Hi there, I would be very grateful if anyone can offer any suggestions about this. DD is 6 months old. She used to go to bed at half ten/eleven in the evening and sleep thru till seven or eight. I wonder if we should have stayed with this routine, but trying to put her to bed earlier was impossible, she would feed from me on and off all evening whilst sitting up with us before falling asleep (and yes, i did always nurse her to sleep- otherwise she wouldnt sleep ). So anyway, my MIL lives nearby and was doing the odd stint of babysitting and this was chaos- DD wouldnt feed from a bottle, EBM or formula, and would cry v hard till we came home. We have now stopped all attempts at going out, it was too traumatic. MIL has gone on at us for ages about not putting DD to bed early enough. We decided she was right and that we would have to change things so we could have evenings to ourselves, partly fearing that as she's nearly crawling life would get a lot more chaotic once she's no longer so easily contained!
So, we have over the last few weeks managed to get her to bed at half eight/nine pm, it seems to have come about also because we have been stepping up the solids and she is tired earlier. But- all is not yet well. To summarise! for 3 weeks or so now she has been up feeding at night more than before. Maybe at 1-ish then 5-ish, after bed at 9 and up at 8/7.This seems to be worse when she hasnt eaten well in the day, so we are trying really hard to get her to eat well 3 or 4 times per day-which isnt easy she seems mainly interested in eating crumbs of white buttery toast. But anyway, the main problem is often these days shes up and ready to go at half 5/6. This is killing me! DH works long hours and needs his sleep so Im having to go without sleep. Weve tried going to bed earlier but I guess im a bit undisciplined, we did go to bed at twenty past ten last night, but dd was up 5:40 and i feel like crap again....Is this just parenthood, should I just get used to it! Should we put her in her own room- at the mo' she's in a travel cot next to us and after an early morning feed i normally keep her in bed with us in the hope she will go back to sleep- in reality she and I both wriggle around and neither of us really sleeps. Would weaning her help? I cant see that it would, it would still be me feeding her, just different stuff. Should I try to embrace early starts and change my life even more than I already have- goodbye lounging in front of the fire watching TV/seeing friends in evenings. hello watching the sunrise? We really dont know if we should try to go back to how we were, it was pretty great playing with her all evening, apart from when we were knackered, but we did feel very criticized by everyone! She just seems to only need 8 hours or so of sleep at night. Can anyone suggest ways to get us into that 7 till 7 routine that MIL keeps going on about? Thanks very much for any tips, sorry Ive written a book here.