Sleeping eating sleeping eating sleeping etc etc .......

[susanmt]

I hope someone can help or at least reassure me this is normal! (as far as normal goes!!!)My ds will be 5 months old this week. He's breastfed and has been on solids for about 5 weeks. He aets really well, loves his food. He has breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. He is breastfed at each meal as well as mid morning and mid afternoon. He goes to bed about 8 o'clock, and was sleeping pretty well, only waking up once at 4 am ish for a short 5 min feed, and going on through until 7.30 or so.
All of a sudden in the last week he has started waking up much more, at about 1, 4 and 6. I thought he was just having a wee comfort feed, but then last night dh did the feeds to let me have a full nights sleep, and ds had 6oz at 1, 2oz at 4 and then he had to wake me at 6, when he fed for 20 mins!
I cant understand why he is so hungry in the night all of a sudden. He is teething a bit, buyt is otherwise fine, has had no problems with his food, I'm not eating anything different to affect my milk. He sleeps in a grobag so he's not cold or anything.
The lots of waking is really getting me down. I have pnd which is pretty well controlled by my drugs but when I get tired it pushes me closer to the edge and I am exhausted!
Any suggestions gratefully received!!

Hi Susanmt, you poor thing no wonder you're tired. I'm trying to rack my brain about you're problem, how many breastfeeds does ds have a day in total? (excluding at night) and you say he is on b/fast, lunch, tea and supper...sounds an awful lot for a 5 month old? My dd was weaned at 4 months and built up to three meals a day by the time she was about 6 months and then I started to very gradually reduce her milk. How much and what does he have at each meal? Sorry, hope I don't sound critical , just intrigued to know how much solids ds takes at each mealtime and what he has. Maybe the night waking is food related?

susanmt, Not much of a fan of baby books, but the Ferber one (Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems) does discuss this exact problem. He says that the feeding at night is just a habit that babies fall into and that certainly by 5 months a child can last through the night without needing food. He has good solutions for retraining which worked well for me, though you do have do redo them periodically. Personally I waited until 6 months before stopping the nighttime feeds, but was assured by my son's paediatrician that I could have done so much earlier. We had our ds in bed with us until then, so I just rolled over in my sort-of-sleep and stuck him on my breast. Babies (likie adults) go through all sorts of different sleeping habits and just because your baby sleeps through the night for a few weeks and then decides to start waking up 5 times, doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong with either you or him. Hang in there and good luck. It does get better and you will eventually get a decent night's sleep.

have you thought about looking at TCLBB?

JOKE! JOKE!

Susanmt,

Does your baby need supper? Three meals a day should be more than enough. Although he is getting breastfeeds as well it will be a reduced amount that he takes with meals. It might be that he is actually thirsty during the night. I never gave any of my children supper and they slept well. They only had breastmilk after their evening meal at about 6pm. I would try that and see how you get on.

From what I understand about how milk supply works, the baby may need to spur it on occasionally, especially after 4 months old or so, because the pregnancy hormones are wearing off and the milk composition is changing. Sorry I can't find a reference for all that, but I've seen the studies (LLL probably have related info).

That said... if your jaw hurts and you're teething, you might well think you were hungry if you were only 5 months old and not very clever about much of anything, yet.

And I remember 5 months as a big growth spurt with extra night wakings for DD.

Ferber's methods are not supposed to be applied to babies under 6 months old; I know the book is vague about this, but Dr. Ferber has himself stated many times in public ever since that "sleep training" should not be applied to babies under 6 months. You can search all over the Internet to find that.

Sleep deprivation practically gave me PND, too.
I wish I had a better set of solutions for you, but I would have thought that your DS will drift back to his old patterns within a week or so. Good luck.

I think that just because babies feed it doesn't necessarily mean they are hungry. Sometimes they just love to suck and find it very soothing and calming. My ds woke up so much at that age too so I really do sympathise. I was often tearful with sheer exhaustion, but he sleeps through with no feeds at all at night now, and has no more milk, so I really don't think it was hunger, more like when you aren't hungry but someone offers you chocolate and you think you might as well! Also, I found the night feeds meant my ds cut down on his morning feed etc, so you might try offering water or a dummy in the night or dilute milk? Could you try Calpol to see if it helps? And of course, he will almost certainly grow out of this very frequent waking pretty soon whatever you do or don't do. My ds was transformed at 7-8 months into a really sleepy bunny and it has transformed our lives. I do know how you feel and how awful it is. I think the main thing is to guarantee yourself some rest while this is going on. Could you continue to do shifts or one night on, one night off with your dh? That's what we did (sometimes whole nights, sometimes one of us would do until 3-4am and then hand over. We slept in separate rooms to get solid sleep.). It kept us reasonably sane until our ds started sleeping. And then it was nice to have my dh sleeping in the same bed again. Good luck!

Funny enough, the last 2 wnights he has slept until 6!
Dunno what changed!!
Just glad it did!