Frequent nightfeeds - Stories with happy endings!

[Clarrie]

So my darling little Bonnie is 5 months old and for the past 4 weeks has been waking frequently in the middle of a night for a feed. By frequently, I mean between 1 to 2 hours. Once I feed her, she goes back to sleep with little fuss.

To cope, I've moved into her bedroom where I've been co-sleeping with her. It's not too bad actually, each night I'm getting about 9 hours sleep - just broken up into chunks.

I know that this is really common (I love belly belly!) but to keep me going I wanted to hear from mums who have gone through this and come out the other end without having to resort to any drastic measures. How old was your bub when they no longer needed such frequent feedings? Did it improve overnight as a fantastic suprise, or did it happen gradually with the distance between the feeds getting longer and longer? And, how old was your bub when it started to get better?

Bonnie's sleep personality is pretty good - she never fights sleep and is a champion self-settler for naps and bedtime.

Please, give me hope! :-)

[mbear]

Is she cold Clarrie?? Could there be another reason she is waking? Is she feeding, or more snacking then falling asleep?

[~Jo~]

Awww it can certainly be tiring. I know other mums will no doubt have lots of stories of younger bubs but I found 18 months to be a huge change, where Sammy would want to sleep for a few more hours which was such a relief...probably because of all the energy he was using during the day. Hope it gets better for you..

Jo

[shellbell3]

We went thru a stage of 2- 2.5 hourly wakings, prolly around same age, gradually she got to 3 hourly.

In the end when she was on 3 good size solids a day I decided enough of that and cut out the 2am feed.
They wake so often cause they don't know how to resettle without the breast so we spent 2 nights just cuddling/ patting and 3rd night she slept for 6 hour period.

[Clarrie]

I thought it may have been the cold that was waking her up, but I've got a heater in her room that is set for 20 degrees. Unless the dry air that the heater is causing is waking her up but I don't think so.

For most of her nightfeeds she really is drinking quite a bit, some of them are just a comfort suck as well though. I'm where Mads is with using booby at least 6 times a night.

I never thought that I would have these kinds of troubles since she self-settles so well. But for some reason she can't seem to join together the nighttime sleep cycles without booby to help her.

I get stressed about the sleep thing whenever I think about going back to work. I don't want to go back to work until I'm getting a bit more sleep, but money is fast running out.

Thanks for the positive stories.