Somebody help!!

lisa282

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Since she was born, E has been a really good baby. She has slept 8 hours or so at night from birth, has fed like clockwork every 3 hours, and is generally a very happy, smiley baby :D She only really cries if something is wrong, and has always gone to bed awake so no nonsense in getting her to sleep. We even got through the 4 month fuss without too much of a fuss, for want of a better word!

However, in the past week or so her habits have become ridiculous and all routine is out the window :wall: To start with, she began waking at around 1am for a feed where previously she would sleep from 7pm to around 4/5am. This in itself wasnt a problem, I figured she may be growing and I just fed her the extra feed. BUT then it continued from here into waking at around 11pm, this would be as well as waking at 1am. Now a couple of weeks later, we have got to the point where she will go to bed at 7pm as usual without any problems, but then is up as little as an hour later and then every hour to 2 hours throughout the night :wall:

Alongside this, her feeding has gone to pot a little. She has always fed well for around 20-30 minutes at a time, one boob at each feed, and wind has never been a problem either. She would feed every 3 hours through the day, and then last feed at 6.45pm before bed. Then up at 4/5am for a small feed and back to sleep until 7/8am. But now she feeds sporadically at best. We generally start the day around 7/8am when she will have a small feed, she seems to be getting hungry as usual around 11am so I offer her the boob and she will bob on and off for 5 minutes but not feeding properly really. Then because of this, she will keep rooting for the boob for the next hour or so, but everytime I get her on, she messes about again, and in all this time she is not feeding well at all. Tbh most of my foremilk will spray her in the face, because as soon as I get the let-down she pulls off :roll: I do keep trying to get her back on to fill up a bit, but by midday she is getting tired so I put her down for a nap. She used to sleep for a couple of hours here but now it can be 20 minutes or 3 hours, it has become really unpredictable because the rest of the day is so messed up too :doh: Generally I try to get her up by 2pm, whether she is sleeping or not, and offer boob again. Same thing happens here and she will bob on and off but not feed effectively. Again she shows signs of hunger through the afternoon so I always offer the boob, but rarely will she take anything other than a few sucks :(

The rest of the day consists of playtime and a walk/or fetching my son from nursery. Then another small nap at about 4pm, followed by an attempt to feed at 5pm. Again similar behaviour to above. We have bath from 6pm onwards with my son too, followed by boob feed and then bedtime including a story for T. I put E's dreamshow projector on for her and she generally falls asleep within 5 minutes or so :D This last feed is probably the only one where she actually takes in a decent amount of milk. She will suckle happily and calmly and is always contentedly full afterwards :D

From hereonin though is a total mess now :( Every night is different at the moment, so I will describe last night as my example. She went to bed at 7pm and was asleep within minutes, as was (they share a room) :) She was up again at 8.40, I left her to cry for a minute or so to try and listen if anything was wrong or just a whinge, but she gradually got louder so OH went in. Popped her dummy in and she went quiet for maybe 5 minutes before crying again. Anyway, after 20 minues of trying to ssshhh her back to sleep - usually works a treat - OH picked her up and she burped. Held her for a couple of minutes until calm then back down. She cries again. He tries winding her in case it is that but she just falls asleep on his shoulder. He puts her down, she cries. Eventually I end up cuddling her and she roots for boob so I feed her. She has a snack at most and is sleepy so I put her down and she falls asleep. Now this little cycle continues all night. She will sleep for an hour or maybe 2 then is up again. We always try other things before picking her up, sometimes the dummy will work, sometimes a little sshhh will work. Other times I have to feed her, but everytime I do this she snacks rather than has a full feed. So last night I must have fed her at 9pm, 11pm, 12.30, 2am 3.45am. She soiled her nappy at about 4am this morning so I changed her then she eventually went into a proper sleep and didnt wake until 8.15am.

Now I am convinced that her night behaviour of snacking every other hour is what is stopping her feeding properly throught the day, but how do I stop this? I also need to sort out her sleeping, I know she is capable of going several hours at night because she has done it from birth, so what is this all about? Do you think this is a growth spurt at 5 months or some other fussy stage? She is definitely teething at the moment, but apart from being a little grizzly, I wouldnt say she is in pain with it. In fact, despite all the waking and crying, she rarely cries with pain, and even when awake through the night is still happy and cooing at me - NOT what you want at 3am though!!! :wink: Can anyone shed any light on this or come up with some ideas to solve it?

If you have got this far, then well done! :clap: And thanks for listening!! Somebody please help me? x :hug: :hug: :hug:
 
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Hello there!

Well I don't know WHAT I'm doing up at this hour but I am and I was reading your post when my little one, also five months, woke up and needed changing. Most unlike her too!

I think Eden might be ready for weaning. We went to a weaning workshop a couple of days ago and our HV said anytime around/after 20 weeks is fine. And a GP friend of mine said breast fed babies and their mothers tend to be ready for weaning sooner than others. Maybe it's time for you to start investing in some baby rice and an Annabel Karmel book?

