No sleep during day and always hungry!

[millie15]

Niamh has slept for a total of about 40 mins (in blocks of 5 - 20 mins) since 9am today (although has now been asleep for 10 in her basket.....fingers crossed). I wouldnt mind if when she was awake she was happy to either be entertained or sit in her chair/play mat, but she just seems to want feeding all the time. She has good feeds of 40 mins - 1 hour and she's ok for about 10 -20 mins after a feed but then starts to grizzle/hand suck/root around....I try and hold out for as long as I can by entertaining her/putting her in the sling, as the midwife said I should wait an hour before feeding her again but the most I ever get to is an hour.
It's driving me crazy, I feel like am just constantly feeding and I never get a minute, not even to make a sandwich!

At night she is much better and goes down for between 2 -4 hours at a time, sometimes managing 5/6 and she goes in her basket for the first part of the night and comes in with me later when she's feeding.

Also, she only ever falls asleep when being held or at the boob, and people keep telling me she should be going to sleep on her own. Am I 'making a rod for my own back'?? She does seem to be able to settle herself when she wakes in the night though, unless hungry!

 

[halemon]

sounds like me!!! mine only goes to sleep on te boob, and faffs about if it falls out before shes asleep, i spend way too long putting it back in, guessing where her blimmen mouth is while se starts to get cross!! have to laug really, little monsters arent they!!

i was reading that book by elizabeth pantely and she suggests gently breaking this dependence by removing boob just as they are about sleep and if they fuss, simple y put it back i and try again until they fal asleep without it in.

you are lucky to have good sleeping at night!!! As for te da thing, i have had the same thing over the last few weeks but i tink for me it was because little one wasnt getting enough boob milk, i seem to have issues there at mo so she was always hungry and on the boob, i never got chance to even go to loo!! i've been topping up with formula im afraid and shes been sleeping formuch longer in daytime, not sugesting you change at all but perhaps make sure she finishes one sid boob completely, then switching her soyou know shes had a proper tummy full, because it really helps them nod off.

Others have said though, that bf babies do tend to be like this, just the nature of things, after all if we were still in the wild so to speak all we'd have to do each daywould be to feed our babies and feed ourselves - no housework etc!! tr not to worry, as ive been finding, babies change habits very quickly and tisnmay well pass on tis own, god luck!

 

[Sherlock]

Just a quick reply to the going to sleep on her own part.

Its whatever you and baby are happy with. She is still very young and its a BIG ask to get such a small baby to go off to sleep on their own. It gradually happens over weeks and months and I'd not be trying to get her to do so at this age. I did it with my own son but only because of medical reasons and it took a few weeks of persistence. If I hadn't had the health problems I'd not have done it.

As for the other, she may be on a growth spurt and if I were you I would feed on demand. I never held with making my LO wait for a boob feed when he was rooting for it. I only started doing that once he was about 16 weeks and past the big 4 month growth spurt.

You could try a dummy if you want to be able to have a break from her on your boob so much. I used one so I could get LO off my boob once he was done and because he had colic. I never had it so he used it all the time, just to get him off my boob and give me a bit of a break. If it gives you 15 minutes, half an hour, then Just maybe don't get to rely on it too much so you end up a slave to having to get up to put it back in when sleeping etc.

 

[crackers24]

My LO is exactly the same with feeding and sleeping. I just didnt know how to put it into words properly. Looks like youve done the job for me

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread and will be more than happy to share any solutions if i find any.

Sorry no advice for now but i can offer some sympathetic hugs

 

[hennaly]

Levi is the same right now, i feel as if he is permanently attached to me, he sleeps if we go out in the pram but then obviously that doesnt give me any rest, i am getting to the stage i dont know if i am producing enough milk as he seems constantly hungry .
I feed him a small feed at about 11pm then he wakes about 3am and feeds for about 10 minutes then goes back to sleep untill 6.30ish so not too bad at night.

 

[chickadee1976]

n

 

[BabyMagic]

This sounds very much like my LO when she was younger. I know it can seem hard at the moment, but I promise it gets better! My LO was still feeding every hour at 6 weeks, and only started being able to do 1.5 - 2 hours a few weeks later. But then around 3 - 4 months she suddenly went to about 3 hours (which felt like a heaven).

My LO cried quite a lot and carrying her in a sling helped. She hated her pram until about 5 - 6 weeks after which she was happy to be in it, but only when pushed around.

What I am trying to say that your LO is still very young. Please don't worry if she wants to feed more frequently than 60 minutes. Babies don't understand time, they just know when they are hungry. Glad to hear that she does better at night time.

I wouldn't expect your LO to be able to fall asleep on her own for quite a while. If other people say that you teach them 'bad habits' just ignore that your baby is far too young for that.

Just try to enjoy this phase as much as you can, because time flies so quickly. Honestly, it will start getting better soon, and at 3 - 4 months she'll be such a different baby who likes to socialise more. Then when she learns to sit on her own around 6 - 7 months you'll be able to leave her to explore toys on her own (then she'll become more mobile and you'll be running after her ).