My ebf 2 month wakes every 90-120 minutes at night. Not coping

[NutellaLawson]

He is 9 weeks old and I am beyond frazzled. He typically sleeps in blocks of 80-90 minutes at night, occasionally managing to stay asleep for 2 hours (or, rarely, 2.5 hours).

My HV mentioned doing a dream feed, so I (at 3 am, during the third feed of the night) I looked that up. The idea seems to be 'put baby down to sleep around 7, feed him whilst he is still asleep around 10pm. Go to bed yourself and enjoy that longer block of sleep at your own bedtime.

Righty-o, except my baby will have woken up by 8.30pm - or maybe 9.30pm at most. I can only DREAM of getting him to still be asleep at 10pm.

So I spent much of last night in tears because all the websites tell you that the dreamfeed can shift your baby's 4-6 hour block to coincide with your own later bedtime. WHAT 4-6 hour BLOCK?! I haven't seen a 4 hour block of sleep since he was two days old.

I don't even have a later bedtime than the baby. We all go to bed together, to maximise my sleep. Our routine is dinner, bath the toddler, bedtime story, put toddler in his cot, then try to get baby to sleep so we can all turn in. This usually involves pacing around the house with the baby in the ergo carrier, then waiting a bit so he's deeply asleep. Moving him to his cot (sidecar arrangement next to my bed) then try to get to sleep in the shortest possible time because I'll be woken in about 2 hours. And potentially every hour from then on in.

I can't help but feel it is something I am doing wrong, as I had the same issue with DS1 (who typically slept in a pattern of 3 hours, then 2 hours, then 1 hour, with maybe a bonus hour after that. We started to get 5 hours at the 8 month mark and proper sleeping through until morning at around 10 months).

Except DS2 is even worse than his older brother. I did at least see a 3 hour block with DS1. Not so with his baby brother.

Last night, my sleep consisted of 2 hours, then 90 minutes, then 45 minutes. The sleep debt accumulated is such that today I was unable to function when paying at the till in Boots. I wasn't able to communicate in full sentences. I'll be talking to post boxes pretty soon.

We've tried having DH give the baby a bottle of expressed milk at night, then bringing him to me at 2am. That did used to give me 4 hours of sleep but then my milk supply went through the floor. Fenugreek, and a near-constant feed-pump-rest-feed schedule has got it back up, but I'm reluctant to do anything that may jeapordise it again.

The websites on dream feeds have been spectacularly unhelpful. They've had me in tears, frankly as it seems my baby falls so far short of a normal sleep amount. Other people seem to have sleeping babies. I'm not asking for a full night. Even 5 hours seems like too much to hope for. But 3 or 4 hours might be really nice. Ditto the blogs of people who lament waking 1-2 times a night and how hard that is. Um, 1-2 wakings a night has me punching the air that I slept well last night!

So, any helpful advice (if your baby slept through from x weeks all by itself then I'd prefer not to read about it. I've read that often enough to know it exists but I don't need my nose rubbing in it any further - and do nothing doesn't seem to be working for me).

Hi Nutella,

Hugs - its bloody tough isn't it! My DD2 (4.5 months) generally still wakes every 2 - 2.5 hours at night (and DD1 is a crap sleeper too - usually at least one wake up a night thanks to bloody teeth/colds/full moons) so I sympathise.

9 weeks is still pretty tiny to be in any sort of sensible pattern however and there is all sorts going on like growth spurts, cluster feeding and so on. DD2 didn't really start going to bed at "bedtime" until she was 13/14 weeks - I would put DD1 to bed then sit with DD2 feeding and dozing on me until 10 or so. Then she would have to be jiggled until she fell asleep - sometimes I could then put her in her crib but other times she would only sleep on my chest.

She is also very windy, and up hourly on a bad night alternating between feeding and needing me to wind her for up to 30 minutes before I can persuade her back to sleep.

I wonder if there are other things disturbing him too - flailing arms/dummy (if he has one) falling out/too hot/too cold/too noisy/too quiet?

DD2's sleep has been improved by swaddling - I use a swaddle up because she didn't like having her arms across her chest and the zip means she can't get out of it! - and she also now sleeps on her side/front which has been a huge improvement in how long she naps for too.

I also play her soft music to fall asleep too and all evening - I think it helps to reassure her when she stirs and also softens background noises.

Hope things improve for you soon!

My 1 year old can still wake hourly so you have my sympathy.

We were on a 2 hourly feeding schedule (baby lead) to start with but I think he was starting to go longer at start of evening by 9 weeks.

