Advice for friend with 4.5 month old

[Now we're 3]

Hi ladies - looking for some advice or ideas for one of my lovely gfs who is having some feeding and night waking issues with her 4.5 month old. My poor friend is seriously suffering from sleep depreviation and with an almost 3 year old as well is struggling at the mo so I thought I'd come to the right place to potentially get some help and ideas for her.

Bub is exclusively BF and refuses to take any bottle so all the feeding comes down to my friend. Her DD never settled well in the evenings when she was born and would look to cluster feed from 5ish to anything up to 12ish when she was little. Gradually this settled down so that she is normally now able to have her down after a feed at about 7.30pm or so. She will wake again for another feed at prob about 10.30/11pm and then will wake pretty much two hourly after this. During the day she is generally fine and will go from between 3-4 hours in between feeds so she is definitely able to "last" for longer than the 2 hourly stints she is doing at night. She will sleep during the day but apart from first thing in the morning (after her 5am ish feed) when she will do a long stint - 2-3 hour sleep she will generally only sleep for one sleep cycle ie 40 mins or so. She is generally happy to be awake and in her rocker or whereever so the shorter naps during the day aren't as much of an issue. However as I mentioned the constant waking and lack of sleep during the night is very very draining.

I know all babies are different but if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on anything that my friend can do to stretch out the night time sleeps and reduce the wakings it would be great. My friend believes she is feeding as she can feel her drawing when she is attached but would like to try to get her day and night cycles reversed. They don't normally co sleep unless my friend is really really tired and it is just easier but bub does sleep in bassinette right beside her.

Would love to be able to give her some advice or ideas.

TIA

[onthefly]

What a rough time.
Has she tried calling the ABA - 1800-686268 - they can talk her though some ideas, too.

One thing she could try is feeding more frequently during the day - get more milk in and see if that helps.
I'd also bed-share for sure - no sense making more work for yourself by having to get up to them if they're waking.
If she's shattered, she could also try tag-teaming with her partner. I have done this with DH at times - I take the first half of the night, then hadn over for 4 hours or so, put my ear plugs in and sleep while he deals with the baby.

Unfortunately it really is quite normal behaviour for a baby! Sometimes the best thing to do is whatever is easiest and gets you through - survive! And in time it will get better.

[Artechim]

All my kids have done this. My 13 month old is still waking 2 hourly or more though the night, and has done since she was 3 months old. I really have no words of wisdom because nothing I have tried has ever worked and I just have to live with it until they eventually outgrow it

[phebee]

OMG this is exactly my DD. she is now 8mo and I am in despair. Praying for some answers!

[phebee]

All my kids have done this. My 13 month old is still waking 2 hourly or more though the night, and has done since she was 3 months old. I really have no words of wisdom because nothing I have tried has ever worked and I just have to live with it until they eventually outgrow it

Nooooooo :'(

[Lilly-Pilly]

Maybe try and osteopath? Or pediatric chiropractor. My daughter was a terrible sleeper til she was 4, then on and off with sleeping through til she was 5. At 5 I had her treated by a myotherapist who worked with kids and she literally slept 12 hours that night.
Her back was out (32 hour posterior birth) and probably had been since birth.
It helped us SO much!

[Mum2SweetCs]

I second MadB's advice regardin bed sharing. DD2 was like this and now i cosleep wih her it has made it easier. When she is hungry i move her down towards my breasts and feed her while i fet some shut eye until she is done.

[OceanPrincess]

Definitely try getting more milk into her during the day. If she is drawing milk at night, as opposed to comfort sucking, then she may need to feed more during the day to try and reduce the night feeds. If she's only sleeping one sleep cycle during the day at a time, there should be plenty of chances to get some more milk into her.

Also 4-6mths is a typical time for baby to start becoming more distracted during the day and want to feed more overnight to make up for it. If she has an older sibling, this could be causing some of the distraction!

Just some thoughts.

[HotI]

Both my kids have done/are doing this. Sometimes it is not about changing the baby, but changing how you cope with it. Advice from well meaning friends whose kids slept never really helped, but a friend to vent or empathise with helps get though it. Drop a meal off, or take some cake and coffee/hot choc over. Can she get some sleep between 7 and 10? i know it seems wierd going to be so early, but sometimes it is worth it just to enjoy a bit of sleep by yourself.

[onthefly]

Mine didn't grow out of this till over 12 months either.
I agree with HotI 100% that rather than trying to change baby, you may find it more effective to concentrate on ways to cope.
It WILL get better. I absolutely, 100% guarantee - iron clad.

