I need help!

[poppyflower1803]

Hi,

This will be a long one!
I am in desperate need of some sleep help and advice.

DD, one week off being 6 months old, EBF has been waking every 40 minutes -every three hours if we are lucky. Tonight she slept for a couple hours straight until 2am where she has been up, literally, every 40 minutes. She has been like this for 2-3 weeks now (maybe a regression, though feels like we never left the 4 month one ). Before, she was waking maybe 2-3 times a night for a feed and before 3.5 months, she was able to sleep through the night. In fact, she was such a good sleeper as a newborn, it would take me ages to rouse her when she was due a feed during the night and she would sleep through nappy changes!

I am absolutely exhausted and at a complete loss. I am thinking about sleep training, though would prefer a gentler method but not sure I can wait and Keep up with a routine without seeing any results for a while! I need change and fast 😅

She has two sleep associations, feeding to sleep and being bounced on a yoga ball and unless she is in the car or the pram, cannot fall asleep by herself. How on earth do I break these? I presume sleep training again. I have tried the PUPD method, she just screams even more when I put her back down and I have tried just putting her in drowsy but awake whilst comforting her but again, she just screams.

Another issue is, she goes to bed between 9-10pm! She has 5 naps a day, usually short 1/2 hour ones with the occasional nap being over an hour (either contact nap or in the pram). She starts nursery soon, so this is not going to work, how do I bring her routine forward? I have tried longing her wake window before her last nap a bit more and then doing an earlier night time routine, and it just creates a very broken night with a super early start. No good for when you have no sleep!

I have bought the millpond book as recommended by my Heath visitor, but their method takes around 6 weeks to work, and I just don't know if I have the stamina at the moment.

Sorry for the rambling post, it's 5am and I am shattered.
Any advice is much welcome ♥️

@LapinR0se can I ask a question about your routine? If you wake the baby at 7am and give them a feed, what do you do if they fall back to sleep during the feed? Do you wake them up again?

Sorry OP, for jumping on your thread!

Yes you wake them up if they fall asleep during a feed

On sleep associations, I always imagined it was like moving to a country where sleep is done differently. Like if you moved to Japan and stayed somewhere where you slept on a tatami mat on the floor with your family all in one room, you'd find it odd and probably not sleep so well the first few nights. After a while you'd get used to it and find the idea of a soft bed and duvet a bit weird.

When babies cry, they're saying they're tired and want to go to sleep and they think they need to usual stuff to go to sleep. Until they go to sleep a different way. Then after a bit they think, oh right my cot, I went to sleep in here before, here's my teddy etc - maybe I don't need milk, jiggling etc. It just takes a bit of time to change the associations.