Mum just been diagnosed with cancer, 2 other active boys, run a stressful business and 5 month ds old wakes every hour…I can´t cope with all of this without sleep. PLease help!!!

[savebraveted]

Massively struggling at the moment. My lovely ds was a brilliant sleeper until 3.5 months. Slept all night with one wake for a feed. Since then it has gone downhill and he now wakes every hour and to feed every 2 hours. My Mum has just been diagnosed with cancer and I am her only family here so will have to completely support her, my life is already unbelievably full on with 2 other boys and I run a really busy company. My brain simply can´t cope with all of this if I don´t sleep - I need some help!!
Here is what I have done so far:

• He goes down at night awake and drifts off to sleep beautifully and stays asleep for first 4 or 5 hours, then wakes for rest of night
• I bf but have been topping up lately during the day
• Give him 200ml of formula bottle at bedtime
• He goes down awake for his naps in the day with no problems
• He is a lovely happy healthy baby so no health or weight problems
• he is our room in cot as we have no more space
• Don't´want to cosleep - did in the beginning but I sleep even worse if he is in the bed
• can´t get my husband to stay up with him as he is really stretched at work and already does as much as he can, gets up early in the morning with him etc
• Have tried to reduce length of milk feeds at night, just hold him, give him water in bottle, my husband give him water in bottle - he screams so much he can´t settle at all and wakes other boys up

He will be 5 months next week - tempted to wean but not sure if that will make any difference. Any advice????? Am also considering a maternity nurse but have no experience with them.

I'm a maternity nurse and also do sleep consultations.

I would consider weaning however at the same time I'd also do night weaning. It's great that he can self settle however it seems he isn't transitioning through sleep cycles in the later part of the night. On first waking I'd feed him maybe including a top up so you know he's really well fed and then I wouldn't feed him for at least four to six hours. He will be cross as he's used to being fed to sleep however cuddles and offers of water should help. If you're consistent then it should only take a few nights before he resettles himself. If you can you should go to bed in the early part of the night at this stage so you can get good sleep. I know this is similar to what you've done in the past how long did you try each method before? Happy to give more advice through PM if needed or specifically for your situation.

Thank you very much for your reply, it really helps. I have read that sleep cycles change from about 4 months and this seems to make sense with the way he is behaving.
I would really like to night wean but I am not great at hearing him get so upset so usually relent and just feed him. If I do just cuddle him he might go back to sleep but then just wakes again a bit later.
I think he is overfeeding at night, I can hear him gulping it down and then ends up gassy and uncomfortable around 6am.
If we insist with cuddles and water, will it be likely that he just won´t wake up for them at all after a few nights?? I know I need to persevere but its so hard in the middle of the night when you are exhausted!

It is a tricky thing to make the choice to change whats happening. I do find that doing the cuddles and water if needed should help stop the waking. You could just set core night hours for a start eg 11pm-5am and no feeding between those times. That might help him sleep better for those parts of nights.

Just a thought, may not be relevant or help, but when did you introduce the ff top up? If that was recently, could he be struggling with that, causing him to wake more due to being uncomfortable?

When I night weaned dd, at a similar age, we had 3 hellish nights then she got better. Sympathies though, your situation sounds horrible xx