Another night nursing situation

Meg (4 mos) has gone from nursing every 2-3 hours at night to one, about 4
hour sleep and then up every hour to nurse back to sleep thereafter. Let me
know if there's something I can do, from your experience, to get more sleep
without being disrespectful of her needs? I don't mind nursing every 2-3
hours but every hour on the hour after 2am is a little much. Or tell me
this is a short phase?

Here's last night as an example:

8pm-8:20 Baby is cranky, I nurse her to sleep, I leave the family bed. This
used to work flawlessly, she would sleep until I went to bed at 10 or 11 and
I would wake her up for a nursing session then.

9pm-9:30 Baby is up, I nurse to sleep again, I leave the family bed again to
try to get some time alone. DH goes to sleep at 9:35.

10pm DH "Baby is awake" me: "[Graphic cussing] What did she do when she woke
up? (wondering if DH has tried to comfort her or just is passing her to me)"
DH: "Cried of course!" No information there but no reason to pick a fight
with a tired man. I hurredly and angrily get ready for bed and come to bed,
she settles right down since I am there and practically puts herself to
sleep. I don't think nursing was a component here.

2-2:30am I am nursing the baby. If there was a nursing before this, it was
easy enough that I don't recall.

THEN I NURSED HER TO SLEEP FOUR MORE TIMES BETWEEN THEN AND 7:00 AM. I did
try to pat her, let her go on with her thumb, etc before offering the nipple
EVERY SINGLE TIME, but it didn't work. I just had increasing elevated
levels of need grunts and thrashing. At 7am she got up but was not hungry.
She went back down by 8am much thumb sucking followed by nursing briefly to
sleep, and here I sit writing to you.

This kind of thing has been going on for about a week.

I realize I am her sleep buddy and I am not of a mind that a four month old
is designed to sleep alone. I just want my 2-3 hour stretches back so I can
get some sleep. I can't do a sleep cycle in the amount of time she's giving
me.

It doesn't help that I have been dealing with unpleasant memories (PTSD
flashbacks and intrusive/hypervigilent, more flashbacks at first than now
but still happening sometimes) of her birth for the last month and when she
wakes me up at 2am I am as likely as not to spend the rest of the night with
memories spinning through my head. At least the first three months of her
life I was happy.

As far as napping during the day, sometimes she gives decent length
stretches (1-1.5 hours) and sometimes she is doing 30 minute naps. If I lay
down with her during the day, she will nap well. Yesterday I was sleep
deprived enough to spend 3 hours in bed hard napping and she stayed there
with me, waking once but nursing back to sleep.

She might have teething pains but I haven't seen any changes in the chompers
in over a month and drooling is still present but quite mild.

She has been gaining weight steadily, is about 16.5 pounds at 4 months and
has been at the 95th percentile since birth and is exclusively breast fed.
I am not planning to introduce foods/formula but if this went on for two
weeks I might be tempted to try shoving formula or oatmeal into her at 2am
as an alternative to going psycho. Yes I know, bad bad, but in a few
babies this will induce sleep right? Psycho mommy is not that great for
infant health and development either.

Any suggestions or reassurances that this phase will pass? I am comforted
that she will grow out of it eventually ... but this week would be nice.

Thanks in advance.

Tired Dagny

my feeling is that it's either a phase or a growspurt, we've had umpteen
of these, most have only lasted a few days, the latest has lasted almost a
month, I've just weathered them, and when I perceive that he's waking for
comfort not food I try and make the feed as short as will sooth him.

Can you try putting her to bed earlier? This is what has helped us get
through the lastest phase, we used to put him to bed at 8.30 or later now
it's usually a whole hour early and it seems to be much improved.

-----------
Anne Rogers

"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...
my feeling is that it's either a phase or a growspurt, we've had umpteen
of these, most have only lasted a few days, the latest has lasted almost a
month, I've just weathered them, and when I perceive that he's waking for
comfort not food I try and make the feed as short as will sooth him.

Can you try putting her to bed earlier? This is what has helped us get
through the lastest phase, we used to put him to bed at 8.30 or later now
it's usually a whole hour early and it seems to be much improved.


I could try that, I usually just put her to bed whenever she starts acting
tired/fussy. Sometimes this is as early as 5pm but is usually 7 or 8pm and
this used to work well. Should I be aiming for a schedule at 4 mos old?

Dagny wrote in message:
I could try that, I usually just put her to bed whenever she starts acting
tired/fussy. Sometimes this is as early as 5pm but is usually 7 or 8pm
and this used to work well. Should I be aiming for a schedule at 4 mos
old?

Acting tired and fussy is usually too late to associate that they need to go
to sleep. Start aiming for an hour earlier to get her to sleep and she might
sleep longer.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...

I could try that, I usually just put her to bed whenever she starts acting
tired/fussy. Sometimes this is as early as 5pm but is usually 7 or 8pm and
this used to work well. Should I be aiming for a schedule at 4 mos old?

I'm quite a fan of routine (I prefer that word to schedule), it was
probably around 5-6 months that we settled into a routine that worked for
us, but only at around 8 months that we found it was essential to have
one. When I was thinking about getting a pattern established, I focused on
the afternoon nap first and worked from there. For me I get home from work
about 1.20, we nurse have a nappy change then ds goes down for his nap by
2pm, if I'm lucky he sleeps til 4, only rarely is he up before 3.

Dagny wrote:
Meg (4 mos) has gone from nursing every 2-3 hours at night to one,
about 4 hour sleep and then up every hour to nurse back to sleep
thereafter. Let me know if there's something I can do, from your
experience, to get more sleep without being disrespectful of her
needs? I don't mind nursing every 2-3 hours but every hour on the
hour after 2am is a little much. Or tell me this is a short phase?

Luke was like this. Hunter was similar only I never got the long stretch.
Starting at 4 months I didn't allow comfort nursing at night. Once he
seemed to be done eating, I made him unlatch. He sometimes fussed for a
minute or two. It didn't lesson the amount or frequency of wakenings but it
did eliminate some of the crazy making.

I hate to say it but IME (and I know experiences differ) that is the life
and schedule of co-sleeping nursing babies and mine did not move away from
that pattern unless I forced it.
--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)