My nearly 6 month old wants to nurse every hour at night, should I stop this?

[August21yellowbaby]

My son is nearly 6 months old, his sleep is worse now than ever, he was sleeping some 7 hour stretches until 4 month sleep regression!! He's now waking up hourly (on the dot) and wants feeding. I know he can't possibly be hungry for most of these wakings, and just wants to latch on.
Should I become a little stricter and not feed him every time? I know he will cry if I don't but I feel like he's never going to stop this habit unless I deal with it

I'm getting no sleep even with co sleeping which I really didn't want to do. My mood is so low and I have no life, I just want some sleep

I just don't want to do it if it's going to make things worse

Have you tried a dummy? That might satisfy the urge to suck. I didn't breastfeed as had twins and i cant imagine how tired you must be. IMO would use a dummy and see if it soothes/stops the wakeups. Sleep is so important x

Also personally i would use this opportunity to stop co sleeping as he can smell/sense you are near and put him in a cot nearby.
He will get used to it and probably wake up less as you aren't right there.

Sleep is developmental, he'll get there in his own time. In the meantime do whatever you need to to maximise sleep. When my son was going through this I co-slept, refused to do any house work when he was napping or sleeping maximising my chances to rest and gritted my teeth!

Hourly wake ups are brutal but they will pass.

Is he teething? Breastfeeding reduces pain. Also breatmilk at night is full of melatonin so will help you both get to sleep quicker.

Hang in there!

I'm in the same boat except it's every 45 minutes and it's soul destroying!

The paediatrician told us today to try having my DH attend to DS at night and I'll sleep in a different room. DH will only bring him to me when he's genuinely hungry.

The dr said he will cry a lot but it's the only way to break the sleep-feed association.

We have a toddler too so it looks like we're all in for a rough few nights I'm at breaking point though so we have to try something.

My second child did this for months. It was bloody hard work but didn’t last forever

@maltesers99

Have you tried a dummy? That might satisfy the urge to suck. I didn't breastfeed as had twins and i cant imagine how tired you must be. IMO would use a dummy and see if it soothes/stops the wakeups. Sleep is so important x

He won't take a dummy at night, only for naps in the day

My son is just over 5 months and can go through patches of waking hourly. It was much worse at 3/4 months though, like every 45 minutes. I hear at 6 months it can get tougher yet again, so I'm pretty terrified, but I'm putting an action plan together and practicing it now; such as early nights and getting us both used to him spending time away from me through the day with family members, so I can have a long nap while he's being looked after by them.

It's too hard to know what they're really needing at this age, like are they waking for a feed because they're plain hungry or is it due to a growth spurt, is it teething, if they've started solids is it their digestive system making them uncomfortable, is it the need for security... so many variables, and nursing does tend to be the answer to them all. At 1 year old their need for milk is nowhere near as important, so experimenting with refusing the breast is a bit safer imo. I know it's another 6 months, but... you've come this far, maybe just see how he's getting on at closer to 1? Has he started on solids? If so, I wouldn't do anything that could impact milk supply at this stage if I were you, it will likely only exasperate things.

It is so, so common though. It's just their biology, you've not made any mistakes and he isn't broken. It helps a little to remind myself that babies have been waking frequently for millenia, and that they aren't the problem, it's often the lack of help and support we get through the day that does us in. That's the only unnatural part. My advice would be to try to make as much improvement in that area as you can first, before experimenting with refusing the boob.

Hi op, my dd was exactly the same at 6 months. I've found the 4 month sleep regression the most trying one so far. My dh suggested we try her in her cot in her nursery. I was hesitant as I liked her in the next to me crib but we agreed that if she woke up more than twice in the night she'd come back into our room. That night she woke up once and fed once. The next two nights she didn't wake up at all. I think because she couldn't smell milk when she woke up that helped. Since then she's had periods of having bad nights because of teething or illness but generally she's a good sleeper. I think she'd got to a size where she needed more space to wriggle around in her sleep and liked that she had that extra room in her cot. I sleep with the baby monitor next to me so that if she stirs in the night I can see whether she's actually awake or just resettling herself. I still breastfeed her at 16 months but she's beginning to be less interested in using it to feed to sleep and will latch on for a few minutes, have a story, a cuddle and I lay her in her cot drowsy. I never thought this change would be led by her after so many months of feeding to sleep but it's worked for us. Would you consider trying to move your ds into his cot to see if having some extra room would help? How close to 6 months is he?

We normally use a Next to Me coy but I recently co-slept for 6 nights out of necessity when the hotel I stayed at gave me a travel cot with an ill fitting unsafe mattress. The first night was okay but by the second night my son realised I was right there anytime he fancied a feed and was waking way more often than usual wanting to latch on. It was awful, his sleep was way worse during it. Would you try getting him to sleep in a cot rather than co-sleeping for a bit and he might wake less often?

@August21yellowbaby I could have written that myself at the moment. My baby was never a good sleeper but eventually she was doing 6hr stretches. We hit the 4m regression then teething then unwell with two back to back viruses! We coslept during this time as I bf and she was very unsettled. Now she’s 6 months and woke every 30-50m in the next to me, we’ve brought her large cot into our bedroom so she’s got more space but she’s either waking when I transfer her or shortly after. Most of the time she wants to latch back on and will cry until I let her. If she’s stopped feeding I unlatch and rock her but I’m barely getting any sleep at all as I’m sat with her between wakings. How did this end up for you?