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

[Gigi]

feeding every two hours at 11 months - that was our experience too. day and night.
little stomaches, can't hold much, get thirsty (and need to be changed).

from 12 months, i put DD in the cot (still in my room).
from 18 months, i put DD in the cot (in her room)
whatever thing i tried, she STILL woke and was thirsty every two hours.

apparently "sleeping thru the night" for a young child, actually means "five hours consectutively". We got this at 20 months - every bub is different.

in your shoes, i would be outsourcing every housework chore i could think of (to paid help, helpful family and friends).

• pet walking
• meal making (for freezer batch cooking)
• fresh food buying
• grocery buying
• wet areas cleaning
• clothes washing/ironing (if you need ironed clothes for your work)
• kindy/child care dropoffs and pickups
• taking kids to shops to buy shoes/have haircuts (things you have to do in person)

automate bill paying online

if she's feeding every two hours, are you also putting expressing time into your already very busy day (if she has EBM while you're at paid work). wow, i have no idea how you are managing to do all of this. Just re-read your post, THAT"S how you're coping - you have anxiety - and no wonder, you are doing SOOOO MUCH! I am amazed you do with all with ONE baby, but with THREE? blimey (falls over). I think you're doing well just to be still standing.

[Juliette]

Thanks everyone... it's good to know it's not unusual for a baby this age to still be waking so frequently at night. Not many of my friends parent this way, and they think I'm totally crazy. Not to mention my GP and psychiatrist. EVERYONE is telling me that she SHOULD be sleeping through in her own bed. There are so many SHOULDS out there!

I think I will try taking her off the breast sooner than I normally would after she wakes each time to see if I can comfort her with a quick sip instead of the whole milkshake. I have tried the patting thing, and she does use a dummy, but nothing seems to be quite the same as Mummy's warm snuggly milk bar. Speaking of which, she BIT me tonight!!!

[Gigi]

all bubs bite, the trick is to learn how to breastfeed so that biting is not possible.

we were in a situation that i was dreading feeding my bub, cos of the biting. i posted about it, and a wonderful BB member talked me thru how to it - AND IT WORKED. She is a ABA breastfeeding counsellor, so knows all about it. It came down to me relearning how to HOLD my baby whilst feeding, POSITIONING her so that my nipple was in her BACK PALATE. I did what the BB member told me to do, and no more biting. I think in the first year of feeding, i had forgotten the early tips i was taught, got a bit lazy, which worked fine, when she had no teeth, but once the teeth came, BOY did i find out all about it!

So, i was amazed how quickly and easily this prob was resolved, by someone in the know, telling me the tricks to making biting impossible. (If bub is effectively "on their back" arching up to feed, they cannot bite DOWN on you. See? )

so HOW i held her (positioning)
and WHERE i put my nipple (in her back palate)
made all the difference.

i am not a bf-ing counsellor, so i doubt the way i have explained it would help you, but i encourage you to ring the aba phone helpline (free) which is 1800 686 2 686 to speak to a bf-ing counsellor. this is such a common problem, seeings as every bub grows teeth eventually!

hth

oh, and as baby grew older, breastfeeding necklace was handy, for distraction value.

you're prolly too exhausted to do much reading, but here is a link for you anyhoo - on bf-ing and working mums:
http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/hints.html