How to survive this? Feel like I'm dying

[bunny85]

Hi all.

I have a baby who's nearly 5 months old and a 4.5 year old. My older son has always been a terrible sleeper and the biggest fear I had was that this baby will be the same. Little did I know he was going to be 10 times worse... he's exclusively breastfed and we co-sleep (he hates the cot) and it's a living nightmare. It's a torture. He wants the boob all night long (not for milk I must add- comfort sucking most of the time. He's gaining lots of weight and there's plenty of milk). Also he is the lightest sleeper ever- if I turn ever so slightly in bed it wakes him up, let alone if I sneeze/want to drink water/go to toilet. I've been living on 2-3 broken hours a night since he was born, and in the last months of my pregnancy I didn't sleep either (pregnancy issues).

To say I'm irritable and don't enjoy life anymore is a huge understatement. I'm extremely ashamed of myself- I shout at everyone, scream, cry, curse at my children and even the baby, stomp my feet, cry again, and this is how the days go by... I'm lucky to have help during the day and I try to nap but even then he wakes me up. I don't know what it means to sleep 2h stretch or longer. Some nights he's up as often as every 20-30 mins when I try to remove my nipple from his mouth and it wakes him up and I have to settle him all over again. I tried my hardest to learn to sleep while breastfeeding (I know many women who can and do so) but I just can't sleep like this- the sucking disturbs me and my back aches from being unable to change position. When I manage to roll away he always turns on his tummy (this is the only way he likes to sleep) and often wakes himself up again. If he doesn't, then I get an hour or two of sleep if I'm lucky.

I feel deep shame, but also anger and like a failure. I must add my husband is trying to help with whatever he can at nights but there's not much he can do as the baby only wants the boob. I've hired a sleep consultant and I know he needs to be sleep trained but I just don't have any reserves, any energy, any strength left to go through few completely sleepless nights with him screaming while he learns to soothe himself back to sleep. I want to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months and then I'll give him formula at night only (this is the plan anyway, let's hope he takes the bottle) as I can't carry on anymore, but how do I survive these 4 weeks?? I count down days. I feel like a living dead...

I just wanted to vent, sorry for the rant. Don't even know why I posted... there's no solution to this misery...

I had exactly this and mine is now 9 months and will sleep all night in his cot with just one wake up usually. It will naturally get better over time without you doing anything extra. Just keep persevering/surviving and one day you'll realise you're over the worst.

Your situation sounds totally pants. And sorry if you've already tried this but maybe swaddling might be helpful?
I was lucky in that I could sleep with a baby attached but my son was like yours.
Literally cried if he didn't have a boob in his mouth at all times.
But it won't last. And I know that right now that must be hard to focus on, but you will get through this.

This is going to go down like a sack of spuds on here, but have you tried a bottle of formula before bed? It is heavier and 'sits' in their tummy to keep them fuller for longer.

Breastfed babies are notorious for being needy and bad sleepers, and people forget babies need quality sleep as much as they need good nutrition for their development.

I would give it a go for a week and see what happens, your supply won't tank at 4 months so you can always cut the bottle out if it doesnt work. I would start with 4oz or so and go from there.

Good luck!

Why do you want to exclusively bf? Why not give him a bottle now and get your DP you help you can go sleep elsewhere. EBF is great but not at the expense of your whole family.

I had a terrible sleeper and what I learned is a happy mum is what they need above everything else.

Just to add, I did start weaning him at 5 months as he is such a big baby and that had an instant positive effect on his sleep. Regardless of how much milk you have it's just not enough at a certain point for them.

I had this! I had a theraline pregnancy pillow that I put behind my back so I was sort of resting my back on it whilst still feeding and made a world of difference to how comfortable I was.

The health differences between a baby EBF to 4 months & 6 months will be absolutely minimal.

It sounds like your entire family is suffering, please don't feel guilty, just give it a go.

OP bless you, you brought back all the memories of horrible sleep deprivation. O feel for you, as both if mine were not good sleepers. With my first I did everything by the book, waited till 6 months to introduce foods alongside breastfeeding. With my second, as he was such a hungry baby and gaining loads I started at 4 months. Both were breastfed till nearly 3 years. The eldest only slept through at 4 years old! The second after I started giving him solids at 4 months. It all depends on the child. Get all the help you can.

I want to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months because I have diabetes myself and I was told by midwifes and doctors that 6 months exclusive BF reduces a risk of diabetes later in life for children. This is why I'm doing this. My older son never had formula as I breastfed for over 2 years, but I was younger and healthier and managed better (he was pretty much the same, only somewhat better). This time round I can only just about manage 6 month and then hopefully he'll take a bottle of formula at night and during the day I can still breastfeed (I don't mind at all).

As for swaddling, he rolls about non stop including in his sleep, he loves sleeping on his tummy only, and I heard swaddling can be dangerous or won't work at all. He's a big boy (91 centile) and very strong. I reckon he'll break through the swaddle and keep rolling anyway.

"The health differences between a baby EBF to 4 months & 6 months will be absolutely minimal."

They'll be non-existent more like. The first thing I thought was why are you doing this to yourself? He can have formula. And you can go to sleep

Or express and your husband can feed him during the night while you sleep

OP do you use a dummy? That could help too.

Have you tried a dummy? It might help as it seems he wants to suck all night.

Thanks for all the support and understanding and thank you for not blaming me for going mad at the children. I feel overwhelmed with guilt.

