Nearly 5 month old barely sleeping at night - I am going insane and so exhausted

[PiperG]

I posted on here a few weeks ago about my DS not sleeping well at night - waking every hour or 2. Since then though it's got worse in that it's more like every hour - he doesn't even seem to be able to manage 2 hours. It must be him hitting that light point in a sleep cycle when he wakes, and then wanting to breastfeed to go back to sleep - this seems to be the only way to settle him. Nothing else works. He won't take dummy, won't calm when I bounce him in his Amby hammock or take him out to swing him. I can put him down to bed around 7 ish (feeds to sleep), then he wakes usually an hour or 2 later. Last night he then woke at 9, 10.30, 12, 1.30, then I think he did a couple hours till 4, then again every hour till 7.

I don't know how to get out of this feeding to sleep cycle and feel horribly horribly stuck - I'm so shattered from not having had more than 2 hours sleep in a row in I don't know how long. Was in tears in the night and again today I just keep crying, I feel so exhausted and unable to decide what to do to make it better.

I think I've got to get him on the odd bottle of formula in the hope that it might get him to sleep for longer periods, or at least so I can have a break. I just don't have the time or energy to express. I really don't mind doing this - I don't have any huge guilt about it or anything - he's been solely breastfeed for almost 5 months and I was planning to get him onto formula at 6 months anyway to give me a bit of a break (also have DD 2 years). Maybe he's hungry - he's a big baby - maybe he even needs to be started on baby rice. I just don't know! Does anyone have any advice or ideas - very very welcome

PiperG-I'm no expert but here goes.....
I will probably get shot by most MNetters but here goes.I would give him a bottle of Formula then maybe somebody else can give you break so you can get some sleep.If you alredy planning to do this at 6 months why not bring it forward a bit?
If you know he is having a full feed late at night then you know he is not waking for hunger and just wants some comfort and a cuddle (who wouldn't if it was on offer!)
Have you tried leaving him for a while to see if he settles again?
It may also be worth getting him checked over by the GP just to put your mind at rest that nothing is wrong.
Have you had a chat with your Health Visitor?They can sometines point you in the right direction.
Hope this helps in some way.

Hi PiperG. Just wrote a very similar post on the "sleeping and AP" thread. DS is 20 weeks and started to wake at least every 2h about two weeks ago, unfortunately around the same time I returned to work. I haven't gotten more than 2h for several weeks now and I am soooo tired. I believe it could be developmental, since it seems to be quite common around that age. I currently try to resist and carry him around for a while (30min) before resettling him in his crib + dummy. However, this way it takes me about an hour to resettle him and I get even less sleep!!!! Am wondering if I should go back to BF him to sleep -- this way I get at least 2h. Sorry, no help, but lots of understanding!
Let me know what you try.

does your dp snore? do you? have you tried him in another room (i know, not ideal but still...) what does calm him apart from feeding?

hi,
is he sick? my ds had an ear infection and i didn't know. i felt awful - he was waking every 1.5-2 hours and i was breast feeding on demand.
i also give my son a dummy to settle him. he may be growing through a growth spurt (stock answer, i know!)

agree that if you were planning to ff at 6 months, just bring it forward - no sense in torturing yourself for no reason and 5 months breastfeeding is really good!!!!

hth

hi! my dd is 18wks and waking much more frequently too, someone posted this article on our PN thread, thought it all sounded quite true!

ps sorry, should say, although it offers an explanation it doesn't offer a solution sadly

he needs at some point to learn to go to sleep without feeding. Have you tried a dummy?

Gentle way = no cry sleep solution - works for some I think bit takes a long time. Less gentle way = let him cry to sleep - with you there comforting but not feeding him. Whatever you feel you can do - but you need to break this sleep association for both your sakes...

Caz10 - that article is great. I have a 5 month old who is just like that. He only feeds at night because he has no distractions. Two nights ago it was every hour and a half which was knackering, especially when the following day you have a 2 yo to entertain as well! At least I get a bit of a break when DD goes to nursery and DS has no distractions and feeds properly.

PiperG - I spoke to my community nurse about this just this morning, and asked about starting weaning. She said it's ok to wait, but if I want to I can, whatever I feel comfortable with. I sometimes get rid of DH so that DS sleeps next to me in the bed, and that closeness canhelp him get into a deep enough sleep to then be transferred into the cot. Last night I got 4 hours uninterrupted doing this. Hope it gets better for you soon.

don't slate me for this mumsnetters, but my ds started doing this from 4 months, and we started weaning him. it made a huge difference.

his sleep pattern prior to that sounded pretty much like yours. he was also a large baby, and i was feeding him 9+ times in 24 hrs and it still wasn't enough.

