sleep is for the weak...i am weak.

[WoodlandFaerie]

Could do with a bit more.

ds's (almost 7m) sleep is all over the place at night, waking anywhere from 3-who knows how many times a night. i have given up counting.

He is bf. But we have introduced a bottle at 7pm, plus bf top up. He does feed when he wakes, he is not just suckling. If for example i gave him a bottle at 4am i am certain he would drink it.

i have tried cutting one of the night feeds out, but to be honest don't know where to start. he has no real pattern after 10:30pm, til 6:15am when he wakes, apart from today when he woke at 4am. He had a dirty nappy so after changing he was wide awake and happy, but clearly tired. After a drive and a sleep for 15 mins he woke and is now awake for the period now so it seems (talking to baby tv and eating my glasses).

He used to wake about 3 times at night, on the odd occasion more, and now it is more, and on the odd occasion less.

He can sleep longer, he has had the odd night of 5-6 hours, and one magical night of 7 (alas i did not sleep then!).

I just do not really know where to start, he has no set pattern as I have said, so don't know what to stop.

I am probably rambling. I am dog tired.

and feel free to come and moan, offload, share your bad nights, and your good ones if you have any! I shall be here with coffee.

And also meant to say, naps so far:

9:15am- 9:30am. woken by a tantrumming sister. But woke in a good mood and did not go back to sleep.

11:00am - 20 mins in car. Woke happy and is now being used as a doll by his sister and loving it.

He really does not seem to want/need more sleep than snatches, but obviously that is not true.

Hey, WoodlandFaerie - if you want to come and join us on the Slumber Party/ Sleep Deprivation thread, feel free!

On the other hand, your own thread is shaping up as a companion rant discussion to the one mentioned above....

Anyway. You really have LOADS of sympathy from me.... only have the one DD, but wakes up LOADS....

Hey immaculate I shall come over and say hi. And see how this thread rides too. Thank you

Hi WF. My ds is/ was very similar. I decided we had 2 issues: couldn't settle without feeding at night and getting too many calories at night to eat well during day therefore no hope of not being hungry at night. After discussing at drop in sleep clinic my plan has been to stop feeding between 12 and 5. Mixed success so far but very little crying. I've posted more on the challenging 3 month old thread. Worth a try?

I'm new to this, with my first baby, DS 7 months old. He used to be a rubbish sleeper and still isn't going through the night (7.30pm asleep, 11pm dream feed and one other feed about 4am before waking about 6am), but that's miles better than it was a couple of months ago. The dream feed helped enormously, but so did an earlier bed time (anytime between 7pm-7.30pm). Also, I was advised to get all of the bed time routine done in 30 mins, and not to let the bath go on longer than 5 mins because of some temperature thing that makes babies sleepy. Not sure if all that's possible with an older child too, but might help?!!

Good to hear from Pinkdaisies that there is hope. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this shall pass. Interested in your no feeding NSBW. Thats what my DH wants us to do as DS feeds abysmally during daybut I think he's still too young at 15 weeks. But I'd be happy to be wrong.

Talking of gin earlier in the thread, I had a dream last night that I fed DS a bottle of milk and red wine and then had to hide his booze breath from DH. clearly my sub conscious doing some wishful thinking that we were back in the days of feeding babies gin. Mummy could do with some though. Ice cold, with fat boy tonic and a slice of lemon. Mmmm. Would it be wrong to have a small glass on such a hot afternoon?? After all, the rest of the country will be boozing the day away in front of the football..

Oh and in reply to your question about the NCSS, WT, I've been put off by the naps under an hour don't count thing. While we've worked really hard on naps, and have seen some improvements, the 45 minute thing just makes me feel more stressed about them than I already do. And he has just woken 45 mins early from his current one!

Oops. Meant WF. sorry

a small glass of something is ok from time to time suchan even with bf. if you drink it over an hour before feeding, its pretty much non-existant in baby's milk.

daisy i am going to stop feeding between 2am and 6am to start, then cut out the 1:30-2am feed later. I am happy with one feed If I can get two blocks of 4 hour sleep, or tbh right now even 1 solid block of 4, then i can function again. Let us know how you get on with the cutting it out, will be interesting to know how successful you are.

DS does not scream to start with when I shh/cuddle him instead of feeding at night, he cries/winges/sort of squeals, and wiggles his way to my boobs, and if i try to resist this he spends an age trying to assume the position, sounding desperately sad. Sometimes, I can hold his head to me close, and tuck his legs in tight with my other arm, sort of envelop him, then i can eventually settle him with some bouncing on my heels, but more often than not it does not work.

I am starting to wonder if him being in his own room would be the best thing after all. But then, I could be up and down a million times into his room instead of right by the bed.

WF - i've just read through your thread with interest. I don't have anything to add but my word you have my sympathy. You surely deserve a medal for even having the energy to type!!!

I just wanted to say on the ds in own room issue - we put our ds (now 12 weeks) in his own room at 6 weeks (i know, i know but the cot wouldn't fit in our room and he is a veeeeeerrry long baby so was already too long for the moses basket). Anyway, i just wanted to say that my sleep improved immesurably! I no longer wake with every sound ds makes but the baby monitor picks up enough that i go to him when needed. Ds went from waking 4/5 times a night to waking once or twice... In short - the trekking to his room every hour only lasted a couple of nights... Might be worth trying?

I've just had a read and wanted to add something quickly on the 45 min naps. My DS (and many others I have read) only napped for 45 mins at a time around 6 months. Then as he got older, he started to nap for longer (he's nearly 9 months).

