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).

So nice (or is it?) to see there is more of us! I have a 5.5mo that also wakes up every 2 hours (since birth). He is otherwise perfect and used to nap better day-time (outside in the pram but stationary/unsupervised). Now he just naps for 45 mins during the day and can get pretty grumpy too.

I know it will pass and as I am on mat leave it does not get too bad but once I go back to work I am dreading the consequences of his night wake-ups.

He's EBF too and we are just starting on some easy baby food (veggies, rice, things like that). He is keen to eat but makes zero difference to his sleeping pattern (sorry if someone was hoping weaning makes it better - not for us).

Hi @coconutlatte44 and @ZooKeeper19, thanks so much for your responses ☺️

No change to report here but it's nice (ditto above zookeeper!) to see that I'm not alone.

In all honesty, when people made jokes about sleep deprivation after I told them I was pregnant, I had no idea what they meant. I loosely understood the concept that I'd have interrupted sleep (or did I? Can't truly remember) and that I'd generally be tired. But I thought this would just be due to the (blurry!) fact I'd have a baby to look after.

I think what hasn't helped is that I'm quite an analytical person and like to understand how to optimise variables to influence an outcome. This way of approaching life has gotten me where I am professionally (but not without stress and anxiety from overthinking, I must admit). My sister kindly said I'm "academic and a problem solver", whereas my husband called it for what I am - a control freak.

Well, I've discovered I definitely can't control my DS. Even though I'm coming to accept this, it still feels rubbish when he wakes up yet again at I-only-fed-you-30mins-ago-o'clock and my hopes that the little thing I did differently that day would give me a longer stretch of sleep are dashed!

Nope, there's rarely (lasting) cause and effect when it comes to babies, at least for mine. He's more like his dad 😂

I did try for a few days to resettle when he stirs/wakes, rather than feed. I figured that if he really was hungry then it'd be clear after a minutes of soothing. It worked brilliantly the first night, even though it meant I was actually up much more than usual, but has lost effectiveness since. And I felt guilty about not feeding him, even if the HV said it was ok.

One blessing is that he does nap well in the day - albeit only on us. So I don't think he's overtired too often, if anything he might be sleeping too much during the day! We could no longer put him down for naps since about 4 weeks ago so we've just gone with the held naps so he gets enough sleep.

@coconutlatte44, I know what you mean about the crucial 4-hr sleep minimum. Are you able to express another bottle? DH and I have done shifts from the beginning, which we've been able to sustain due to CV. I'll take over whenever DS needs his first feed after 3:30am. This sometimes means I get around 5 uninterrupted hours! Never seem to manage to get to bed before 10:30pm unfortunately. Other nights if he only wants the boob I'll get 2 hours. I do think this means my supply hasn't been optimal though, and the engorged boobs I used to get by the start of my shift don't happen anymore :( It sounds like you're in a healthy headspace when it comes to your DS's night sleep. I only hope I'll get there soon too

@zookeeper19 I don't know how ppl do this without mat leave! Hope your LO is enjoying his new food and that it gets better for you soon :) I'm looking forward to starting mine on solids because I love to cook, something I've largely left to DH since DS arrived.

Would love to hear how you both (and others if you're in the same boat!) are doing too

Hi @LondonKiwi123, I’m doing ok today. Last night my little boy slept a remarkable 3.75 hours in one stretch and then 3 in the next. This is the best night’s sleep he has had since birth. However since it was such an unusual night it totally threw my husband and I off and neither of us slept well at all! I was up almost constantly from 2-6:30 when I handed back off to my husband. The current routine (again thanks to lockdown) is that if baby wakes between about 6 and 7:30 my husband takes him downstairs while he gets ready for his day and I catch up on some sleep upstairs. Then my husband brings him back up when he’s ready for a nap, I feed him and then we nap together. This meant that although I only got about 4 hours’ total sleep last night I then added an extra 2.5 hours in the morning and felt ok for the day.

Unfortunately my supply isn’t enough to pump an extra bottle a day - sometimes I struggle just to get enough for one bottle as I feel like either he has just eaten or is about to eat again! Last night after his long sleep he took 6 oz at the next feed - I have no hope of managing much more than that over the course of the day unfortunately. A couple of times we have tried a bottle of formula when desperate but baby always seems to cough & spit up a lot afterwards and it leaves me feeling so guilty that I can’t bear to do it unless necessary.

@ZooKeeper19 my little boy is already eyeing all of our food when he eats, he is going to be so excited when he can try some himself. Total bummer that it hasn’t improved your baby’s sleep, though!

And last night back to our regular patterns 😂 No surprise there!

@coconutlatte44 I was going to say I'm so happy for you that you had two great blocks of sleep. Maybe he was just having a break last night and will do it again tonight :)

We had a rough few days where DS would wake within the hour then every 45 mins until the middle of the night, when he would have a long cry and then finally get back to sleep. Then last night out of nowhere he did 3.5h then only woke about every 2h after that! Like you I couldn't sleep after the first block 😂

Impossible to be sure but I put him back into his Love to Dream swaddle last night and it might have made a difference. If so, it was lucky that his nappy had leaked all over his sleeping bag so we couldn't use it!

Here's to another 'good' night for everyone 🤞🏼

Hi @LondonKiwi123 and @ZooKeeper19, how are you both?
A week or so ago baby did 4 hours straight at the start of the night - then the next day 3 - then it’s suddenly fallen back apart and he’s only doing 1-2 hours 😭 However he has started taking less from the bottle feed which has meant my husband can do two feeds when other circumstances permit! So that’s helping and actually my mental fog has cleared a bit recently with this change and also joining baby for more naps. I’m still stressed by the whole thing and find myself obsessing over how long he will sleep each night and whether I can somehow influence this by tweaking his daytime schedule but honestly it doesn’t seem to make a difference!

