I need to establish a routine

[bumb1ebeesknees]

My baby is 16 weeks corrected, 22 weeks actual.

Sleep is getting worse. There used to be a couple of 2 hour naps a day. This is now 45 mins at most and I have to hold and feed him to sleep or take him out in the buggy.

I'm underweight, anaemic and exhausted. I don't want to stop breastfeeding, but I can't function this tired all the time.

He was sleeping ok at night. Cluster feeding until 9ish and then up between 1-3, 5 and 7, but has recently had tummy troubles which seem to be causing him to wake every hour, maybe two.

He's cranky all day. I'm cranky all day.

I am reading the ncss and have been trying to take him off the boob before he falls asleep, but I'm not seeing any progress,especially with napping.

I don't know what to do.

NCSS takes a long time. Indeed that is the whole basis of the 'solution', that it is very gradual and slow.

Another, much easier no cry sleep solution would be dummy + bouncy chair (but that advise really wouldn't sell many Pantley books.)

You don't have to not breastfeed to get your baby sleeping. Sounds like over tiredness to me, rather than being anything to do with feeding.

"I need to establish a routine"

OK. My favoured routine is EASY: Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time

It seperates feeding and sleeping so that feeding happens when baby wakes, not when he goes to sleep. It also ensures regular naps throughout the day, regular feeds and gives structure and routine in a baby-lead way.

From 3 months to 5 months I was on a 2 to 2 1/2 hourly EASY routine, with one hour between feeding and sleeping. You work out an EASY structure that works for you then just repeat, repeat, repeat through the day. So mine went:

Feed - takes about 15 minutes
Activity - until tired signs or until 1 hour after feed (whichever comes first)
Sleep - Bouncy chair, dummy... bounce, bounce, bounce into sleep oblivion, reinserting dummy as needed.
You time - that involves me sitting on sofa MNing and watching TV while bouncing the chair

So I would be aiming for 45 minute nap (to complete the 2 hour routine) and would keep bouncing baby back to sleep at any wake ups until she has had at least 45 minutes.

Once 2 hours has passed from the initial feed, stop bouncing and wait for baby to naturally wake up (which might be another half hour, or even longer, or might not). The start again with the "E" of EASY, so that you are back to feed. then just keep on repeating the whole process over and over through the daytime.

This whole process therefore means baby has 45 minutes sleep in every 2 hours and also has 1 full feed every 2 hours through the daytime. That's my EASY routine though - the one that suits your baby might be different. That's the joy of a baby lead routine. Structured, but also flexible.

I'm an easy fan too. I'm on my phone so can't link but liked a chart, try to Google for my baby sleep guide awake time chart. Does what it says on the tin

But how do I get him to sleep if he will only feed to sleep or in his buggy?

Feeding to sleep has become less successful during the day as he's so interested in what's going on around him now.

He's never fallen asleep in his bouncy chair before. What if it just doesn't happen?

It will happen. He will learn to fall asleep on his own. Presumably you don't feed to sleep yourself, we all learn at some point

You need to find a way to get him to sleep. If you try and break the feeding to sleep habit then look for another way to trigger sleep. While he is not getting enough sleep, over tiredness will make it worse.

I suggested dummy and bouncy chair because I believe this involves fewest tears and upset. There are lots of other sleep training methods though. They all work if you are consistent.

We also use the easy routine. I like it because it's flexible but offers some structure. Works brilliantly for us. We don't get naps longer than 30 mins but we don't struggle to get them and they happen at fairly consistent times.

We stopped feeding to sleep by really really persevering with the 'shush pat' idea.

We tweaked it though and added rocking as that worked for our DS even though the baby whisperer says not to. Now we can soothe and calm him by shushing, patting or gentle rocking in the rocking chair. Sometimes we need all three, but it only takes a few minutes for him to settle now, and we enjoy the cuddle before putting him down.

We also worked hard on being able to put him down awake, by gradually putting him down sooner. Now if he's calm, after a quick cuddle he'll often let me put him down in his cot awake and settle hinself off to sleep.

It's not 'perfect' but for us it works and I feel that he sleeps fairly well. It's a world away from where we were and though he cried a fair bit, we never left him as I couldn't bring myself to do it that way . Took time but was well worth it.