I also found that some foods did not agree with him so stopped giving him a heavy tea just in case. Only now I've been giving him larger meals before bath/bed.

iggly oh that is interesting, so maybe I am stuffing him too full of food? made worse by further stuffing of formula at night...if i don't see any improvement soon, i will try that maybe. I agree with the naps, I think it took DD a while to nap for any length of time, but not sure she napped much longer than 45 mins til much later than 9m even, not til she had one long nap a day.

amyboo I am a fast typer! I might have to consider him in his own room. I am a light sleeper, and cannot sleep through the figiting, i always wake. I am probably more likely to go to him if he is unsettled than in his own room, even if I hear him through the monitor I am more likely to want to stay in bed longer! I moved DD at 8 months because I just could not sleep through her continuous figiting and talking in her sleep. Even now, aged almost 4 she figits aand talks in her sleep and fusses and we cannot share a bed for more than a couple of hours without us waking each other (i am a figit too).

Well, the afternoon and evening routine went like this:

12pm hardly any lunch.

1pm - feed then napped in the car, and at friend's house in carseat, for about 45 mins.

3pm - another 30 min nap in car.

4pm - milk

5:00pm - tea (lentils and sweet potato, some pasta to hold and chomp, chunk of cheese)

6:30pm - mango smoothie (home made)

6:45pm stories in bed with DD and DH in her bedroom

7:00pm, nappy, pj's and boob (DD in bed asleep WOOOHOO!)

7:20pm - asleep.

now - asleep. will give a dream feed at 10:30pm if he holds out, he is stirring.

7pm - ready for bed, milk
7:30pm asleep
10:10pm awake, crying as milk not ready.
10:15pm - milk, asleep (almost 7oz, more than he has taken before)
2am - awake slightly, feed, asleep
3am - awake settle with cuddle and heel bouncing (great for my figure eh?), no milk, took about 15 mins
4am - awake, settle with cuddle and heal bouncing, no milk, about 15 mins
4:30am - awake, feed (he was clearly determined)
5:45am - awake, into bed, suckle, doze
6am - woken by DD! (she was sent back to bed)

6:20am - crawls backwards to the plant pot and turfs the soil out , starts talking to the plant. He is in a great mood.

So, all in all, while I was awake lots, the boy did actually have much more sleep than he has for a while. he had probably 10hrs in total, taking into account the wakenings, compared to probably 8-9 the last week at least.

I shall post this on the other thread too.

Great news WF maybe the crawling will help too...

Maybe you can give him more solids earlier in the day and keep the formula. At least until he's a bit older and more used to it. There's an old saying: Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper

Don't beat yourself up about the naps. Loads of babies can't manage longer ones for a while, whatever EP may say. If the baby's in a cheerful mood generally, it's probably okay. I think naps lengthen when they lengthen and there's only limited action you can take to prolong them at this stage...

iggy do you think kings would eat 5 slices of toast and jam? As I just have I am always hungry, and DH said that is a sign that DS must be eating a lot still, although I have started to notice some rolls of tub creeping in, when for the first few months I struggled to eat enough to keep the weight on.

Woodland I bet they'd eat that and more! I was the same - lost quite a lot of weight but now... I have rolls too

Re naps: try lunchtime in pram and then walking immediately they stir. Just done that with ds (DDs at school and preschool) and he's gone back off for another hour. I' m sure if i kept it up for a week he would get himself back off again but it's too tricky with the girls at home.

FYI last night he woke at 1am and settled himself back to sleep without me going in, then slept till 4.30 when i fed him. WF have you tried getting him back to sleep without picking him up? Then he can't wriggle to the boob. I was rolling ds onto his side and patting his bottom.

nosleep he sleeps on his side. But he fusses and throws himself onto his back. If I catch him at the right time/the moon is full/the wind is blowing in the right direction/i bought a lottery ticket that day, then he will settle with a tapped bottom, this mostly works for daytime naps, i can sometimes get him settled this way sometimes, and same if he is in front carrier, i can move around and then as he stirs tap him. Alas cannot do the whole pushchair thing, we live in a flat, and i would need to have him in the garden. Although, it is so nice, I could actually do that, we could all eat our lunch out there, DD could play while i hung washing up and DS slept, I could then nip out the back gate with them both for a walk to the park if he stirs, or to even get him to sleep. I might try that tomorrow.

He is asleep. Has been asleep since 11:30am. on his own. He has not slept this long, well, ever, not since he was a newborn. Except when he has been unwell, then he would sleep for 2-3 hours (i hope he is not coming down with something, that is all we need in the sleep routine going out the window!). He drank a mammouth 9oz of formula (never this much before) and not asleep, in front of baby tv swaddled in carseat and he dozed off on his own. The absence of boob to get him to sleep has obviously made a difference, as he has not woken up going 'hey! where has it gone? it was here 10 mins ago?!!'

And DD is asleep next to him, on the sofa. Lovely. I can't remember this actually ever happening. I am going to nip into the shower. And murray it for sure

Hurray, I'm pleased for you.

I had two terrible sleepers. DD2 was dreadful and the period from 4-8 months she just got progressively worse. It was less about feeding her case (though feeding was the fastest way to settle her back to sleep), she actually needed me there so it's a slightly different issue.

I was wondering whether you have a dp/dh who could do some of the night waking? I then noticed that ds is in your room. Maybe that's an idea then. Either move him to his own room or, leave him with dp/dh and you sleep in another room to get some rest in the "core" hours when you decide you're not feeding.

With DD2, we had to break her dependency on me (rather than on the boob) and that meant she started feeding less. However, it's not a happy story and ended up with us having to let her cry (I got ill and couldn't physically pick her up or feed her any more ).

I feel your pain though, it's dreadful and I'm still not getting a guaranteed full night's sleep now (maybe 1 night in 4 if I'm lucky) and dd2 is 2.1 but sometime the problem is dd1... sigh.

How did the party in the park go WF?