[~TT40~]

sounds just like my 4 1/2 mth old. i know mums are different too abd i dont have a 3yo as well... but i put her cot next to ourbed so really just like an extension of our bed to allow more space and we cosleep by her on the cot and me right next to her or her in our bed with me depending how tired i am. ive also paded her nappy up enough so i only have to change her once overnight so basically this is the only time i have to get out of bed. i also have 'tricked ' her into thinking morning isnt til 9am. basically merged her morning nap into her night sleep as it means i can still sleep in. and can therefore handle it all better.
she is doing shorter feeds diring the day be this she is more efficiant feeder and she gets distracted (esp. if DH is home ) so i make her stay on longer. butshe does still wake every 3hrs overnight

[sloane]

sounds exactly like my almost 7 mo, except she feeds more frequently during the day as well.
she did do some longer stretches at night but has been like this for a couple of months.

my ds was the same - but from birth. he didn't sleep through the night the first time unto he was 18mo and didn't do it consistently until he was 2.

co-sleeping was my saviour then and is again.

my other thing was to let the stress over sleep go. my ds is 3and in hindsight those 2 years actually passed quite quickly. this time round I tell myself that I know it will end and that I'm not willing to let sleep deprivation take over my life! I know it doesn't work for everyone but the less I stress and talk about it, the better I feel.

I would try feeding more during the day and see if that helps. if she feels comfortable co-sleeping then it's also worth a try.

I hope it improves for her soon

[phebee]

People say 'feed more during the day' but what does that mean? My DD feeds every 3-4 hours day and night and during the day she has solids after a breastfeed. She's doing Baby-led Weaning and takes FOREVER to eat hardly anything. I feel like all I'm doing all day is feeding her, then cleaning up after her, then there's hardly any time for play before a sleep. How often is 'more' in my case?

[Taurean]

I can't write much now hon but two things:

- mega wonder week around 5 months that is often hell for a lot of mums. Oh, and the babies DD1 was a nightmare for 5 weeks leading up to it then she was fine again

- DD2 had a super ordinary run with night sleep from 5 to 8.5 months but was perfectly fine during the day. I was often up with her seven times a night I kid you not. It was bloody hard work. I did LOTS of googling and found it's actually quite common. I'm not sure if she outgrew it/got over it or if the changes we implemented helped but the big thing we did was put her in her own room. I didn't do that until just after her 8 month checkup when our MCHN suggested it. It was up and down (or should I say I was up and down, lol) for about 2 weeks then she was fine. Might be worth a shot for your friend?

Hope she gets some sleep soon. I know how trying it is, especially with an energetic 3 year old to run after too.

[sloane]

People say 'feed more during the day' but what does that mean? My DD feeds every 3-4 hours day and night and during the day she has solids after a breastfeed. She's doing Baby-led Weaning and takes FOREVER to eat hardly anything. I feel like all I'm doing all day is feeding her, then cleaning up after her, then there's hardly any time for play before a sleep. How often is 'more' in my case?

is your dd going at least the same amount of time between feeds at night as she is during the day? if she is I wouldn't be too worried but if you did want to, I'd either skip a solids meal or what I used to do with my super hungry boy was offer another feed before sleep, after solids.

[phebee]

Yeah well she can do 4-5hrs during the day and 3-4 at night, though tonight has been every 2.5

[onthefly]

Phebee. Some mums find it helps to feed 2 hourly (or as often as possible) during the day. But it doesn't always make any difference. You could also try for more milk and less solids, too. As with most things as a parent, it's all trial and error. And sometimes there is no 'solution' because it's just the way the baby is.
I hope you get some more rest soon.

[LuluHB]

This is exactly what my 4.5 month old is doing at the moment. Its exhausting to say the least. I can't feed her more during the day - she just won't feed. Its more "oh, food yum. Suck suck. Ooooooooh, look at that pretty hand . . . Oh, Food. Suck suck. Ooooooooooooh, look at the doggy. Oh. Food. Suck. Oooooh ........" She flat out refuses to take a bottle and having gone through bottle refusal with DD2 we well and truly know all the tricks to get her to take one.

I have been trying to settle my bub when she wakes during the ight rather than feed her to try to stretch her out but the end result was a build up of nights with effectively no sleep so that yesterday I could barely stand because I was seeing stars and had an enormous headache and vomiting from tiredness. Last night I just went to bed with her after I put my big girls to bed. She stirred, I chucked her on a boob and went straight back to sleep. To be honest I have no idea how many times she fed through the night, but I know it was a few. I still got more sleep last night than I've had for the last week combined. Its not ideal, but I figure I need sleep today, so I'll deal with the feeding problem tomorrow.

Big hugs to your friend. Its a tough gig and reading the posts above about how bubs continue doing this until 12 odd months makes me want to cry, but I figure if that's the reality then I would rather know my girl is "normal", as awful as that normal is, than worry that I'm doing something wrong or that there is something wrong with her IYKWIM.