sending in the troops

[pinkr]

dd is ebf and has picked up the habit of waking every two hours and no matter how much I try she'll need a bit of boob to go back over. normally she'll doze and not really feed. She's now on solids etc and eight months. I'm exhausted and have picked up a nasty bug.
last night dh went in to her once or twice and she WENT BACK TO SLEEP! ! I always do nights as she won't take a bottle etc.
has anyone had any experience of improving sleep by night weaning or not going in etc? I'm wondering whether a few nights of him going in will break the habit.
I don't want to do this unless it's likely to work as dh works very long hours etc

I've heard this works, so if yourDH is willing to do it for a couple of nights I'd say it's well worth trying. Can't say with certainty as (alas) my DP is too much of a pushover and DS gets an easier ride with him.

I think the key thing is sending your DH in. If you go in and don't offer the boob you are teasing her. 'I want the boob. I can smell you and your milk. Why the hell are you not giving me the boob?!' Which will upset her, wake her up more and so will need latched on to calm and get back to sleep!

It works for us*, if DS (8m) wakes and DP is here (again works long hours, shift work) he can usually get DS back to sleep by bouncing
him. But because he's not always here at the same time we haven't tried to structure it iykwim.

Other times DP just can't get him back to sleep, in which case I figure he must be hungry and actually need a feed as opposed to just wanting the boob.

Sometimes I offer water when I pick him up which calms the crying. DS also wakes up and cries til I lift him. I then try to bounce him back to sleep and only offer the boob if he's not sleeping after half an hour.

I think it doesn't hurt to try it! It won't click immediately but if after a couple of weeks you don't have any improvement you haven't really lost much. At least you might have got a bit of sleep for a fortnight

I feel for DP when he's working a long shift and has been up with DS but I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to ask of him. He's his son too and I've been on call 24/7 for over 8months...

Also after the latest teething episode our wakenings were -

Bed at 7pm
Awake 9ish
Awake 11ish
Awake 2am
Awake 4am
Awake 6am and trying to get up for the day.

Since DH settling and me not offering boob straight away were down to 4am and 7am feeds. Sometimes wakes at 11pm but will go back to sleep with bouncing.

I don't know if this would have happened naturally or if we encouraged it but it's a big improvement for a boy who doesn't do 'sleep'

(Sometimes I can get him back to sleep at 7am and get a lie in!yay!)