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Sleep

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Original poster

DD - 17 weeks - still waking 3 hourly at night

23 replies

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 10:51

DD is 17 weeks

happy, healthy & gaining weight (slowly but following her line)

she has stopped cluster feeding (at around 15.5 weeks) and now she has a bath and a mega feed before bed at 7.30/8 pm

she then wakes for a feed at 10.30/11 pm and i try to give her a mega feed again (both sides)

she will then wake 3 hours later (so 2 ish and 5 ish)

she does feed then - usually one sided (but gulping not just a comfort suck)

i am getting to the point where after 4 months of very little/broken sleep i am starting to feel upset and teary the whole time

i am back to work in 3 months (and yes i know it is a while) but i am so worried that i am going to be going back to work on no sleep

at the end of Dec/Jan she was easily giving me 5/6/7 hour stretch and having a one sided feed and back down for 4/5 hours

this all changed about a month ago when she started waking 2 hourly

any advice/solidarity would be appreciated

TIA

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mistlethrush · 11/02/2010 10:53

Sorry, can't help on the reassurance etc as I went back to work when ds was 6mo, and on a good night I only got woken once during the night.

Can you make sure that you get a chance for a lie in at the weekend etc so that you can catch up a bit?

Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 11:03

DH will get up with DS on the weekends so i can wait until DD wakes up at 8 ish

she is EBF, so won't take a bottle without screaming like she is being tortured

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Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 15:06

any ideas?

was thinking of changing her nappy at the 2 am feed to wake her up a bit more to try to get her to take more food and maybe go through a bit longer

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RubyBuckleberry · 11/02/2010 15:45

no advice ruby sorry, just thought i'd say i am in the same boat. ds is ebf and two weeks ago was waking every 2 hours! and feeding frenzy during the day - bonkers - i now have LOADs of milk though so... think he was just upping my supply as at one point it was like he had drunk it all - i still had let downs but would have to do three sides iyswim... he's gone back now though to bed at 6, feed at 10, 2 5 - a good night he'll do 12 and 4 but haven't had one of those for a while . around the ten week mark he was doing 6-12/1/2 or even 3, in which case i woke up engorged! i am hoping a longer stretch of sleep is round the corner!

RubyBuckleberry · 11/02/2010 15:47

oh and sometime i have to change his nappy at 2 or 5 or whatever cos he does the most enormous poos - he is chowing down on so much milk! it doesn't make much difference though!

Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 16:31

ah - a fellow ruby

my supply is fab - i have been leaking for the past 2 weeks, after not wearing breast pads since DD was 4 weeks old

your DS sounds like my DD - feeding times are almost the same

hope you get some rest soon ....

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RubyBuckleberry · 11/02/2010 16:53

omg i leak all the time! wasn't leaking as much but since this growth spurt, i have been going through breast pads like anything!

think am going to have to go to bed at 6 at the same time as him!

hope your DD decides that she is happy to drop a night feed (or three!) soon!

ShowOfHands · 11/02/2010 17:01

My dd was exactly the same. There was no changing her. She was a 2hrly feeder and that was that. She was ebf and that's what she needed. I found in the end that the only thing I could do was to change what I was doing ie sleeping whenever, accepting all offers of help, continuing to co-sleep, lowering my expectations etc whilst knowing it would pass in time. It was so much easier to change what I was doing than to force dd, who was genuinely hungry in the night, to drop feeds she still needed.

It's so, so difficult isn't it? I do remember being on my knees with exhaustion some days.

Hope you get lots and lots of brilliant and helpful suggestions.

Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 17:56

i know a lot of it is to do with my mindset which is very much coloured by my exhaustion

i wish i could be accepting

i just want some sleep

i also know she is hungry

DS had a night feed until he was 6/7 months but it is the 2 night feeds which are the killer as i get no chance for any good stretch of sleep

DD is thriving

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ShowOfHands · 11/02/2010 18:03

It's rubbish isn't it? Because you see her thriving and know you did that but you deserve to enjoy these early weeks and months, they fly by so fast but your life becomes consumed by getting through each day, wondering what time she'll wake tonight, ear open already for it. My life contracted down to a neverending cycle of a couple of hours, each one containing milk, nappies and not enough sleep.

I was so miffed that to sleep I had to go to bed really early and nap during the day and sacrifice time with dh for months on end but I was desperate. With an older child already, it's so much harder though. Sleep when they sleep is all well and good if you have one child who sleeps for any period of time. In fact they should ban people from saying 'sleep when they sleep' and replace it with 'you can forget about sleep'. Far more realistic.

Do you co-sleep? I think it saved my sanity actually. Well a bit of it.

Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 18:07

i co-slept a lot on the early days and it was great

it definitely makes her wake more often tho

your post is so true .... every word of it

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Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 18:08

when did it improve for you SOH?

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mylittlefidget · 11/02/2010 18:26

Ruby- poor you. I feel your pain. It's exactly the same here... DD is 17 weeks too.

Have you tried different bottles to try and bottle feed? Even if your partner/ husband/ a friend could feed her either in the morning or after a nap (or even at night????), it might give you a bit of relief. My DD was on a bottle strike last week and we tried different bottles/ teats and just let her play with them rather than forcing her to feed. She decided in the end that she liked NUK teats and will let us feed her as long as she is still drowsy/ waking up from a nap.

