utter frustration

[bumblebeebzzzz]

small (7months) likes to feed himself to sleep, if we're out for naps he'll sleep in his buggy, we have a sleep routine and every two weeksish we have a day or two when he'll settle himself at night

then just when i think i've done it he goes back to needing to be fed to sleep. he's bf and won't take a bottle so night on night i'm spending an hour+ trying to get him to settle.

which is really just the beginning as he then wakes up every hour feeding for half hour, repeat process til i give up, go to bed, taking him with me. which means i now officially get no time off.

and nobody else will do. mummy every time or i'll bawl til she comes! i've tried getting daddy to put him to bed and get him when he cries at night but he just looks around for me then cries and cries and cries.

any ideas that don't involve letting him scream?

Had no responses then?

I'd say your best bet is to persevere with your routine. About this time with dd (9m) she started wanting to feed again at night. Try your hardest to stick to one plan, but allow for a few hiccups.
And I personally would say only feed at night if absolutely necessary...But I know that that can really vary from child to child. Is he actually looking to suckle? or will a rock do? If extreme hunger is a problem then I'd say starting by 3ish you want to be giving your lo food every 2 hours until the final feed of the night (just before they go to bed 'for good'), whether it be bf or solids or ff. (The old 'stuff them and they'll sleep longer if only because they can't be bothered to move make a fuss' routine )
And the number one rule of thumb for any night-time 'activities' is no talking on your part. Pick him up do your business and get him back into bed ASAP.
I'd also say try being consistent with the co sleeping.

I bf my two sons. The first stuck to a regular routine from a young age. The second was very like your LO - needed to be BF to sleep till over a year, and was having nightfeeds till about 21mths (although was down to about 1 by then, usually around 4am, and back in the cot then till 8am, which felt like a good deal to me - his older brother has always been a much earlier riser, 5.30-6.30am even now).

All I can offer is sympathy - you're not the only person to be going through this, not all babies "sleep through" at 12wks or whatever other claims you may hear.

I think if you've demand fed your LO, it is harder to do any sort of sleep training as once you're there, the ultimate comforter (i.e. your breasts) are there and it's just easier to feed them back to sleep rather than let the DP struggle for 30mns etc.) Added to which, a lot of people believe that 7mths is way too early to try sleep training (at least any that involves crying).

It might be a phase your wee one is going through - he may be teething or at some other developmental stage which makes it harder for him to settle after waking at night. Like the other poster says, try to minimise eye contact and chat at night & keep the lights and any other noise down.

I seem to remember that when DS2 first woke (around 11pm-midnight) that he was more tired than around 3-4am, and it was always easier to get him to settle without a breast at that time - I think I tried to introduce a beaker of water at that slot first. After a while he stopped waking at that time as it wasn't worth the effort. So you might want to try that if he will try a beaker (lots of exclusively BF babies won't take bottles, but if you persevere with a beaker (and I mean months!) he will get the hang of it eventually).

Have faith that it won't always be this hard. Try to get your head down in the daytime. If this is your only child at home it's tempting to use nap-times to catch up on housework/correspondence/hobbies etc., but never again will you have these opportunities to catch up on your sleep (i.e. if you have another baby!)

I was pretty much tied down to doing the bedtimes till nearly half way through DS2's second year - when he got used to taking milk from a beaker and also dropped his daytime naps and was falling into his cot around 6.30pm. Until then I resigned myself to the fact that I would be tied up between 7-8pm most evenings as I settled him, and just tried to reframe the situation in my mind as a nice hour's lie-down whilst DH did the dinner. As it was my second child I think I was a bit more philosophical about that, I remember first time round each "stage" seemed to last a decade.

Hope this helps, it's a bit rambling, but just wanted you to know that someone somewhere was reading your post and feeling the pain!

Snap! Though my monkey is 8 months old. He slept increasingly well until he was about 5.5 months old, 8-10 hours straight a night. Since then his sleep has got steadily worse, now requiring one to two hourly (but mercifully short) breastfeeds most nights. I have to do most evening settlings myself too as he very rarely falls asleep without a feed. I've just started following the 'no cry sleep solution' - one of the things I'm doing is getting him to come off the breast just before he's fast asleep to try to get him to do the last bit of nodding off on his own. I think there have been slight improvements already. I don't want any screaming either which is why I'm following the book and taking my time. If you're interested, let me know if you'd like a copy for free and I'll send you one - I was so tired I accidentally ordered too . Think of it as a gift from one tired mummy to another! I really hope things improve for you soon however you decide to manage things

Obviously I mean I ordered two, not too...sigh...!

YES PLEASE! sorry, been a while since i had a moment to look on here. doing my bloody nut. i try all sort of sensible things but he aint listening and has now got to a point where i'm having to put him down 2-4 times before he'll settle even if apparently asleep. haven't had a full nights sleep in over 7 months and am really quite mad at this point. don't think he's teething cos we had a waking up screaming in pain phase as everything came up but not through. been trying to attack it during the day cos he will settle in his pushchair but that just meant he didn't bf at all in the day (well, a total of 2 minutes)so the only boob milk he got was at night. agh agh agh agh agh agh agh!!!

Hi I am going through exactly the same thing, my little monkey is 6 mo. She is BF and won't take a bottle. She will only sleep if i bf her to sleep this is for naps and night. Nightime is really bad at the moment, and i can feed her at 6.30pm and she will be asleep by 7.15pm but can then be up every hour to two hours throughout the night and will only settle if i bf her. I went out for dinner with my friends for the first time in six months last week and she woke up about twenty minutes after i left and cried for two hours until i got back, my poor husband tried everything but she was having none of it, she wanted boobie! When i did get home she was so upset that it took me two more hours to get her to sleep.
She has also been sleeping in bed with me for the last month as its the only way that i can get some sleep but its not ideal as my husband has moved into the spare room as he is up early for work and doesn't sleep well with her in the bed.
My health visitor has told me i have to leave her to cry it out, but don't know if i can do this. Any advise would be great but just wanted you to know your not alone!!