4.5 month old constant comfort feeding at night?

[Jaggy1]

Hello,

my 4.5 month old is driving me crazy. I thought we were out of the regression, we had 4 awful weeks then 5 good nights in a row. The last few nights have been so bad though. He wakes every hour if I’m even lucky that it is an hour sometimes it’s 30 mins and the absolute only thing I can do is pick him up out the next to me and give him a boob. He falls asleep in my arms with a dummy for all naps and for the start of nighttime, so I try and offer the dummy back to him in his bed when he wakes but he goes crazy until I bring him out, then he will either take the dummy and fall asleep on me or it has to be a boob. He can feed for 2 mins and fall asleep just staying suckling. I’ve tried unlatching him as soon as he’s stopped eating but it just isn’t doing anything.

I can’t leave him to cry it out he’s terrible at self soothing and we live in a flat with upstairs and downstairs neighbours he ant be screaming all hours so I give in.

would I find any success in switching to offering bottles at night do you think? As he’d realise he isn’t getting the boob comfort? Or is he just too young and I should comfort him if he needs it? It’s just so hard to never get a chunk of sleep in my life 🤣 happy to hear all suggestions or even just sympathies lol if this is t something I can fix yet!

His sucking will be increasing your milk supply. It could be your supply has dropped due to the use of a dummy. Can you offer the breast more often during the day?

Using bottles and dummies will reduce your milk supply.

Thanks for replying!

I always offer him a feed before bed or a nap, he usually takes some but he starts turning away and refusing it the more tired he gets so that’s why we give the dummy it doesn’t really replace any feeds.
Im Definitely gonna try and offer him more throughout the day yeah, sometimes I do offer it when I think he could be hungry but he just turns away completely or won’t go down to boob until he’s ready 🤣

I also don’t want to start offering bottles and stuff even if it’s expressed as it’s a lot to keep up with it’s just so hard when I always seem to see bottle fed babies sleep through and he just won’t, never ever been a good sleeper 🤣

You are doing a wonderful job, giving your baby the very best start in the world. I breastfed three babies and it does have its ups and downs. I just had to remind myself that my baby was getting the very best nourishment and that kept me going. I’m also pretty lazy, so for me faffing about with sterilising bottles and making up feeds was not appealing.