I can't get back to sleep after 3am breastfeed

[weepingwillow22]

I have a 10 month old who still wakes at night for one breastfeed which is between 3 and 4am. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that I can't get back to sleep after and I am exhausted.

Does anyone have a tips for me? I have tried night weaning but I think he is genuinely hungry. He is in his own room as he sleeps better this way but I keep all the lights off to avoid waking myself up. I try to stay off my phone until I reach the point where I give up on going back to sleep.

It doesn't help that my older son who has asd always wakes for the day at 5.30am so it feels like the clock is ticking to get back to sleep. Please help, the lack of sleep is making me feel very down.

Hi Willow, have you tried rousing him for a dream feed at 10pm before you go to bed? He may not wake up at 3 that way.

He really shouldn't need to have milk in the night at 10 months old. Could you give him some yogurt and fruit an hour before bed and see if that makes a difference? How many meals does he have during the day?

I have experienced exactly this. It’s almost as though by 3/4am you’ve had ‘enough’ sleep so that you don’t immediately go straight back off and then the pressure of knowing you’ll be woken soon anyway makes it a countdown game.

Unfortunately I have no tips but just wanted to say that it won’t stay like this forever although it might seem like you may never get a full nights sleep again, you will. Hang in there xx

Thanks all. Guineapig I did wonder about trying a dream feed but thought 10 months is a bit late to introduce one, might be worth a try though thanks for the suggestion.

I agree smile however he eats a huge amount during the day already. He seems like an extremely hungry baby and is pretty chubby. I did try sending by OH in for a few nights at 3am with water but he just would not resettle.

Thanks for the sympathy tanqueray. Hopefully it will improve with time but I am returning to work soon and was hoping to get this sorted first. Over the last few weeks his wake time has been moving nearer to 4 than 3 so maybe it will gradually improve. The later it is though the harder it is for me to get back to sleep.

I think part of the problem is that I am worrying about things when I am trying to get back to sleep. Mainly related to an extension we are having built and builder issues, but that is a whole other thread!

No advice, but you have my sympathy.

This happens to me loads and it is insanely annoying and depressing. We've decided to night wean quite soon as it seems ridiculous to continue like this!

I'm not sure if you are looking for tips to get back to sleep yourself, or to stop him waking up? I have one of each though ;)
I'm in the midst of sleep training (DS is 14 months, so slightly older, but apparently the same advice applies from 8 months) and we are down from the all night boob buffet of a few weeks ago to one 3am feed. My plan now is to gradually reduce the length of the feed - so if you halve it each night it ends up being very short and hopefully he won't then wake up at all if he knows he won't get a full feed. I'm finding that he goes to sleep happily when I stop feeding (having always fed to sleep before now) so whether you can try this or not probably depends on if you currently feed to sleep or not.
And when I then go back to bed and can't sleep I use a sleep mp3 (I use one from the hypnobirthing teacher Holly de Cruz) which I play from my phone, tucked under my pillow with the volume down so low it doesn't wake DP, but I can still hear it. That sends me straight off and stops the mental chatter most nights!

Thanks toomany. I will give the shortened feed a try tonight. The mp3 sounds like a good idea too. I do find audiobooks sometimes help or episodes of the archers are quite sleep inducing!