So I'm wondering whether birth was traumatic/ hard on him? Possible head pain?

Does he have wind or silent reflux maybe?

Is he cluster feeding early evening to set him up for big stretch?

When he wakes does it seem like a hungry feed or comfort feed?

Is a dummy an option?

Can he feed lying down to minimise how much you have to wake up?

Could you stretch day time feeds to 3hrs so he learns to take more (maybe this only works with bottle feeding??)

Does he have any sign of breathing difficulties?

You may have tried all of this/thought all of this. Just thinking of all the things I've read while I've lurked on these boards over past year trying to find why my LO doesn't sleep!

This sounds totally normal to me, I'm afraid. Both mine were still waking every 2hrs at 6m, and DC2 finally dropped his 1am wake-up about 6 weeks ago (actually 5w6d to be precise...), now sleeping through till 5.15am. He's 2y3m.

What gets you through it? After a while you adapt, but 2-3m was tough because the adrenalin has worn off, then 6m was when exhaustion set in. Oddly, it really helps knowing that this really is normal. If you expect it, you plan for it - it's going to bed hoping to sleep for 4hrs that's the killer. The other thing that saved my sanity was co-sleeping. You barely wake for feeds. After a while they just latch themselves on... I found that both of mine had their longest stretch of sleep from around 9-1 or 10-2. So I went through a phase of going to bed then, early as it seemed.

You could try persevering with expressing - the more you pump, the more you increase supply, so if you pumped 2 or 3 times a day you'd up the supply and have a decent bottle. Try looking at KellyMom.com for advice there if you haven't already.

It will end sometime.

Have you considered co sleeping?

Are you getting out the house during the day, sometimes it made my baby sleep for longer stretches. Mother and baby yoga was particularly good at getting him to sleep for 3 hours.

Is the toddler in nursery, can you nap during the day occasionally?

No advice, but lots of sympathy! My DD is 4 months and still only doing 2 hours at a time. She'll randomly do 3/4 hours just once (done it about 5 times in her life), to tease me and show me she can do it
At three months I read a very helpful article saying not to worry if your baby still wakes once or twice a night. It was 3am and she'd just woken for the 5th time. I sat and cried for ages.

At the moment I'm surviving by giving her to DH at 4am-7am, feeding her before and after. It's only 3 hours so doesn't affect my supply but I sleep really deeply as I'm not listening out for her. When he's not working he'll bring her up for a feed at 7 then take her back down for another few hours. Without that I would have lost it by now!

It is shit but vvvvvv normal for little babies bf or not DS didn't sleep a whole night until he was 10 months. You learn to live with it

You have my sympathy.

My 5 month old (EBF) is a frequent feeder and I have a 4 YO I have to get up with each day. My coping strategies are:

Cosleeping - she has slept with us since birth as I can't be bothered to waste potential sleeping time trying to get her settled in her cot every few hours. Also it means now she is bigger I barely notice her feeding in the night. I feed lying down and tend to drop off to sleep once she has latched on so don't register the time / frequency too much (but I think she often feeds at 10.30pm, 1am, 3am, 6am ish - I only count the 1am and 3am as night feeds. She goes to 'bed' at 7 but sometimes needs a feed at 9pm if she can't make it to 10pm (when I go to bed). Luckily if I shove a boob in her mouth quickly she doesn't really wake fully so therefore falls back to sleep pretty easily (especially as she is usually tucked in the crook of my arm / next to me).

DH in spare room - not every night but if either of us is really tired it just helps to have the whole bed to myself / him get a decent rest.

Older sibling in nursery - she goes 2 days a week from 8am to 6pm (as she did when I was working. So those are my recovery days to snooze etc. if not in nursery could a grandparent look after your toddler regularly?

Exercise / me time - I find the baby's constant need for me quite draining so every few days I go out for a run (doesn't have to be long just time away to recharge my batteries). When you are as tired as you sound a walk / pedicure might be more achievable than exercise.

I don't know how normal it is but DD1 was the same - I think I cope with it better this time because I accept it and don't fight it - I do whatever is easiest to get the maximum sleep and keep some sanity. I will worry another day about getting her out of my bed / learning not to be fed to sleep etc!

Good luck

Bloody typical! I send out a desperate plea on mumsnet about my non - sleeping baby and that very night he sleeps a full 4 hours!! I can barely believe it.

I slept three hours myself and feel like I've had a holiday.

Of course I know this is likely sheer fluke and not the start of some new sleeping behaviour but still, even a one-off three hours does me good.