Sorry, no other clever suggestions....

Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 19:55

we have tried lots of different bottles

she likes the breastflow (which are ££££)

TBH i am sort of giving up on bottles as when she is 6 months she can have a beaker/trainer cup

we haven't tried the drowsy thing yet but i was considering a dreamfeed with a bottle to see if she would take it then

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ShowOfHands · 11/02/2010 19:58

My dd never took a bottle but would take ebm from a cup sometimes. Worth a try?

I suppose once the 5 month growth spurt past (that was super tough) then she started to settle and by 7/8 months it was entirely different and it gradually moved to that so I hardly noticed. She still woke in the night but usually only once and she did start to manage a longer stretch. I found that once I could get 6/7hrs straight it was so much easier.

Eating well helped enormously. Good, energy-packed, vitamin rich food. Because all that feeding, lack of sleep and snacking on sugary stuff to stay awake meant I was physically drained and energy levels were shooting up and then crashing. I ate a lot of porridge for breakfast I seem to remember!

Original poster

rubyslippers · 11/02/2010 20:58

tried the cup - was met with howling

i need to eat better - the temptation is to reach for sugary stuff to get an energy rush whereas i should really be eating porridge

i know i will look back on this time, say, this time next year and it will seem like a 100 years ago ...

thanks SOH

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ShowOfHands · 11/02/2010 21:05

It will fly, it will and one day you'll be on here saying 'oh I remember how hard it was' and be amazed at how different it has become.

DD is 2.9 and she was a baby yesterday iyswim. I didn't enjoy the baby stage, I was just exhausted and felt suffocated knowing that it was me she needed and with such frequency. I couldn't switch off, even when she was asleep as I knew it was all just so fleeting.

But looking back? Yes, blink of an eye and I'm so proud that I ebf for 7 months, still bf her now and she's strong, resilient, healthy and happy. It was worth it in the end.

Flapjacks are a great snack and smoothies, dried fruit etc. Lots of food you can cook double of and freeze. And drink lots. Dehydration makes you hungry and you reach for the sugar again.

Hang on in there. Just look how far you've come. In another 17 weeks you'll have a different baby again, one that's probably crawling and standing and presenting a world of new challenges.

RubyBuckleberry · 12/02/2010 08:08

well ds slept till 3, from 6 but i went to bed at 10:30pm! nooooooooooo - imagine if i'd gone to bed at 8!

Original poster

rubyslippers · 12/02/2010 08:43

SOH - thanks for all your support and encouragement (and food tips). Much appreciated

ruby - am but yay for you!

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Poppet45 · 12/02/2010 09:56

Not much advice but definite solidarity here. My DS was another classic case of the four month sleep regression that went on and on and on. He's now a week off six months and after a supremely shitey night of wakings at 10, 12, 2, 4, 5 and me subsequently batshit six my hubby has done the last two nights of night wakings to try and break his midnight feast habit and we're now down to just ONE feed!!! I've slept in the spare room but I haven't been woken by any protests against the new regimen.
Even before this I'd notice he'd started to concentrate a bit better at day feeds - whereas before he was ridiculously distractible. So fingers crossed for all, as it's very early days, but maybe this too shall pass!! Oh and we haven't started him properly on solids yet, incase you get the world and his wife telling you to do that.
Good luck (for all of us!!)

RubyBuckleberry · 12/02/2010 12:27

thanks ruby - we'll see if it is a one off. on the flip side he, sorry, we, were up at 5 cos he was hungry but couldn't eat cos he's got a cold, and wouldn't go back to bed, his or mine, so i had to get up. expressed the feed cos i was massive! and he took an ounce or so from the bottle but no more - he started playing with 'this strange thing in my mouth, this is not a boob!' but fed ok at 8 and went to sleep. so i am zzzzzzzzz snore... i have tried to feed him the rest of this morning's milk but he looks at the bottle as if to say wtf???

minxofmancunia · 12/02/2010 12:47

Hi this all sounds v familiar, ds was sleeping thru or only waking once ubtil about 16 weeks then wham, every hour and a half to 2 hours. I became pretty unwell from doing the ebf after 3 weeks of this so dh took over for 5 nights on drs orders with ff. He also cut right back on the amount of oz ds was having at night to try to get him to take more in the day. He's got him back down to one wake up but it's taken 3 weeks, so 6 weeks in all of hell.

Also ds is now completely ff and mixed feeding was upsetting him too much and now me and dh can take it in turns at night. Was quite upset about giving up bf at first but tbh and I know this isn't a popular viewpoint now I'm quite relieved as due to being on alert for him I was getting no sleep at all and couldn't drive or look after my 3.5 year old dd.

he's now in a habit of waking up every 4 hours at night though, arghhh! He has 1oz or so then goes back down. Also when we went over to ff he lost interest in his daytime feed but would take 16 oz at night, it's been tough going reversing this.

It's bloody hard work but you sound like you're doing a fab job

Original poster

rubyslippers · 13/02/2010 10:10

thanks minx ...

4 months seems to be a really hard time for babies doesn't it?!

good job they are cute

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