Think I'm doing it wrong

[ReRegRhonda]

There are two problems. Firstly my baby is nearly 16 weeks and eill only be rocked asleep. He can fall asleep in the car seat or pram however provided we are moving. How can I teach him to fall asleep by himself?

Secondly he was reliably doing 6-7 hours at night, having one feed then 3 more hours sleep but for the last week he's been back to waking every 3 hours overnight for boob! Hes ebf and my ever so helpful mum thinks he's waking hungry because I'm not feeding him enough! He feeds anywhere between every 1.5-3 hours in the day. This has to be a sleep regression yes? Will it ever go back to normal?

Thanks

Mine is 16 weeks too and she doesn't self settle. Usually she is fed to sleep; the past couple of days she's nodded off on my shoulder while I've been holding her and talking to someone!

The past week she's really gone from dozing off for a nap to needing help to go to sleep. It is tiring. Often I just stick her in the sling and try encourage her to sleep that way.

Second point sounds like it could be sleep regression. Mine (so far, touch wood!) has still been sleeping normally on a night, but some nights does wake more often and wakes earlier to start the day (5:30 yesterday! I've just fed her now and I'm hoping she'll go back to sleep).

We'll get there. I'm sure it will pass

Yeah mine will feed to sleep too. I don't have a sling and tbh I'm just not strong enough to keep hold of him in a sling while he naps, I need to put him down or my back is agonising.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong, maybe I should give him formula now, that seems to make babies sleep. Plus dh is no help and keeps picking arguments as well as his fucking alarm going really loudly every morning and he won't use the vibrating wrist alarm I got him so there's me up again with the baby.

I am quite sick of it all tbh

Formula does not make babies sleep at all! I have 3. All 3 have been/are ff.
DS1 never slept, so we didn't have sleep regression as it was impossible to be sleeping any less.
DD slept through the night from birth and never regressed.
DS2 is going the same way as DS1, he's only 6 week though so we will see.
Just don't start ff thinking it will make them sleep as you will be disappointed if it didn't work.

All the ff babies I know seem to sleep is all. Two cousins have ff babies who sleep through - although they are 2 and 3 months older than mine. And a friend at baby massage has just switched from bf to ff and her baby now sleeps through! I love bf but I wonder if I'm starving him/depriving him of sleep!

It's normal and it will pass

In fact, you are lucky as at 4 months mine would wake about 7-8 times a night! But he settled back to every 3 hours quite quickly which is normal.

I stopped rocking mine to sleep around 7 months old.

Deffo sleep regression. There is a wonder week 19 too.... Joy!

Formula takes longer to digest so it can be more filling than breast milk - so a baby can go longer between feeds. But it's not a magic solution.

Me and my sister were both ff. I slept through from being about 6 weeks but my sister didn't.

Formula really isn't the magic answer to sleep and breast milk is designed for babies so of course it wouldn't be starving him! Some babies do sleep better on formula because it takes longer to digest, but not all do. Equally some breast fed babies sleep really well.

Decided to start some semblance of proper routine tonight instead of just vaguely waiting for him to go asleep at any time. Watch this space.