Strange as it may seem, knowing I'm not alone, not the only one finding it tough, does make me feel better. All the websites that blithely assume people are struggling on a twice-per-night waking when I could only dream of achieving that kind of rest just made me feel isolated. Knowing others had (or are having, or have come through) similar makes me feel less alone.

Some useful suggestions here, thank you. toddler goes to nursery one day a week and this has been invaluable in terms of catching up on laundry and cleaning (I know, but it needs doing) and spending time face to face with the baby (to elicit some smiles. Something we had lacked due to his not getting enough of my time). I have managed to sneak a 90 minute nap now and again on these days, when baby is snoozing in the (godsed) baby swing.

I tried nursing side lying but get paranoid about losing the baby under the duvet /smothering him. And he has difficulty staying latched like this. I have sometimes gone to sleep sitting up in bed with him on my nursing pillow when he is cluster feeding (when my milk supply dropped for example).
He is asleep now so I'd better make the most of it.

Thank you all. I'll read in more detail later today.

Yes my 11 week old does exactly this. Frankly I'm happy with a 2 hour stretch - sometimes it's hourly all night!

Nutella I could have written your first post there. DD would occasionally pull out a 3 or 3.5 hr block of sleep but usually the wakings were every 1-2 hours so I massively empathise with what you're going through- ditto the sense of failure mixed with worry and downright envy when reading the sleep websites as you describe!!

When DD turned 12 weeks I was pretty much on the floor so hired in a maternity nurse who supported me with establishing a daytime routine and then covered some nights so I could catch some rest. She suspected that DD had become a snacker on the boob and a bit of a reverse cycler to boot (more wakings at night to eat than in the day). We switched to bottle-feeding (using expressed bm) and within a few days DD was napping well and going for longer at night. She would take forever to finish a bottle though, so what with that and expressing every feed I'm afraid it became too much and we moved to ff by 14 weeks. I didn't notice much difference with ff I have to say- I think it was just maturity and time that have since led us to where we are today (a 6mo old who is about to drop the dream feed and has had a good run recently of sleeping through, bar the odd night here and there). I know you said you didn't want to hear 'my baby sleeps through' stories but I hope this one gives you a bit of hope.

I too had the 'can't get a full sentence out for love nor money' syndrome. And the heart racing thing- have you had that? It's brutal. I never thought I'd feel normal again, but I do now, and so will you x

Yep, up every 90-120 mins with 7wo last night. After a few nights of 3-4hr stretches so I'd thought it was all getting better. DS1 (also ebf) was going for 6-8 hours at this age.

I can't feed lying down and if I try co-sleeping I get pins and needles from lying rigid, too afraid to relax in case I squash him. He's in a crib next to me but last night I was too tired even to sit up to get him and dh had to at 4am.

I'm now too tired to get up and take toddler for his weekly session at the childminder's to give me a break. As baby also hasn't read the same books as me, he tends to cluster feed through the mornings (as well as evenings) so not much chance of catching up then even if I do haul myself up to take him!

And I express a bottle every few days but it often doesn't buy me much time either.

Big hugs. My daughter did this (EBF). I think it's very common, more so amongst bf babies, although I think a lot of it is down to individual babies as my FF son did it for a while too when he was about the same age. He's 4.5 months and lots better (but not sleeping through!). He's still a pretty snacky feeder during the day though.

For my daughter, nothing but time helped the situation unfortunately. They have so many growth spurts and developmental leaps in the first six months.

I'm convinced that it's mostly down to baby's personality whether they're a good sleeper or not and it's just luck. Sure there are small things you can do to help things along but generally just LUCK! If you're one of the lucky ones you're not some kind of super mum, just lucky!

What really helps me is that every now and again my Mum comes to stay over and age doesn't mind if she doesn't get a wink of sleep all night.

She takes DS in with her and just brings him in for feeds to me and I have him straight back. Whereas I feed every waking, she spends the extra time settling him back off without feeding if he wakes up less than two hours since last feed.

This is an absolute lifesaver for me.

OP just wanted to say please don't think the crap sleeping is any fault of your own or anything you have done - I firmly believe you get what you are given! And you have had bad luck with 2 non sleepers. My ds1 was an awful sleeper waking millions of times a night until I stopped bf at 1 year old. Then ds2 came along who slept 7-7 from 12 weeks old...my was I happy...but then dd came along who is now nearly 9 months and hasn't slept longer than a 3 hr stretch since 11 weeks...zzzzz
Obviously I've 'parented' them all the same so it just goes to show the luck of the draw. So you're definetly not alone

Please forgive me for potentially being patronising but I really need to ask if you drink tea or coffee?

