Why does my 7mo insist on being on my tits all night!!!!!

[Fsult1]

I’m starting to lose my patience but my 7mo STILL wakes every 2 hours but then nurses for aaaages. I know half the time he’s doing it for comfort but every time I take him off he cries or it will wake him up completely. He has currently been awake nearly an hour just on my boob. I just don’t know how to wean him off without him going in to a complete meltdown. He has a lot of these awake times where he is wide awake but will just happily nurse the duration and then veryyyy slowly fall back to sleep. Yes I realise he may have gotten the sleep to feed association thing- but how do I break it?!? I’m at my wits end now and dying for some extra sleep. Any advice/tips would be great.

Do you have a partner who could do nights? If so, do a feed around 10-11 ish, then send him in to deal with baby until about three-four when another feed is due.

I'm in the same situation, plus she won't take a bottle so no chance of help. It's so hard

I only breastfeed so he can’t really do much during the nights. Will it ever get better?!? I just want some light at the end of this very long tunnel

7 months is still very early. I'm afraid you might still have some time to come, but it will pass, eventually.

Bf babies are more likely to feed at night. It's an evolutionary thing. Give him as late a dinner as possible, a bedtime feed and he may last for longer.

Yes, one morning you'll realise he didn't wake up!

I’m in the same situation. My son is almost 7 months and we are co-sleeping as it was the only way I could get a reasonable amount of sleep. He’s waking roughly every two hours still, and won’t be settled by anything but feeding.

So no advice but just to let you know you’re not alone!

Oils you co sleep so you at least get some sleep?

Could

My 8mo is the same (and was the same at 7mo). It’s very hard. I did get a bit of a break over Christmas when my H did exactly what ReaganSomerset suggested. Baby was fine settling for him (though he did wake a lot) because he didn’t anticipate a feed with H. However as soon as I am there he wants to feed back to sleep, so it’s not a long term “fix” (nor did I expect it to be as I don’t think he is doing anything wrong). I don’t actually have a problem with feeding for comfort etc because that is normal and good for babies - but it is worth seeing whether you can get a break for a night with your partner doing some of the wakeups

Same but with twins. It's better than it was. When I feel that fluttery suck and know they are just comfort-feeding, I gently detach using a fingertip to break the latch but keep them right beside me. It reduces the length of feed. Keep room v dim, avoid chatting and unnecessary nappy changes. White noise also useful.

Dd and ds are the same we co-sleep so half the time they just find the boob themselves in the night. I have been known to think that one child is on my boob when it is actually the other.

Mine always want boob more when teething.?

Does he take a dummy?

FWIW I cosleep most of the night so I don’t have to get up but it makes zero difference to the amount of sleep I get!

I exclusively breastfeed too, but as you say he's not hungry, your partner could deal with him by rocking singing, shushing. I read a study once (can't remember the name of the bloody thing) that showed that bf babies who were handed off to dad after the 10-11 feed to settle woke up less in the night.

My 7mo wakes when hungry at 11pm and 4am, unless ill or going through a clingy stage. I send her dad in (if I can rouse him!) at times when I know she's just had a feed and is therefore fussing rather than hungry.

Obviously, when going through growth spurts they do feed more and if you think it's genuine hunger, that's a different matter.

Does he feed well during the day? If so, and you're confident he's not hungry every time he wakes at night then you could decide on resettling him in a different way (singing, shushing, rocking etc). It probably won't happen without any crying but if he's genuinely just seeking help to get back to sleep you might find it works quite quickly.

How does he go to sleep for naps? I'd probably try to introduce a non-feeding approach at nap time first - because it feels like there's less to lose in the daytime, plus my resolve is stronger at 11am than 2am when I just want to be in bed asleep as quickly as possible! - and then once he's got the idea of falling asleep without feeding you can try it at night. You can go gradually, aiming to stretch out the time between feeds by an hour rather than cold turkey (I used to refuse to feed before midnight as a first goal and then aimed to have at least 3 hours before the next feed).

At this age, you don't have to change anything if you don't want to and I'm sure he'll figure it out in time. However, I equally think at this age they are not tiny newborns any more and your own wellbeing is also important. Sleep training is quite a contentious idea but I think it's possible to find a way that works for both you and your baby.

Yeah I guess I could try co sleeping, usually by 5/6 am he is in bed with us. Il try getting hubby to resettle him but the times he has tried he usually will look around for me. Maybe we could be a bit more stern and not give in after 2 seconds. Let’s see how the cosleeping goes maybe I won’t feel like such a zombie. It does help knowing others are going through it. It seems all my friends and families babies are perfect sleepers, and I’m the only one who’s baby doesn’t- so sometimes it does feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong.

People often don’t tell the truth - especially if they have sleep trained because they know it can be controversial and they don’t want people to know it’s not always a permanent “fix”