A question for FATE please!

[Screamer1]

after seeing all your amazing advice I was wondering if you could help. I've posted before about our dd. She goes from 0-100, no tiredness signs so have been going by the clock.

We're in the midst of 4 month regression (not that she was ever great). We've had some success with her taking the dummy at the start of the night, after much persistence. However, she's waking every hour or 90 minutes. Should I be feeding every waking because most of the time she won't take the dummy then and Just scream her head off. Feeding 8 times a night seems a bit bonkers.

How old is she and are you breastfeeding or bottle feeding?

I wouldn't be bottle feeding 8 times a night. But breastfeeding is about far more than milk. Primarily breastfeeding is about comfort and you won't have any success by just denying comfort, you would need to work on replacing the comfort and reassurance of breastfeeding with other forms of comfort and reassurance.

If you are bottle feeding, is she draining whole bottles several times a night? That would suggest far more milk is needed through the daytime. I would offer a full bottle feed every 90m-2h throughout the daytime to calorie load through the daytime.

Thank you South for replying. She's ebf and 17 weeks old

She's currently asleep on top of me because that's the only way I can comfort her . It's like she's a newborn again.

So much not South

At 17 weeks I had the big cot next to my bed, one side removed and cot wedged up to my bed, mattress heights matching.

I would cuddle right into the cot and work on doing all settling with baby lying in the cot and me lying right next to her. So dummy reinserts, cuddling up, eye contact, head-to-head contact, shushing, patting and so on.

At any wake up I'd give a good 10-20 minutes to trying to settle back to sleep like this, without feeding.

Then if the settling wasn't working I'd sit up in bed to feed. Make it as bigger feed as possible but as soon as it seems to be done, put baby back down (ie before asleep), lie next to the cot and start again with the dummy reinserts and settling.

That's brilliant advice, thank you so much. She's in a Chico next to me crib, so will definitely try what you suggest. The last week I've been picking her up and cuddling to settle but will try in the cot.

Hello again fate, I'm after some more of your advice if possible!

I've tried the settling in the cot and more often than not she will just end up screaming. Last night I did it for 30 minutes until I gave up and fed her. This was at 8.30, when she'd been fed at 6.30 before bed.

She then woke again at 11.30, 2.30 and 5.

Could she be hungry. I just don't know if she's hungry or just super determined.

What would you do in this situation?

Don't feel you are "giving in" if you feed her. If she needs the comfort then she needs the comfort, no need to feel that is a negative thing.

Feeds at 11.30pm, 2.30am and 5am for a 4 or 5 month old ebf baby is reasonably normal.

The feed at 6.30pm then again 8.30pm would be the outer limit of my expectations. I wouldn't have been suprised surprised if a feed was needed sooner.

I aim to feed every 90m-2h through the "daytime" (daytime being my daytime - so 7am to 10.30pm ish). Valley liad while I am awake so that fewer calories are needed at night.

Are you putting baby "to bed" (ie upstairs in cot) at 6.30pm? Aside from SIDS recomendation that baby stays downstairs with you until you go to bed, I found it much more convenient. Lots of on and off feeding through the evening (while I'm watching tv) means baby settles more easily when you go up to bed with her.

What's your daytime naps like? I favoured a 90m-2h EASY cycle. Repeated constantly 7am until I go to bed.

E - Eat. Start with a full feed. Note the time of waking
A -Awake activity. Floor time, cuddle A. Playgym, whatever. First sign of grumpiness means sleep time. I'd limit awake time to about an hour
S - Sleep. 30-45 mins is normal. I cannot stress enough how great bouncy chairs with dummy are for daytime sleeps.
Y - You time while baby sleeps.

So at the nearest awake time to 7-8pm ish I'd do "bedtime routine" - bath, massage, change into night clothes etc. But baby would come back downstairs to nap and feed on and off in the bouncy chair until I go to bed.

"Valley liad"? Calorie load is what that should have said. Bizarre autocorrect.

Sorry for the late reply. Thank you so much for responding! I've had a pretty tough week in terms of the sleeping and it's really starting to get me down.

I've tried settling her in her cot but she just screams and screams until she's held or breastfed. And doing this several times a night just feels as though I might as well try and cc because she would potentially cry for less time. I don't know, I feel at a bit of a loss really. I've had some occasional success putting her on her side and patting her bottom.

I'm actually so tired that once she goes to sleep, I do too. So she isn't on her own in the room.

I really think her problem is that she just can't switch off and then gets annoyed because she's awake.

I was thinking of giving her a bottle of expressed milk before she goes to sleep just so I can see how much she's taking.

I don't really know what else to do at this point.

CC will achieve nothing at this age. It's not recommended until past 12 months because in order for it to work baby needs to be able to access their self-comforting methods alone. Your baby is totally reliant on others helping provide the comfort. Even independant hands-off comforting (like dummy, snuggle toy, rocking in pushchair/bouncer) need help because baby doesn't have the physical dexterity skills to coordinate her movements to access the comfort herself.

There's an Einstein quote that's says you cant keep doing the same things but expecting different results. Baby will learn to settle to sleep only once you work with her to find The Thing that works for her. Until then do what you can to make going to sleep as easy as possible for her. Some ideas:

• cosleep. All night, just for bits of the night, for daytime naps. Whatever works
• bouncy chair for naps
• pushchsir
• sling
• removing the clock from your bedroom so you stop stressing about the time of wake ups
• stop counting wake ups during the night
• feed lying down, while you doze
• have everything to hand at night and learn to settle/feed baby without really opening your eyes or waking properly. This is especially great for breastfeed and with a dummy. I used to scoot baby over from cosleeper into my bed, breastfeed lying down, we'd both fall asleep during feed, wake some time later and scoot baby (in sleeping bag) back over and reinsert dummy if baby stirred. I learnt to do all this without opening my eyes or leaving the duvet.

I started mix feeding my youngest around 4 months, mainly because I'm not precious about breastfeeding and formula makes life easier (imo). If you are breastfeeding though then evening cluster feeding is normal. Sit yourself on the sofa with boobs out and baby on your lap. Or lie on your bed with baby and your top off. Then just expect to feed pretty constantly from 6pm ish through to 10pm ish. After lots of cuddles and plenty of feeds, settling might be easier.

Changing your expectation might help too. Just to know that this is normal and find ways to cope with your situation as it is (catching up with sleep during the day, lowering your expectations for "getting stuff done", drop the idea that you should be put and busy all the time during maternity leave). Just slow down, get warm and comfy with baby and hibernate for a few days/weeks if you are knackered.

Screamer just wanted to pop on and say I'm going through exactly the same with my 19 week old girl. Started bedtime routine about 10 days ago and she was doing great, it's all gone to pot the last few nights with crying when I put her down. I'm wondering if she's over stimulated and I need to spend more time chilling with her before I take her up to bed.