Wow - sounds like our Coopers are not just similar in name!!

There are a few things different though - just a bit of history - Cooper started to sleep through at 8 weeks (for 12 hours), and I thought - wow, it's a lot easier than I thought!! Then at 4 months, he started to wake maybe 3 tmes in the night, wanting the dummy, and usually would want a feed also. (A nurse said to me, that it is so much harder for Mums when they have babies that sleep through, then start waking up again a few times a night, because they have gotten used to get good sleeps again...I couldn't have agreed more!)

So I got rid of the dummy a week ago, and he screamed the house down for a day or two, so much that he too got a raspy voice, and I felt just terrible!! It was awful, so I know what you mean. I felt like a horrible mummy too.

But then things got a lot better, and within a few days, he started to sleep through the night, without having a milk feed he had since about 4 months. I was doing a little bit of the control comforting (ie. letting him work out that he can resettle himself...not screaming and crying til he was so traumatised though!) and sometimes in the night, he too wakes up upset. It's one of those things - you don't want them to be reliant and so dependent on you, because they will then know that you will run to them every time that they wake up. But when he did start to get upset to the point I knew that he wouldn't be able to resettle himself, I also would breastfeed him, and when he was finished, he would be put in his cot, and fall straight to sleep. I also felt bad that I had let him cry and carry on for so long, and wished I had done it sooner. So in the last week, the first 3 nights he slept through, but every one since then, he has woken up once, and I have tried to let him resettle himself, but in the end I have had to breastfeed him.

I can understand where you are at, because you know that they have been able to resettle themselves before, and you don't know what is going on with them all of a sudden. Part of you fears that you will create a sleep association with the night feeding, but you don't want them to be so distraught.

Personally, I can't say why he is waking and screaming, but I would try to let him resettle, if that doesn't work, (try to keep it still really dark) go in and pat him, if that doesn't work, pick him up and rock him, and if that doesn't work, perhaps give him a breastfeed. I have been on the phone many times with a nurse in Brisbane the last week and asked if it was now a habit by giving him a feed in the night (when I know that he has had plenty of b/f and 3 large servings of solids in the day). Her comment was that it was fine, if you can't resettle him any other way, then make sure that when he is put back in his cot after a feed, that he is awake, so he can learn to put himself back to sleep. She said if he falls asleep on the breast, that this can make it a sleep association, and may get him waking up wanting the booby to put him back to sleep. My Cooper is like jelly if I feed him in the night, but I still put him in his cot awake so he doesn't become dependent on me for sleep.

Sorry, I am rambling on but I know what you are going through. I would think, by the sounds of it, that this is a stage that he is going through, and you are doing the right thing. I would ring someone though to make sure it isn't something else though.

Hope it gets better for you.