Does anyone have any advice for my poor exhausted friend?

[HeadFairy]

Her ds is almost 10 months old, he had his first proper cold and cough recently which was obviously a shock to his system, he was ill for about 5 weeks and had to have antibiotics and a couple of trips to A&E. He's coming through it now, but he's totally regressed on sleeping and eating. He's got four teeth but refuses most solids (he'll have a bit of puree) and he's still breast feeding three or four times at night.

He doesn't sleep during the day and my poor friend is close to dropping with exhaustion. He has just cut his first teeth so I thought that might have been the problem, but they're through now and there's no sign of any others, plus he's not showing signs of any others coming through (no dribbling or chewing fists)

He resolutely refuses co sleeping, he kicks and thrashes whenever she tries, so that can't help her get some sleep. When she leaves him to cry at night he'll literally scream in fury for hours. I suggested giving him some water when he wakes up at night but apparently he gets really really angry at that too. It sounds to me like he's a bit of a milkaholic, is there a good way of helping him night wean?

Forgot to say, before he was ill he was sleeping through for about 6 weeks, with a dream feed at about 11pm, not waking until 7am.

He will take a while to get over this. She needs to treat him as she did when he was about 6 months old, and over a period of weeks he will relearn the development he had achieved before he became ill.

If he needs milk at night, he needs milk. He is convalescing, and trying to make any changes in this area will only make things worse.

Concentrate on what you (and others) can do in practical terms to support her with shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundrey etc so that she can focus on her ds.

HTH

He is probably desperately overtired, and she needs to establish a routine and put him down for at least 2 naps a day. Put him back onto his 6 month routine for at least a month, and he will improve.

Can you keep her supplied with meals on wheels etc? that way she can sleep whenever he does.

I had a horrible feeling that might be the answer. I said to her her ds will come back to it, but she's so desperate. It doesn't help that they're currently living at her dad's cos her house is being extended. I'm going round next monday to help clean up after the builders. I think lots will change once their back in their own house, but she's really at the end of her tether.

Poor thing - it sounds horrendous. But it really is the only answer. The more worked up she gets, the worse he will get. It sounds like she can't see the wood for the trees IYSWIM.

She really does have to take a step back and try and be objective. He is too little to understand anything, he has been ill, he has regressed (perfectly normal) and he is not in his own home.

He is responding exactly as a sick 10 month old would do, even without the added stress of being in unfamiliar surroundings.

She lives about an hour away and I work full time so I can't really help on a day to day basis.

Does it matter he's never really slept during the day? It didnt' matter when he was sleeping through because he was getting a good 12-14 hours a night. So he's never really been in a day time nap routine. Is it something she should try and introduce now? I think whenever she's tried he screams for hours, or he'll just sleep maybe 20 minutes.

Even 20 minutes is better than nothing. I used to put mine into the pram and walk round the block at about 11.00 am and they would sleep for anything from 20 minutes to 1 hour. then I would do the same at about 2pm. The eldest and the youngest would never sleep anywhere but their pram during the day. The middle one would go in his cot for a nap, but he was the easiest!

Routine is the key I think. It just makes coping easier.

As soon as they fell asleep I would race back home so that I could have a rest. I used to bring the pram into the hallway, and sit with my feet up in the front room.

To be honest I need to go and give her a good shake, she's one of those people who just won't sit down regardless of how tired they are. Whenever I say just sit down and have a cup of tea she'll say I've got so much to do!

That is really sad. She probably doesn't realise that she is most likely winding him up. He will be picking up on her stress; babies are emotional barometers.

I have a feeling that's probably the case. Even before this all started, when she was round at my house one evening I found her holding a wailing ds looking really tense (I'd just been bathing my ds) I said why don't you put him in the cot with the mobile on and see if he settles himself and she was really reluctant, understandably so, I know how hard it is to leave your baby to cry, but I said we could come and check on him again in a couple of minutes, and lo and behold he settled himself in a matter of minutes.

I do think she over stresses sometimes and this may be hindering any return to his normal routine. I don't think she's suffering from pnd. She's normally quite a highly strung person. I don't mean that in a bitchy way, more like, she's the sort of person to fret over things and worry whereas I'm much more slapdash. I just wish I could be there more often, it really sounds like she needs more help. Her dp works all hours and I don't think he sees how much stress she's under.