(that's my advice, you can bin it if you want!)

either way, huge sympathy. sleep deprivation like that makes you feel like you are existing, and only just.

The whole Pick Up/Put Down Baby Whisperer method worked for us when DS also went through 4 month wobblies. It was difficult although he still woke at about 4ish and wouldn't settle unless fed so he was obviously hungry but it proved that previous wakings weren't hunger related.

I have come to believe that if they don't eat properly during the day then you'll pay for it at night. I kind of agree that you need to break the sleep association because if you don't this will continue. I don't believe in letting them cry it out but cuddling them until they calm down, putting them back and repeating until they finally settle only takes maybe 20 or 30 minutes. Thats an improvement on where you are at.

Best of luck with whatever you choose to do and I truly sympathise.

i am just feeding dd when she wakes at the moment - it is only taking her 15 mins to feed from both boobs and then goes straight back down into a really sound sleep - figure that is less stressful than probably MORE than 15mins trying to soothe without feeding, plus it gets some calories into her. BUT she is only 4 mths, will prob rethink that when she is 6mths+

do what suits you and don't worry about bad habits etc - do whatever lets you get most sleep!!

hi. we are having exactly this pattern with ds2 4 months. he used to sleep for one 4hr stretch, but now wakes every 1-2 hrs. trying to resettle him takes ages. last night 2.5 hrs!

if you give formula be aware that it probably won't change his sleep, although someone else could do that feed, and it will probably start the end of bf.

there are plenty of formula fed babies who don't sleep well.

i have no answers, struggling myself, you are not alone

i have moved dh into spare room and am co-sleeping as at least i can feed in my sleep almost! am making no progress with no cry sleep solution, but she says it takes time!

Hi - poor you, I do sympathise and have a similar problem. My 4 month old was sleeping 8pm - 4pm at 3 months and then started to wake at 1am ish then 3 or 4 am ish then 6am ish at 4 months. I try to feed him as often as possible during the day (sometimes every 1.5 - 2 hrs) but as the article says, there is so much going on during the day, and he is so nosey that I have to keep at the feeds until I know he's really finished! What I've started to do again is co-sleep after the first feed, so that I can just go back to sleep whilst he's feeding and there's less fuss when he needs to feed again. My baby is definitely hungry during the night as he feeds really well and empties both boobs if offered (I usually fall asleep whilst he's on the first though, and so does he!).

Can you go to bed when your toddler does? Take the baby with you and feed to sleep, then pop a dummy in when they are asleep? I sometimes have my baby in the crook of my arm with the dummy kind of leaning against my boob and he's none the wiser . We had stopped using the dummy, but what with teething and development he needs it occasionally just to give me a break, and I can sleep better when he's not nuzzling away all night.

As for the formula, it might work, so might the weaning (I weaned my elder two at 3 months because of sudden wakefulness at night - it worked, but not advised so early now, but 5 months is OK according to my HV).

Whatever feels right to you, most importantly whatever will give you more sleep in the short-term. Long term, I would think, is out of reach for you at the moment when you are so tired .

Good luck and keep us posted on how you are doing.

Message withdrawn

4/5 months is a notoriously terrible time for sleep -- I think a lot of it is developmental (learning to roll etc). DS was appalling around this time, we got through it by co-sleeping. At the time he would only BF to sleep but by 6/7 months he started being able to settle in other ways. So no magic answers I'm afraid, I think at this age you just do what you can to survive (co-sleep, nap during the day if you can). The No-Cry Sleep Solution has lots of good ideas too.

Me again. I had the best night in weeks. I got 4h of uninterrupted sleep and feel like a new person. I fed him at 7pm, then at 10:30. He normally falls asleep at the first side but I sneaked the second side in while he was sleeping.
Next thing I woke up refreshed and happy to a hungry boy at 3am!! Again fed from both sides and got sleep from 4am-7am! Now, this might have been a one off. DS got immunisations yesterday and I had planned to BF him each time he would come. But the world look completely different to me today.

Well, I reread my last post and realised it sounds like I am not feeding my hungry baby. I always feed him when he seems hungry. But often when he wakes up in the night I think he is not hungry but wants to sleep. If I feed him has to to eliminate and wakes up again, so it's a vicious cycle.

How was your night?

That's great glimmer!!! Was it the feeding from both sides that did it do you think? Hopefully you'll get a few more nights that are similar.