You are saying the health differences will be minimal or non existent, why then they say 6 months minimum? I was told so in hospital on many occasions and also from health visitors and also read on internet and on WHO website (which actually recommends 3 years of BF, but I can't do this...)

Another one here saying start to introduce formula and definitely a dummy. You need to sleep and so does your baby.

Yes he's taking the dummy but only when he's being rocked. So at night he will probably go back to sleep if I get up and give him dummy and rock him which is harder for me than just giving the boob. My husband tried rocking with the dummy but for whatever reason he doesn't seem to be able to rock him the way baby is used to (that's what I do for the naps etc when my husband is at work) so he rocks him differently and the baby only screams more and will wake himself up fully and then will take 2h to fall asleep again. Our house isn't too big and I'll hear everything from another bedroom and will only stay up anyway. We tried that...

I had this with my DD who is now 18 months. She’s was waking constantly at night to go on the breast and adding a bottle of formula at night and even weaning didn’t really improve things. I introduced a dummy and comforter at around 6 months also with limited success and was absolutely desperate.

I’ll probably get flamed for this but I stopped breastfeeding at 9 months and fed her all formula and within days she’d gone from around 7 wake ups + and sleeping only on me to sleeping in a cot for naps and at the start of bedtime. She still had 1/2 brief wake ups where I gave only water but the difference was amazing. Before if you made a sound she woke where as now I had some life back in the evenings as well as long stretches of sleep.

I had regrets about stopping BF and often now I wish I’d carried on but when I remember the months and months of barely any sleep I had, I think I made the right decision as I was so depressed and barely functioning.

Can completely understand why EBF is important to you. But, I would be having to consider the impact it is having on you, you must look after yourself also. Dummy or night time bottle might give you some rest. Xx

Thank you again so much to you all for taking time to reply and offer advise. He's asleep now so I must go to bed as well. I'll read everything properly and reply tomorrow morning. I promise I take everything you say on board. And even just posting it here helped a lot.

OP read your update re the diabetes. With that in mind, I would try hard with introducing the dummy. Buy a few, as babies have their preferences and keep offering him one at day too after feeds. This may work to fully resolve your issue with night time waking for suckling. You may want to consider not sleeping next to him as they can smell milk. And your husband can feed him expressed milk if you can pump any during the day and store it. Rest when he does and ask for help from friends, family and health care professionals. Could a parent/sibling/friend come and stay with you to help with night feeds?

I would definitely persevere with the dummy and your husband trying it,plus your husband giving him a bottle of EBM while you get a solid block of sleep earlier in the night. We have a small house with thin walls but with earplugs and white noise on, it works! But it will pass OP

Can you get a regular long nap of min 2-3 hours during the day? From, like, now?
That’ll give you something to work from and make a world of difference.
But absolutely a dummy or bottle wouldn’t be unreasonable I breastfed both of mine and they had short phases of needing boob in mouth to sleep as you describe and it was hell, I couldn’t have coped with it going on over a longer period.

When you unlatch him do you use your pinkie to break latch then keep your pinkie in his mouth for a minute or two Before slowly removing it? Or substitute his thumb

The bottle of EBM is a great idea which we have tried. What happens is this, he screams a lot when he's given a bottle at night and wakes himself up fully which then results in him being awake for 1-2h, all of which with noises and crying meaning I can't sleep anyway in another bedroom (using earplugs but still can hear, I have very light sleep). Naturally, he needs to be gotten used to the bottle during the day, which means lots and lots of pumping for me. Now this is the problem because I find it very uncomfortable and even painful and for me to express even 1 small bottle takes ages and lots of discomfort and even pain. For some strange reason, I don't have any letdown of milk at all when I pump, only when the baby sucks- then I feel the milk coming in full on and he starts swallowing and if he looses the nipple the milk is sprayed all over like from a shower. When I express nothing like this ever happens, it hardly comes out drop by drop. I recently discovered that if I let the baby suck for half a minute and then start pumping the milk flows. So I'm going to start doing that to get him used to the bottle during the day so hopefully he'll take it from my husband at night.

With the dummy there's also an issue. Suppose I breastfeed him lying down on the side. He then falls asleep and when he's up again I give him the dummy and he falls asleep again. Within minutes he starts shuffling about trying to turn on his tummy, rolls on his tummy with his face on top of the dummy. This wakes him up because he's not comfortable of course. The dummy comes out and his cheek is on top of it and it wakes him up.

I must add the worst thing for me) that can happen during the night is if he gets fully awake (which can happen very easily if boob isn't given to him immediately). He's then up for hours and I just can't handle this long stretch of no sleep at all. My husband helps out a lot at nights but he's also working long hours and 6 days a week and he needs rest as well so he can't do this all the time so we try to take turns.

At the moment life is such a blur for me and it's hard to decide what to do. I'm going to express the milk today. I'm also going to try to sleep during all the naps...

I cosleep with my BF DD and I wedge a pillow very firmly.under.my back whilst lying on my side. Then I can roll onto the pillow so it feels like I'm lying on my back but there's just enough angle so DD can still latch on. I can't sleep on my side since giving birth it hurts! It gets easier as they get more mobile as she can get up and latch herself back on ( sometimes i wake up with her lying on my tummy) and it doesn't disturb me as much.. apart from when she lies on my throat lol. It's so so hard,I've got her to where she initially in falls asleep in her cot but then bring her into bed when she wakes up. We still have ups and downs but generally sleep is ok now but I have been where you are and have nothing but sympathy!