6 months in and never sleeping more than 1 hour

[Salene]

My baby boy is 24 weeks old and ebf , he has been on solids for 4 days.

From day 1 he has never slept more than 1-2 hours

It's literally killing me

So far tonight he slept 1 hour 32 mins

Then 45 mins, 1 hour 18 mins, 40 mins

Currently awake again now feeding

I have to fresh in every time he wakes if you don't he starts screaming place down

As you can imagine 6 months of not getting more than 1 hour sleep is killing me and as he BF only I can deal with him

He refuses bottles and dummies

Feed him - not fresh in
Stupid phone

That sounds like torture, no wait, I'm sure that is torture, you poor thing
I don't have any little ones anymore so not really the best person to help but if it were me I might try not rushing in straightaway, maybe try and leave him a wee minute before you go to him. I know you said he screamed before when you did this but I think I'd persevere a few times, just to see if he might settle back down. He must be exhausted too with such a broken sleep pattern.
Do you have a partner? What happens if they try to settle him? obviously I know they can't BF him but babies are not always looking for a feed when they're fussing.

So after my first post he slept 42 mins

1 hour 1 min, then 18mins and is awake again now

As for partner yes I have a husband but he works away a month at a time and when home never helps at night, he just says he can't do anything as can't feed him but to be honest he has never even tired to settle him and now he sleeps in another room , baby is in room with me , his cot is next to bed but recently he has spent more time co sleeping in bed with me than in cot as I was struggling to keep getting up to fetch him from cot

Being in bed or cot makes no different to the length of time he sleeps, his naps during days are the same, short , althoughhe sleeps longer if in the car.

I've tried not feeding him and sometimes I can shussssshhhh him back to sleep but it's just depends, more often than it I need to feed him to sleep for a couple of minutes.

I'm reluctant to try anything like leaving him to cry it out, I think it's a shame to do that to him.

I should of said he seems not worse for it he is a very happy little baby and spends most of the day smiling & laughing , he gets a little grumpy around 5.30 - 6.30pm just before his bed

He has a routine in that since birth has gone to bath at 7pm the to bed.

Have you spoken to your health visitor? I doubt he needs feeding every hour so is probably sucking for comfort to get back to sleep which you might need your husband to help you break the habit. He probably will cry and take longer to settle at first but hopefully then he will start sleeping for longer. My 8 month old goes back to waking every hour when teething and a few nights of it exhaust me so can't imagine 6 months worth - he doesn't sleep through the other nights but does go for longer stints

I'm in a similar, but less bad boat. I think my LO is so used to getting a boob whenever that she loses the plot when she doesn't get it even though I know she's not hungry. I know what I need to do is go through about a week of torture and do whatever it takes to get the feeding down to one or two a night. Will he be rocked to sleep? Mine won't really but sometimes if I put her in the sling it will calm her back down, which obviously is the last thing I want to do late at night.

Eventually I think I will resort to letting her cry, or letting her cry with me in the room, rubbing back etc. I'm not at all keen to do it but eventually did it with my first and while I didn't get the results people usually seem to (a couple nights of hell and then all dandy) it did improve things.

You absolutely cannot go on like this. Your husband has to has to help even if it means taking time off work.

My first child was as bad as yours but also screamed all day and I became very very ill with PND which i completely put down to lack of sleep. Look after yourself.

What is your routine like during the day? i BF on demand but one thing I have found makes a slight difference is if I try and keep a rough schedule in the day, ie spacing out the feeds to every three hours rather than adhoc. I suppose getting her used to just eating for food rather than whenever she fancies sucking on something.

Yes I agree it can't possibly be hunger every hour so is most likely comfort. No sure if I can get my husband to help, I'm pretty much left to deal with the baby, he not very helpful. Also he will go away in a week for 4.5 weeks anyway.

I did mention it to HV when getting him weighed the other day, they never really said much.

He is a big boy was born at 8lb and now 20lb 7oz so at first I thought well maybe he is hungry as growing so much but surely by now he should of dropped some feeds esp as getting solids now too.

I'm at a loss with what to do but if I don't find a solution soon I will break I think. I'm busy during day either cleaning our house which is quite large so takes a decent bit of cleaning, trying to do washing, I do all the cooking, have 2 dogs to walk. My baby has classes he goes to a few times a week, I have a exercise trainer 2 times a week who comes to house as trying to shift all my baby weight

On top of that I've been arguing with my hubby as he saying I'm nipping at him all the time which is properly true but I feel exhausted and ready to drop. If I try to talk to him about it he is not sympathetic and just says poor you, your so hard done by.

He has a very stressful job and because of that I think he thinks my life is easy compared to his, and isn't really interested in my issues only his own.

I have to say the whole situation is getting me down, I don't get anytime away from baby at all , apart from grand parents taking him for 2 hours on a Sunday and I have to use that time to scrub bathrooms so not really relaxing or that.