My baby decided to wake at 1.30am and fed pretty much until 7am ! Hopefully we won't have the same again tonight!

hope it stays this way glimmer! I've had similar problems, though improving now. I think probably it's unlikely he actually needs milk if he's waking so frequently, so wouldn't feel bad about not feeding him. All depends how you want to go. If you're knackered and getting frustrated at situation, think about controlled comforting/ controlled crying, as will likely have pretty fast results. If you don't think this is for you, I'd suggest no cry sleep solution - puting him in his cot sleepy but awake, and gradually dissociating breast-sleep. It might just work itself out with doing nothing, but I couldn't wait to see! Good luck

Thanks all for your advice. It's so good to know there are other people out there going through the same thing ... DS is still sleeping terribly, though has done a few almost 3 hour stretches recently. He's just completely inconsistent and I never know what each night is going to be like. Who else goes to bed with a feeling of dread? I sort of have this faith that he will get better with time - whether that's naive I don't know! I will keep reading the No Cry Sleep Solution for ideas and maybe try Pick Up/Put Down at some point too when I have my brain back to think about it all properly.

Glimmer, I know what you mean about the resettling - I haven't even been brave enough to try it properly yet, as he just cries so much - and I know it'll take hours (if it works at all) when I can just feed him and get him off again very quickly. I can't be doing with even less sleep than I'm getting or I'll be a walking zombie! For the time being I kind of need to go the easy route, or at least a more gentle one. I am trying to ease him off the nipple more (the Pantley Gentle removal plan from the No Cry Sleep Solution) which is quite successful though still feels a long way off him actually being able to go back to sleep without the boob at all.

Caz10, great article, and does make lots of sense - I reckon my DS doesn't eat enough in the day either, and I need to get him to feed more. Glimmer like you I am trying to get him to take from both boobs at night so he gets a proper feed and doesn't wake up an hour later hungry again. I am trying to give him formula but he's not interested, so am trying expressed for a bit to see if it's the bottle he hates or the formula (probably both ...) Will also start some baby rice soon I reckon as he's so big and sooo fascinated by food and can pretty much sit up in his Bumbo now.

Tellyaddict, I've tried a dummy so many times but he won't take one!

Hope you are all getting a bit of sleep ...!

hello, wondered how you were doing. no improvement here, in fact, going backwards, ds only i cot for first 30mins of night, then on our bed whilst i wolf down food and go back to join him.
off to bed again now

Weasle, we seem to be going backwards too - terrible terrible night last night when he was awake every hour and I had to feed him almost all of those times. I am sure that he is teething - he's dribbly and chomps on everything and recently has been v unsettled in the day too - tried Calpol last night but it didn't help him to sleep at all. Bonjela seems to do nowt either so am wondering what on earth I can do to help him. Also doing lots of rather runny poos - 2 in the night last night - don't suppose that is helping him sleep. I just don't really know what to do now cos think I just have to ride this teething out! Or is it worth trying some different settling techniques - I just don't know ...

Just want to second the person who suggested trying the pick-up/put-down technique. We were having exactly the same problemas as you all describe and an angelic mumsnetter suggested p-u/p-d. We read up on it in The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems book, tried it, and honestly - it solved our problems in a week! Obviously different things suit different folks and the book does tell you off somewhat, but if you can get past that, I'd highly recommend giving it a go. Was a huge relief to both us and our ds to finally get a decent night's sleep.

Well, we are back to frequent wakings again. I still think it's developmental - DS is figuring out how to stand, roll and sit at the same time . All the sudden we are co-sleeping (this just happened: I fall asleep when I feed him) - but it seems to work for us now (I tired co-sleeping before and it didn't work for us). So for now this is what we do, but if the problem will stay around four a long time, we'll try to do the resettling again. It's tricky, isn't it? I do not want to introduce bad habits, but definitely want to be there for responding to his needs. How are you getting on?

Piper G- am so with you, up til a week ago my DS of 21 weeks was going simply nuts. I just responded on another thread so look it up and see what I did, and my baby has slept through yes through as in 7- 6 for the last five nights. Crucial I believe is the "dream feed" bottle of formula I give him at 10.30 (or rather my DH does so I can sleep), otherwise he's breastfed. I also just started weaning him but think it's too early for that to be making a difference.
But I Sssoooo understand the "dreading the nights" feeling, it grinds you down, and just as a start I 100% recommend the formula option just to get you some sleep.
Bonne chance it will really get better xxx