11 month old, co-sleeping, breastfeeding all night + full time working Mum - ideas?

[danita]

dear juliette-

i completely understand how you feel, my DD was exactly the same and up to about 1 week ago she started sleeping through the night, the saddest part is she did it in her own bed she would normally go down in her bed then wake to come into ours but has been sleeping through in her bed and now she is weaned from Bf she is 17mths old now. back when she was 1 though i was finding it really difficult to lay on my side and feed her all night due to my carpel tunnel the pain was extreme so i wasnt sleeping much and although i dont technically work full time i had 5 other children to look after in the day.i was also finding she wasnt actually feeding but rather just wanting to be attatched for comfort sucks.
you are working a double full time job trying to take care of housework and working..i think you need to have a chore chart or something for your Dh listing the 3 or 5 most important chores to do in the day while you are work. listing the actual thing and making a short list might be better recieved then just saying please clean the house, i know my DH has no idea what a clean house entails.

sorry if this reply didnt help i hope it gets better soon sending you lots of hugs and sleep vibes**

[Juliette]

Thank you for your reply Shantelle I can imagine your day must be very demanding with 5! Even though hubby doesn't do the housework, I still think he has the tougher job with 3 kids! I might try your idea to list just a few tasks for DH to do each day. I guess breaking it down into manageable parts might be more meaningful to him than ranting about "cleaning the house". I guess it is an ambiguous request! lol. We usually put Aimee down in her own portacot (next to ours) and then she comes in with us at about 11pm. I suppose I can hope that she starts sleeping longer on her own...I could try putting her to sleep in the cot in her own room (which our babies have never really slept in for long because I'm a sucker and always end up bringing them in with me).

[Santosha]

Sorry for brief reply... I'm toddler-wrangling. Just wanted to say that we've been there. It was EXHAUSTING! Ended up night-weaning at about 13 months using the Jay Gordon method -google should find it for you. Involved less sleep for about 5 nights so pick yr timing, but ultimately meant that we were still co-sleeping but DD was sleeping from about 8-5, waking for one feed then sleeping till 7. More sanity all-round. Hope you get more sleep very soon. Oxo

[kiwimummy]

I have no advice for you sorry. Just a comment on the is it normal/do yours still do this part - I think it is (unfortunately perhaps!). A large number of 1yr olds still wake at night needing some kind of reassurance, whether that be a feed or something else. My 19 month old often breastfeeds 2-3hrly all night long. I think that kind of night feeding can often be increased when mums go back to work too. So you are missing her in the day and therefore treasure the time at night - she is just the same! Wanting that increased contact.

I have no ideas how to make it easier for you though. It must be very tiring! Hugs and sleep vibes to you!

[Arcadia]

It's perfectly normal and natural. You could consider trying to detach her from the breast before she's asleep, so give her a few sucks and then take her off. I found this reduced dds night wakings. She started sleeping through only when I night weaned her at 18ish months.

It's tough. You're a great mum!!

[HotI]

I used some techniques from the No Cry Sleep Solution that helped to reduce the all night feeding, but we are still feeding at least twice a night. The other thing that helped, and this doesn't really help you (but might give you hope), was just time. It was kinda like all of a sudden, sleep wasn't the completely evil thing it always had been.

Ideas i got from the No Cry Sleep Solution was trying to detach so she wasn't attached all night. It took awhile to work out the right time, at the start i was doing it 7 or 8 times and bub would wake again but now she comes off herself (or i can help detach) and she will just roll over to sleep.

Second was to offer a hug or pat first, many times i would end up feeding anyway, but over time sometimes a back rub will work and she will go back to sleep. I think this has helped to increase the gap in feeds, because i am not offering the boob at every wake up.

If i was really tired or she was, i would go back to just feeding, because it was easiest. When i felt stronger, i felt more confident in trying the different techniques.

I also took one side of her cot and put it up against the bed, and at the begining of each night she would start in the cot. I was able to reach her from the bed, and when she woke she could climb onto our bed (so she didn't feel as restrained as when the cot was complete). I am slowly working on resettling her in the cot after a feed. SOmetimes it works, other times it doesn't, but slowly she is happier to sleep in there for longer periods.

Can you get sleep at other times? Get a lie in on the weekend? Hire a cleaner?

[luna moth]

I have also used the NCSS ideas. My baby is a lot younger than yours, but we have had huge success with it. We ony co-sleep sometimes, as we find it doesn't really work that well for our baby. (even though I love it!)

One thing I have to say about the NCSS though is that it's not a quick fix. We have got our little girl to the point where if she does wake for a reason other than hunger, we can verbally reassure her, and re-settle just by shushing. But that took us 11 weeks, and it was 2 or 3 weeks just to get our night wakings down from 10 to 2 or 3 (it's now 1) But I highly recommend it. Just persist.

Our baby is too little for Jay Gordon, but I believe that his methods would work.

Good luck!!