All the best

K
 
could be weaning, or the teething may make it sore for her to suck hence the boob fussyness.

is she showing other signs associted with weaning?

sandi
 
I have thought about weaning her tbh, I weaned my son at 4 months as he was a very large hungry baby and it was the best thing for both of us :) However, although Eden is showing signs of being ready, I am trying to hold out till 6 months so I can go down the BLW route, so I have to admit I am a little reluctant to start her on purees. But having said that, if things continue as they are, then I may cave in just to get some sleep!! I just dont know what to do for the best :think:

Last night was slightly better actually, she went to bed at 7pm then woke at about 8.30 but I managed to get her back to sleep quite easily within a few minutes, then she slept until 11 when I fed her. She woke again at 1.30 but again I got her back to sleep easily until 2.30 when I fed her again. Then she slept until 6, had a small feed and finally woke up at 9 o'clock this morning. I really dont mind getting up twice to feed her, I think its only to be expected with being breastfed tbh, but its the messing about in between thats getting to me. I just need to re-train her to sleep I think, so I might try disrupting her pattern a little over the next few days, and see if we can implement some new positive sleep associations. If that fails, then weaning it is!! :lol:

:hug: :hug: :hug:
 
:think: I'm going to try to offer a bit of help because you have just described EXACTLY what my LO did at about the same age. I also had the luxury of a baby who slept from 6:30pm until 4am and then had a good feed, waking to start the day at about 6:30am-7am. She would feed every 2 hours for about 20 mins or so and I was happy that she was feeding and sleeping well.

However, it all changed at about 4 months- she gradually upped the night feeds and spent less time (with more fuss) on the boob during the day.

I found that the constant on/off/on the boob during the day was helped (although not cured)by taking her away from any distractions (or as many as i could!) I would feed her in the quiet of her nursery or lying on my bed. It still took me ages to reconcile with the fact that she no longer needed to feed for 20 minutes at a time- I did worry that she wasn;t getting enough but 5-10 minutes seemed to suffice and I guess she knew best! She's the same now!

The night time waking is a tough one as there are tonnes of reasons why she could be waking up and mixed in with all of the possibilities (teeth/wind/dreams/noises) there could be genuine hunger if she's growing or not had enough in the day. I have recently tried to break this pattern with my LO by waking her before she woke me. She would wake habitually at set times so I started to wake her an hour earlier to feed her. If she woke in the night I would put her dummy in and leave her for half an hour before feeding her- going to her occasionally if need be, but I tied not to. I figured that if she was hungry she'd still be awake after 30 mins- if not, she'd be asleep.

It has worked well and I have had lots of nights with no wake ups and no night feeds. However (and this is why you may like a different approach!) since Tuesday I have had to feed her at least once in the night, every night. She may be teething/growing ????? but certainly what I offer in terms of advice is not foolproof!

I hope you can get some better sleep xxx :hug:
 
Well, as if to prove me wrong, since I posted the other day, every night has actually got better! :roll: Last night she didnt wake till 11 when I fed her, then again at 2.30 when I fed her again, but then she slept till 7 this morning! :cheer: WOOO! I felt positively revitalised this morning after having a chunk of sleep rather than just a couple of hours :D Tonight is going well so far, she went to bed at 7 and as yet hasnt woken and its almost 11pm :shhh: This I could cope with, if I just have to feed her at 11 and 2, in fact it would be lovely :pray: Here's hoping tonight will work out like last night, if not better x :hug:
 
Glad things are better for you :hug: but......

this is exactly what i have at the moment and i'm slowly going insane!!!!!!!!! its not getting any better for me at all so i'm hoping others will post some advice! I've tried taking her into bed to feed, tried taking her for walks so she'll have better naps in the day, tried changing bedtime (started it a bit earlier now which is slightly better but only re screaming at bedtime!) but nothing is working.
I'm also doing blw so don't want to give rice or anything but may have to reconsider this as i'm a mess.
 
Last night was much better :dance: She slept from 7pm to 11.30 when I fed her, then woke again at 1am but managed to sshhh her back to sleep easily. Then she slept till 6.30 this morning :clap: Im not sure what has changed with her, because I am doing nothing different to what I was, but it seems to have sorted itself out so :pray: it continues! Maybe it was just a growth spurt/fussy stage, but Im hoping its over. We have had 3 good nights now and each one getting better, plus she has been a different girl in the day. Still messing about on the boob a lot, but I think maybe she is just getting more efficient at feeding? Perhaps she can fill up in 5 minutes now, and I am making it worse by trying to force her to feed for longer than she needs :think: I never fed my son for this long, so this is all new territory to me. But she has generally gone back to being a calm smiley girl during the day, and none of the fussing or moaning that was going on last week. Ah well, guess its good preparation for puberty! :rotfl:
 

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