Help please on 6mth old DS' sleep 'issues'...

[Ilovemyboy]

Okay, DS is still waking 3-4hrs in the night for a feed. A typical night goes like this, in bed between 7-8pm, awake for feed between 10-11pm, again between 1-2am then last night feed between 4am and 5 before we are up at about 6 (or at 7.10 this morning ).

He is blw which we started last week and it is going great and hasn't changed his sleep pattern. He is breastfed and is gaining weight well. We are co-sleeping because I am just so tired I don't think I would cope very well having to keep getting out of bed to feed him a few times a night.

Any tips? Or do you think this is okay? I just want him to sleep a bit better...even a 5 hour block of sleep for me would be lovely.

Hi there - I would not want to pretend to be an expert on this as I have posted several 'Help' messages mysef but your story sounds similar to mine... My DS is now 9 months and we are just trying to break the cycle.
Are you weaning yet? I thought my DS was waking for food (at same times as you described) but now he is on 3 meals a day plus snacks and I have realised he is just waking out of habit. He wakes about 3 times a night and feeds for a bout 5 minutes and then falls asleep again.

Have you tried getting him back to sleep without feeding or does he just cry?
I found that if my husband goes in to his room instead of me it is easier to get him back off to sleep as he just expects me to feed him. However with DH working this only really happens on the weekends.

I will watch this thread as I will be interested to hear what happens..

Good luck!

My DD was waking every night and I started reducing her breastfeeds by 1 minute each night. Ie 10 mins, 9 mins 8 mins. At the end of the time I would put her back to bed. (we weren't co-sleeping thoug). Within a week she was sleeping much better.

Hi guys

henrybaba - We are baby-led weaning and have been for a couple of weeks. DS' sleep pattern hasn't changed since we started to wean him. He had his dinner at about 5pm yesterday then had so much milk before he went to bed that he was sick a couple of times. Then he still woke up to be fed at 10.15 so I think he must be waking up out of habit as he is soooo tired when he wakes up.

If I try to get him to sleep without feeding him he just cries and cries. I think he is too little to let him cry it out and he would probably wake up properly then anyway.

I don't know what to do. He has a similar pattern now to when he was a couple of months old. I thought it might have improved a little bit.

ILMB: no advice but sympathy as DS exactly the same at nearly 8 months ... am trying cranial osteopathy to see if that helps at all and hoping he will grow out of it. He won't settle at all without a feed either and I don't want to do cc. He will occasionally do a 3-5 hour stretch bu it's very rare.