He's 6 months and I'm losing my mind

[Tallulahoola]

DS has always been a terrible sleeper but as every month has gone by it's got worse. At 3 months he was waking every 2.5 hours, more often between the hours of 3am and 6am. Now he's reached 6 months the longest he will sleep is 1.5 hours. He wakes and cries and occasionally I can put him back to sleep after a cuddle but mostly he demands a feed (he is BF). Of course this is my fault because I have been feeding him back to sleep all this time and now he's used to it. But friends have done this with their DCs and not ended up in this position, instead their DCs just naturally slept for longer stretches as they got older.

I'm now getting up 6 times every night and don't know how much longer I can cope with it. I also have a DD to look after.

We're in a situation where he feeds so much at night that he's not that hungry during the day. He's one of those babies who gets distracted by everything so never concentrates on feeding in the daytime. Even in a totally quiet room he breaks off constantly to gaze at my hair or a white wall.

But how can I change that? And is he actually hungry? Tonight I thought I would try to refuse to feed him until it was 2.5 hours since he last fed, to try to start gently cutting back on the night feeding. But he screamed the house down so I've given in. Should I stick with that? I'm loathe to let him cry too long because it will wake up DD and also because I'm totally soft with him and get really sad if he cries

This was me until my DD turned 17 months. After advice on here I ended up making her dad get up and do the night wakings. I suppose you have 2 options, get dad to do wakings which would mean a bottle and remove yourself from the situation entirely. I think 6 months is too little to night wean but he may feed more in the day if you are not there at night. You could carry on as you are and possibly co sleep. At this age I brought her into bed and fell asleep feeding so I wasnt so exhausted. But then I didnt have a toddler.

My personal advice is to get dad involved. Its amazing how quickly they realise that sleep is better if mummy isnt acailable!

Good luck.

P.s breastfeeding is more than just hunger for him. He might not bencrying out of hunger. X

The only thing that got me though this was co sleeping and BF in my sleep.

I did the same as you regarding pushing out the feeds as my son had a dreadful 4 month sleep regression and got used to feeding all through the night. He also screamed - through anger rather than hunger. It did work, but was very tough going. I didn't put him back in his bed, or even in mine (that made no difference), but had to carry / hold him until the next feed. Write off a few nights entirely!

Following with interest - am sat here feeding DD3 and desperately wishing she wouldn't feed at night. She went through a phase at 3 months where she was going twelve hours at night but it only lasted a couple of weeks. Now she seems to feed more at night than during the day.
The HV helpfully told me today when I asked for advice that I should just stop feeding her at night, but there's no way anyone will get any sleep if I don't feed her at all in the night. I've tried to get her to settle without a feed each time she's woken so far tonight but that had worked for approx ten minutes.
She won't take a bottle, DH can't spend all night awake as he has to work and co sleeping doesn't work for us so I'm at a loss.

Thanks all. Getting DH to do the feeds is unfortunately not happening because DS won't take a bottle, though I am trying to get him to do this. I've tried co-sleeping but he wakes up just as often. It's slightly better because I don't have to get out of bed to feed him, but it's just the same in terms of interrupted sleep.

Mangosteen I think you're right, if I do try to lengthen time between feeds I'm going to have to prepare for a few nights of no sleep whatsoever...

I think unfortunately you will have to get a bit less sleep for a few nights in order to get more sleep moving forwards... Does your baby fall asleep in the pushchair in the daytime or being rocked? I think if you could try something like rocking back to sleep rather than feeding you can break the cycle. Also, could you feed your baby in a very dark room in the daytime with the aim of him eating more at those feeds?

Pink I'm going to try that with the daytime feeds though need to pick a week when I have nothing to do (ie not out with friends, feeding him in a cafe or whatever). And I know I'll have to bite the bullet and stop feeding him so often. Am worried about him waking DD though and also I know it's silly but I live in a terraced house with very thin walls and I feel bad about waking the lady next door (and I will because I can hear every conversation she has through the bedroom wall).

In the day he's a textbook napper - he will happily go down awake in his cot them put himself to sleep, and he drifts off in his buggy or on his playmat.