Anyway sorry to go on, I've kinda gone off on a tangent

If I was getting that little sleep I would not be prioritising cleaning the house OP I would be prioritising surviving! Exercise class is probably good for your mental health-certainly helped me. When grandparents have baby this weekend please do something relaxing for you. You also need to have a proper chat with your dh as he sounds like he wants all the perks of a baby without any of the effort. Just because you cope when he's not there doesn't mean he doesn't have to pull his weight when he is there

Hi I don't think he will help me, and talking to him is not easy. Your right he most likely does want the perks of a baby with no effort from him but what can I do.? He is not the most caring of individuals , it's just his nature. Focuses on himself.

Anyone any suggestions how to help my baby sleep longer.?

Sounds very similar to my six-month-old,though I'm lucky to have a much more supportive DH. I've been trying No Cry Sleep Solution approaches and he's definitely getting better slowly, though with occasional reversions. One thing that used to work for us was feeding lying down so he could help himself in the night, unfortunately he doesn't like doing that any more but it did give me the one >3hr sleep I've had since he was born. Sarah Ockwell-Smith's new book on sleep has a very similar sounding case study (end of the 3-6 month chapter) which has some useful ideas on helping them feel comfortable enough to drop off again. Her tips on surviving this as a mum are good too. Good luck!

You poor thing! You must be utterly exhausted.

Does he have any redness at all around his body? Anything that looks like spots or rash?

Does he have reflux?

Are you able to give him porridge just before bed, or anything else that is heavy on the stomach and he is willing to eat? See if that helps with the initial sleep

Have you had him checked for reflux? He sounds like my first who fed every 2 hours till he was about 1. We realised after his silent reflux diagnosis (no vomiting but could hear him gulping when lying down, and arching his back a lot) that he must have been wanting to feed to wash down the acid. With second baby we has him on ranitidine at the first sign of reflux and he slept through from 2 months.

Read no cry book cover to cover it never worked I will get that other book mentioned

No rashes. He been like this from birth, this is not a new thing.
He was a very colicky baby and screamed constant with wind when very little but out grew that. No reflux that I'm aware of, never had any feeding issues.

I have no issues getting him to sleep it's keeping him asleep that's the problem it seems to go on 45 mins cycles like babies do but he wakes every 45mins and can't go back to sleep without comfort from me.

my four month old will very often wake every hour so i'm possibly not the best person to be giving advice, but I have no idea how you're coping on your own! Things are getting a bit better for us with ncss though, and being totally anal about making sure he's not overtired through the day, how is your ds's daytime sleep? I've just realised in the past couple of days that my ds has a tiny window of appearing sleepy before he goes into overtired hyper, and i've been missing it a lot.
Does he sleep in different places, like in the car or in a sling where he's more upright? My ds has a cows milk protein allergy which made him very windy (among other symptoms) and that seems to have set up our patterns for nighttimes. I have resorted to putting him in a bouncy chair to sleep on ocassion, and putting him to sleep on his side because that seems to work for him.
Aside from getting the little monsters to sleep, you need to be looking after yourself! Your dh sounds crap, is there anyone else you can ask for a bit more help? I find that although ds will often only want to be fed to sleep from me, he will settle with rocking etc from my dh, and even if not, dh will often wind him and put him back to bed so i can get back to sleep. I'd definitely be letting the housework slide if i were you!

DS was a bit like this, though more like every 1.5-2 hours, which was a bit more manageable. DH couldn't help as DS is ebf (and refuses bottle anyway). We were asked that he needed solids (from about 4 months on) and that would get him sleeping. I held off on solids until 6 months, and was glad, as it didn't make the slightest difference to his sleep once he did start!

I tried to stop feeding him every time he woke by seeing a time limit. if he took a good feed, then I wouldn't feed him if he woke within an hour - I'd just pick him up and cuddle him. I would try to hold off until 2 hours had passed, but sometimes that didn't work, so I'd feed him if he was getting upset - but I did stick to the 1 hour rule. It sort of worked.

He's now 7 months, and in the last week or two seems to have learned to get himself back to sleep a bit better. One night he slept for 5 hours; I couldn't believe it! :)

Unfortunately he has now taken a cold & chest infection, so sleep has gone to pot, but hopefully it'll get better again once he recovers!

I also realised that his eczema was driving him nuts, so we got that seen to, which also helped - maybe have a think whether there's anything like that which could be affecting things.

I think it's either silent reflux or allergies/intolerances (but you appeared to have ruled our the latter as there's no sign of a rash at all).

I think perhaps he can't settle himself through sleep cycles, judging by the a mount of waking. My advice is get a sleep consultant. They will set up a whole new routine for you and a method of sleep training you are comfortable with. All of the methods do work, when people say they don't it's prob because they haven't been as consistent as they thought and end up with a confused baby. I think because if paid for if I was adamant not to give in. I could have written Your OP, my son was exactly the same. It took little over four days for him to sleep through and if changed our lives and if I'm honest I felt guilty for not doing it for him sooner as he was so so happy!! You sound desperate and it doesn't have to be that way. PM me if u want details of the person I used, if not there are a fair few online x

Hi I spoke to my HV once he on three solid meals a day if there is no improvement they have a sleep consultant they will send round to help me - thanks god for that.

Although I won't be doing any crying it out type methods and I did tell her that and she said that was ok they would find a way I was comfortable with

So fingers crossed in a month or so I might have a better sleeping baby.