Whilst I am "lucky" with 14wk DS, I've noticed that since I've switched to decaf tea (other than my first thing in the morning one) he has slept like a dream. I know the amount of caffeine that passes into milk is probably minimal but seems to have worked for us.

I feel your pain though. And I hope you get a good night sleep soon

No caffeine here. Even chocolate keeps me awake if I have the dark stuff too close to bedtime.

I'm resigned to the pattern (2hrs, then 90 minutes, then 45 minute blocks for the rest of the night.

I guess I just have to grit my teeth and get through it. I know it won't last forever. Lately I've had so take him at 6am and let me sleep alone for a bit. I sleep deeper without a baby to listen or for. It's only two hours but they seem to make a difference.

I just wish the websites wouldn't pretend that waking twice is as hard as it gets when experiences here show it can be a whole lot worse than that. It can be hourly stirb a four hour period of fussiness.

Nutella, how does your baby feed in the day? How long does a feed last on average? Big hugs sweetie, you are doing brilliantly x

Abfrage 13 minutes per side. He gets both most times (sometimes he nods off).

I feed anything up to 16x per 24h period. It's about every 90 minutes that he wants a feed. I guess he had got into the habit of wanting milk every hour and a half.

Abfrage = average

Another one with a non-sleeping baby here! DD is now 20 weeks but wakes through the night hourly, or if I'm lucky every two hours. She's ebf as well, so maybe that has something to do with it. We've co-slept and that has saved my sanity, especially through a difficult few weeks when she would only sleep on my chest while I slept upright in bed
You have my total sympathy. I feel totally broken and I only have one DC to deal with. I'm no longer reading books about sleep training, I'm trying to accept things as they are and I'm hoping that it will pass. Yy to feeding lying down and napping whenever you get a chance!

Hi @NutellaLawson. Just wanted to say thanks for your post all those years ago. My DS is so similar to yours both day and night and has just turned 8 weeks old (but arrived 41+1). It's been reassuring to hear that this is totally normal - but nonetheless feels rubbish and unfair!

If it weren't for coronavirus I'd be so much more tired. DH is home too so I can nap in the day if needed (DS will only nap on us so when I see 'sleep when baby sleeps' I'm like 'as if'!).

I too despair when I read things like 'baby should be sleeping longer stretches by now' because every night I hope and hope but it doesn't happen. If anything it's getting worse! One or two wakings a night would be bliss. And I'd be much nicer to DH too!

Anyway, I've stayed up to post for selfish reasons as well. May I ask - did things improve for you, and when? I'm seeking some light at the end of the tunnel! Must go now he's stirring - 55 mins 😔

And also - I feel like I don't deserve to complain/despair because it would be so much harder if DH wasn't around due to this pandemic 🥺

Quick update: he pooed all over his dad during a change and now all three of us are wide awake. Don't know whether to 😂 or 😭! Feeling more 😂😂😂 which is probably just delerium.

Hi @LondonKiwi123, my husband must have googled “baby still waking every 90 minutes” as he shared this mumsnet post with me yesterday post another night of broken sleep!

Our little boy is 12+5 and an absolute joy during the day but our nights range from difficult to shockingly bad, and they have since he arrived!

On our best night (once or twice) we’ve managed 3 hours, 2 hours, and then hourly, but more often it’s 2 shifts of 2 or 2.5 hours and then to 90 minutes or hourly. Last night he went down at 8:20 and was up at 10:30, 12, 1, 2, 3:15, 4:30, and I lost track of the last few wake ups!

My husband is generally doing the first expressed feed which tends to get me at least a chunk of 3 hours but I find unless I get 4 or 5 I’m a mess by the end of the night. I too get totally emotional when I read things like “if you’re unlucky baby will still be waking 1 or 2 times in a night!”

To be honest I don’t believe it’s terribly common to be this bad - a post like this will attract lots of other people in this situation and from real life I usually get shocked reactions when I tell them he’s up 6 or 7 times in a night. I also question constantly if I’m doing something wrong but deep down I think I do believe that this is what he needs to do to stay healthy and happy at this point - he is a hungry baby who likes to know we are close. I’m trying to tell myself this in the middle of the night - “I’m giving my baby what he needs to be happy and healthy.” It also helped me to give up the idea that this would magically get better at a certain age and just reassure myself that each day, week, month that passes is one closer to decent sleep!

I don’t have any real advice obviously but you have my sympathy and I hope you’ll update and let us know how you get on.