Hi I don’t know if this advice will help as My boy is formula fed but he is now 9 weeks old and he sleeps approx 6/8 hours every night and then another sleep of 3/4 hours without any feeds after I hold and soothe him back to sleep.
He was only sleeping 1.5/2 hours through the night so I did some research and read the moms on call book! I started following the 8-16 weeks schedule doing 6 ounces at every feed and after 7pm he doesn’t feed until 7am. I don’t incorporate any cry it out that they recommend as I feel he is still way too young for that but regardless he still sleeps huge periods Of time so I don’t feel I need to extend this just yet. I thought he would be hungry as he was having a bottle in the night before I started but he shows no signs of hunger until 6.30/7 !
I was dubious it would work the first night And thought I would have to work at It, but to my surprise he slept from 8pm till 4am !

I hope this helps anyone that is struggling and can make it work for them! I started doing this at 8 weeks old and it worked instantly.

@coconutlatte44 it's always bad when they do a good night and then it all goes away in a blink :(

My LO has now been on solids for one month (but still gets the same amount of BF every day and night too...go figure) and he is better at sleeping.

I spoke to some friends of mine and they said that daytime naps and nighttime sleeps are very much connected so playing around with daytime naps can help as well. I moved him to 2 naps a day with the second being something like 3-5pm (sometimes 2-4pm) and he then has bedtime 8:30 (or 9pm). This makes him sleep 8:30 - midnight, then midnight -2am, 4am, 6am and up at 7am. It's not ideal, but that first slot I could go to bed with him and get a decent sleep there.

And one more thing I realised - I do go to sleep when he is napping. Everything house-related can be done with him in tow (and I mean everything). I just drop whatever I was doing mid-job (unless something is cooking) and straight to bed I go if I am tired. When we both wake up, then I do all house chores and let him watch.

@ZooKeeper19 I’ve gotten used to expecting it I think, but to go from 4 hours one night to then 1 hour (!) a few nights later was still a shock to the system!

Last night we got him down a bit earlier so he did
7:45-9:45 (then fed and we went to bed)
10-12 then husband fed
12:20-2:20 then we swapped and I fed, then he woke hourly for the rest of the night
3:30
4:30 (gave a dummy and cuddle and he went back down for half an hour without food)
5
6
Handed back to husband at 6:30 and he snoozed on his chest
Up for the day around 7:15

We usually cosleep past the first wake up out of sheer desperation as it’s much faster to pick him up and put him down and he doesn’t fuss at all. However, we are wondering whether his being right next to me influences the rapid cycling we seem to see at the second half of the night, or whether that’s just because babies tend to sleep more soundly at the beginning of the night anyway.

I was watching the clock last night when doing my feeds to see whether or not he really “needs” them for food or if it’s just a comfort thing, and for most of them he ate for close to 10 minutes - so I think he still needs the feeds really! Just not sure why he won’t take more and last longer!

Glad to hear he is sleeping a bit better and the naps truly are a lifesaver!

@coconutlatte44 I know how frustrating/bewildering the fleeting improvement in sleep is. The exact same thing happened to us. He did a miraculous 5h first stretch one night but it got progressively shorter over a few days. Now it's back to about 3h, sometimes shorter. I was so excited about the 5h that I decided to do all the night feeds... which was fine for the first few nights when he was only waking 4 times, but now it's back to normal and he won't take the bottle from his dad anymore! Oops.

But now that I know he can go 5h, if he wakes before 4ish hours I try a cuddle and pat first to see if he'll go back to sleep. If I time it right he'll almost always go back to sleep, if I leave it too long after waking (he doesn't cry for ages!) the only thing that will comfort him is a feed.

I suspect the shorter stretches towards the morning are because the melatonin is wearing off and there's less "sleep pressure". As the night wears on, I certainly have to hold him for longer after a feed before putting him back down. Do you find this too?

@ZooKeeper19 I'm happy for you that the weaning had had a positive effect on sleep! I'd like to work on daytime sleep but feel like it's such a huge mountain to climb at the moment, so much so that I'm finding the day more difficult than the night. My boy is 99th percentile and we rock him to sleep for naps. I honestly can't do it for much longer because he's so heavy. And then he only stays asleep if he's held. Buggy naps have gone out the window too. I was getting the hang of it but the last two times he's just gotten very upset to even be pushed around. How do you get yours down for naps?

Oh and I've tried offering more feeds in the afternoon and evening - no difference to night sleep!

@LondonKiwi123 I used to walk/rock my LO to sleep until he got too heavy (he is a fat little heavy thing!) and I was about to kill my back. I had to give up and one day (he was about 5.5 months) I just put him to his cot and patted his back, talked to him, swaddled and rocked and it is getting better day by day and he is sleeping.

He does not sleep "by himself" and he needs me to put him to bed and he sleeps next to us in his cot (or in the pram during the daytime) but certainly my back thanked me for this. He cries more, but I am less physically exhausted as well so it balances itself out somehow.

@coconutlatte44 oh god that sounds really hard :( I hear you about the co-sleeping, I thought I will not do anything like that (ha ha ha) but occasionally I let him sleep on me as well. It does make him wake up more often, I noticed that when I do transfer him over to the cot he fusses more, but sleeps longer. My one also eats for about 10 minutes but since the weaning, I sometimes keep him hungrier (it is a hit and miss really refusing the occasional night feed) and that makes him eat more the next feed. I also realised that sitting up in the bed when feeding makes him eat more properly then if I stay laying down (but at 2am or 4am that is a hard thing to make my body to do...).