He has a cold and to top it up his windy belly has come back since starting weening a few days ago and the poor wee mite was up all last night again . Literally sleeping for 30 mins at a time then waking up crying, struggling to pass wind then back to sleep where it would reapeat again.

I'm amazed how little sleep a human can actually get by on, although I have become extreamly forgetful even forgetting words sometimes.

I think if it's nt hunger you need to start researching sleep training and bite the bullet with it. DS1 is 6.5 mths and slept ok until 4 mths then started waking every hour or 2. So I had 2 months of that until last week.......we were all set to start controlled crying but funny enough the first time he woke, we lay there waiting for his cries to get bad (rather than the whimpering) and he settled himself back to sleep! Same the next time he woke too. So we've now had a week where we put him down at 7, wake him at 10.30 to feed and change (dream feeding doesn't work for him, he always wakes) and then he'll maybe wake once in the night but we leave him and he goes back to sleep until 6.30. He is bottle fed though and I managed to wean him off his 4am feed a few weeks ago by just gradually reducing the amount of milk. He also take a dummy although that's him not taking it at night now which is great. Have you tried a dummy? It might be a bit late now if you haven't but worth a shot if he's a sucky baby. Good luck!

Oh I should add that his settling himself coincided with me ramping up his food intake to 3 meals a day and introducing meat, cheese, butter etc etc. Before that it was just fruit/veg purees twice a day.

Hi there, sympathies to you my 6 month old DS wakes frequently to feed at night too. You're doing brilliantly to have survived this long! Have you considered giving a few feeds via bottle during the day? I have started doing this to try and get more calories in during daylight hours, partly in the hope he'll be less hungry at night and partly so I know how much he's had and I can be more confident that he's not hungry at night and I can cut back on feeds. I think it might get worse before it gets better though as I wean him off the 2am comfort feeds!

My DS also has silent reflux which is controlled now but did seriously disrupt his sleep.

Good luck!

Hi ya he refuses dummies and bottles I've been told though that can happen with BF babies

Last night I tried him in his cot which is next to our bed at 4am as he had woke so frequently I was at my wits end.
I have a white noise app on my phone which you can set to listen so phone sits silent and picks up when he starts to cry then blasts on with a hairdryer type noise.

I have used the app quite a bit but I normally activate it and it works quite well at putting him back to sleep

Any way at 4am he went in cot with phone at the ready listening, it must of gone off a good 10-15 times but it worked every time, he started to cry, white noise went off then he was silent (it stays on for 8 mins then shuts off its self) so between 4am and 8am I never once touched him so that's a huge improvement at least he was settling back without be nursing him or rubbing his head etc.

The app said he had slept 1hour 46mins in total between 4-8

So tonight im going to start him off in his cot again with the app and see if he can just be settled by the noise instead of by me.

Baby steps as they say. I really don't think I can do any kind of cry it out stuff so hopefully I can sort the issue this way

Sympathy OP. i am in a similar boat (only i'm not married to twat - sorry, but he sounds awful OP. i'm not sure i would ever feel the same about my dh again if he was happy to watch me suffer like that. Seriously op, his responses to you are not on. I'd be furious in your shoes. Anyway...)

My ds2 is just 6mo and has never slept more than 2hrs. He sleeps between 30mins and an hour and half at a time. we co sleep as he wakes every 20 mins in the cot. He has been on solids for 2wks and it's made no difference. DH wakes and does half the settling with him and we are both exhausted. He is a v big baby (9lb 12oz at birth and over 22lb now - totally off the chart for height).

He has one nap in the morning for an hour and about 20-30 mins in the avo. He goes to sleep on one of us at about 10pm then the frequent wakings (about 5-8 wakings a night) till up at 6.30am.

i am seeing hv on weds and dr on Friday. i suspect silent reflux. but he has also been badly teething for 3 months, so it could be that too. (still no bloody teeth tho)

Actually OP. This is what i would do if i were you. (in fact my DH would suggest i do this too if he knew he were going away for so long) You say you have a week before your H goes away again - does he have this time 'off' or is he working every day till he goes?

If he has a weekend/day off (if not i would insist he take one) then i would book a local cheap b&b/premier inn for the night before this. Do the last BF at about 9 then go off (leaving some expressed bottles for the night - the baby should not really need much in the night at this age - and some cooled boiled water in a beaker) and get a really good night sleep and return in the morning. You will really need one good nights sleep in the tank if you are going to cope with the next 4 weeks without your H (not that it sounds like it makes much difference if he's there or not).

Also if you get 2 hours respite ate the weekend you should be sleeping. Not cleaning. Fuck the bathroom. who cares if it's dirty. Can you hire a cleaner? I would also do that and tell your H that it is essential because as he wont help at night, you need all the sleep/rest you can get, so no household chores would be done from now on.

Seriously OP. Tell him if you don't start looking after yourself you will have a breakdown and then he will really be fucked. How can he watch someone he loves struggle so much? I am now really angry on your behalf. Are you angry? if not why not? He has the ability to make your life much better and yet he wont do it.