The screaming is just a phase - if she's doing it while happy then it's most likely just to be that she's discovered this fabulous noise and wants to keep doing it - she'll move onto something else soon it's so annoying though!!

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought I had read somewhere that it was ok to train them out of night feeds from 12 mths on. Your dd is very little still. TBH in my experience I don't know any 6 mth olds that reliably slept through the night.

Is she teething too?

My son has just started sleeping through quite reliably. He is 2.5 yrs. at 6 mths he was still having two feeds between 7pm and 7am.

Good luck. X

I guess the thrust of my post is that you seem to have very high expectations. I know your only joking when you say she's an asbo baby or a devil baby but it does come across like you think she is being really difficult.

Whereas I think waking a couple of times for a feed at this age is totally normal, even on the good side!

Mamabear - I think its a combination of luck and routine to be honest, and putting her in her own room. The very night we put her in her roomat night she slept right through. Maybe my snoring woke her up when she was in with me!

Yummy - wow 7:30 to 8:30?! We normally get 7pm to 7am but thats with a 10pm feed. Haven't been brave enough to ever drop the 10pm feed. I also wondered if it was teeth. Or a growth spurt. Or that I'd inadvertently dropped a milk feed somewhere ( I haven't). Or that the solids hurt her digestion. Or that she just hates food and is punishing me for giving it to her.

Rockchick - yes I know its a phase but how much longer do I have to put up with it? Its been going on for over a month now and it does my head in. Today, I have been shoving a dummy in when she screams. Aaaaarrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!

So, good news: last night she slept through from 11:30 to 6:30 which isn't as good as before, but its amazing compared to what we've had. Typical that dh was going to get up for once and she doesn't wake up but there you go. Back to me getting up if she wakes up tonight so no doubt it will be hell (not so positive thinking!!)

Thanks for all your responses, if anyone else is going/gone through this let me know! I thought weaning was supposed to help sleep....

OP - the reason you aren't getting much sympathy is because of the way you are speaking about your DD. You've clearly been patting yourself on the back at your fabulous parenting which had, until last month, been going hand in hand with a calm and sleeping baby.

Babies grow, and change, and their needs alter. At approaching 7 months she wants to be engaged in the world around her, her brain is absorbing all kinds of things and her body is changing as it gets used to processing solid foods. The screaming is just her finding her voice - using her dummy as a method of shutting her up when she is in a perfectly good mood is unnecessary, and you'll probably find something somewhere that tells you it will inhibit her language development.

Expecting things to be how they have always been is a surefire way to feeling miserable in terms of parenting. You have to adapt and alter your methods and thinking as your children grow and change.

FWIW, neither of my DCs slept through until they were almost 2. They are also 'perfect'.

You sound very immature. No-one can tell you how long this will last, your child is not 'punishing you' (horrible that you've even thought that tbh). Yuck.

Alibaba - I'm sorry you felt the need to make an attack on my character. I don't mind admitting you've genuinely upset me and i'm shaking as I write this. I'm sure you'll agree that sleep deprivation is not known for enhancing ones ability to dismiss confrontations. Perhaps what I call humour you call immaturity. To be honest, it's posts like yours that have always made me hesitant to post messages on here. I think my thin skin means I should go back to being a mumsnet voyeur.

Personally, I would never want to upset a complete stranger who had done nothing to me, I wonder why you would want to do that.

My dd has been waking every 1 1/2 - 3 hours in the night since she was 11 weeks old. She's. now 15 weeks and I am sleep deprived. You've been bloody lucky so far as she's never slept thru and the longest I had before this nightmare time was 6 hours from her bedtime which took me til 1 in the morning. I agree with alibaba that shoving a dummy in is prob not the best thing to do. I think at 6.5 months then milk should be her main food still so up the milk feeds and cut the purees down a bit.

I have to say I tonight very similar to Ali.

It is perfectly normal for babies to wake during the night, it's not nice for parents but it's part of parenting.

I feel a bit for OP here! It seems like we are not allowed to question changes in our baby's behaviour without being told how we can't complain as its worse for others. It's all relative. My ds slept from 7-8.30 am and it has suddenly changed. So I need to work out what has happened/what I can do for him. He shares a room with dd (3) and wakes her up and then she struggles to get back to sleep and is then tired the next day so it's in everyone's interests to help him get back into his sleeping pattern. I understand that OP was being facetious, not mean about her baby.

yummy - of course we can questions our babies changes in behaviour, and no-one is saying that the ok can't complain.

I have responded to hundreds of posts on here from women desperate to get their babies to sleep better - and written several myself.

People have tried to be supportive, tell the OP that her expectations are unrealistic so that she doesn't have that 'everyone else's child but mine sleeps' feeling, which so many of us have had.
I see no humour in her posts, just a genuine 'FFS when is she going to shut up'.

beccala I haven't attacked your character, I called you immature - which is purely my opinion based on what you've posted here. I think you have to realise that you've had a pretty good run with sleep so far, but these things don't remain the same necessarily. My DS1 'slept through' 10.30-7am for a whole blissful 5 weeks, from 11 weeks old. He was 22 months before he slept through the night again. I wasn't doing anything wrong, he wasn't 'a devil baby' that needed putting on ebay. He was just a baby.

I say this with genuine kindness, you have to learn to take the rough with the smooth with parenting, otherwise you are going to make yourself so unhappy. Your DH sounds supportive, which is great, and I'm sure that between you you will get through it.

And I absolutely agree with QuietNinja - until they are one milk should be the main source of nutrition. Purees have very little in the way of calories, so she is very likely waking for hunger.
If she is over 26 weeks, then she can eat all kinds of things. Maybe you should give her a plate of dinner chopped up into finger pieces and see how she gets on with it?