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Dear Aunty Lactivist I need some advice… My 7 month old wakes about every 2 and a half – 3 hours at night, at first I put it down to needing more than milk but now she’s having 3 lots of mush a day – and she can polish a couple of icecubes at a time off – and her usual milk from me and she’s still unsettled at night. As soon as she’s fed she goes straight back to sleep but I need to get more sleep!!! I can’t remember the last time I slept for more than 3 hours at a time… anyone got any advice or tips? xx|
 
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Ask Aunty Lactivist – “I can’t remember the last time I slept for more than 3 hours at a time”4 comments to Ask Aunty Lactivist – “I can’t remember the last time I slept for more than 3 hours at a time”Leave a Reply |
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From the Lactivist Facebook page:
My 7 month old also did this (although it was every 2 hours for him) and it may not help you to know that at 19 months old he is still doing it and I am an exhausted and hardly functioning shell most days. I am certainly not an effective parent or wife and I think I am probably clinically depressed bought on by the sleep deprivation so if you are suffering now, my advice would be not to wait until you are at crisis point (like we are) and to do whatever you can to get at least some of the sleep your body is telling you that you need by getting hubby to help at weekends (if he works during the week and needs the kip himself to be functional) and give bottles of EBM while you sleep with ear plus in in another room/sofa/anywhere quiet and comfortable. Can I suggest you also read The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley which might help you work out which of the wakings are about really needing milk and which are conditioned night wakings. It is a VERY VERY gentle book of genuinely helpful suggestions and a plan with no forcing anything, no “sleep training” or any barbaric denials of the childs needs so don’t worry that you are about to read anything from the Gina Ford camp. I have to say that at 7 months, it is probably pretty normal to still be feeding regularly at night. Their rate of growth at this age is phenominal. However, I know how hard it is when all your mummy friends have listened to their Health Visitors crap advice or read Gina Ford or Tracey Hogg or Tizzie Halls and have done CC/CIO and now all have babies who “sleep” (of just don’t bother to disturb anyone when they wake) all through the night. Of course they are all feeling wonderful and back to normal and you are in this sleep deprived, lead stomached haze 24/7. DO hang in there Mama, all I would say again is that if this is something that is going to go on for a while (as it has for our son although he now just wakes and does not ask to feed) you are going to need a strategy for coping and preventing you from burning out so rally the troops and see who can do what to take some strain off you. In our family we altered our budget and downgraded our car to pay for a cleaner to come once a week, my Mum took 2 baskets of washing and ironing a week and we got a decent blow up bed for our small room to use as a bolt hole at night if either hubby or I needed to escape the family bed for a while. Good luck and look after yourself. x
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From the Lactivist Facebook page:
I co-slept from birth and at 19 months my son still wakes between every sleep cycle (every 2 hours) so although I get more sleep by co-sleeping than if I was having to traipse up the corridor to respond to him, it has not helped him to stay asleep, if you see what I mean. Although he no longer wants to feed at night (he doesn’t ask for milk until about 5am) he still wakes me every two hours (basically he wakes up and is furious that he is awake when he is so tired) and sits up, gets upset, gathers up his teddy, pushes my pillow around, wants kisses and cuddles and assistance to get comfortable, then sometimes he drops back off again, sometimes he gets really upset and needs a drink and to go in the sling or to be shhhh’ed or rocked or sung to to get calm enough to go back off. All I would say is that for co-sleeping families, it is really worth setting up an area where one of you can get out and decamp to while the other parent stays in the bed with little one. I didn’t insist on this until very recently and for us it has come too late, I am already physically and mentally destroyed by sleep deprivation. I advise anyone who is co-sleeping and breastfeeding to ASK FOR help early. I think it is very easy for husbands to get away with thinking that because they don’t have boobs that baby “won’t want Daddy” at night or “can’t help so I might as well get some sleep”. It is easy for us to fall into the pattern of trying to “do it all” on our own because pumping enough breastmilk for over night is a hassle or whatever, but I can see now that mother burn out is a real threat to effective parenting and if this Mum is already feeling on the edge at 7 months, she needs to make a plan and fast!
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Thanks for the reply, i put her in her own room for the first night last night and she slept from 2.30am wake until 7.30am so i actually managed 5 stright hours of sleep which was bliss!! i’m hoping that its not just a co-incidence… i would love to leave her with hubby for a bit but she refused to be fed from a bottle or cup..! she likes the real deal and just does not have any idea what to do with a bottle! so i have had her glued to my side for the last 7 months and inside me for 9!! lol… i feel a little crazy and suffocated but at the same time love it if that makes any sense! i have a 4 yr old and a 5 year old too so i can’t even sleep when the baby sleeps which would make life a whole lot easier… oh well, i know it wont be forever, we’ll just have to see what tonight brings and hope that she does the same. i can cope with 5 hours, 2-3 at a time is a little different!
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My seven month old has never gone longer than 2hrs at night so I know how you feel! I think it’s normal though. Do you cosleep? Its kept me sane despite the lack of sleep!
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