Hello, in the past week I've had norovirus and then mastitis. I'm on antibiotics but the symptoms of the mastitis have passed except for my boob still feeling a bit sore. The baby had noro too, but seemed to recover very quickly. Very smiley and jolly the day after the night when we were both very sick.
However, his sleep has taken a real turn for the worse since the various illnesses started. He is waking 3 or 4 times a night instead of the usual 2, wants feeding at all of them (previously he would have settled ok with just some rocking etc if he did have a 3rd wake early in the night). Sometimes hes up for over an hour for the wakes and will fall asleep on me but wake and cry the moment I put him down. He's been perfectly happy sleeping in his crib for months now! We've been doing some gentle sleep training (started before we got sick), putting him down awake and picking him up to calm if he cries but making sure he falls asleep in the crib. He will usually fall asleep after 30 mins or so. That's supposed to help him self settle in the night but doesn't seem to be working at all.
I'm trying to work out what's going on and would appreciate any thoughts....he's 5 months 3 weeks. Things I think it could be
- my milk supply has reduced. His total feeding time since the mastitis started has increased by over an hour and he's not especially keen on the mastitis boob, I think because he's not getting much from it. So maybe waking more and awake longer because needs to feed more and for longer.
- maybe cold? He's in a short sleeved vest, sleepsuit and 2.5 tog bag but he's been wearing that for a little while and it's definitely turned a bit colder in the last week or so. I think it's going down to 16C in the room at night. So maybe he needs a 3.5 tog / we need to put the heating on more. Might be why he falls asleep on me but doesn't like the crib.
- could his crib be too small? He's big for his age and is in a cosleeper still with wooden bars. Sometimes when we put him in it feels like trying to thread a needle!
- are we doing something wrong with the sleep training?