I need help and advice!

My 5 month old is tiring me and my hubby out and we can't function properly

It has to do with sleep and I'm asking in the breastfeeding forum because I feel breastfed babies may sleep differently.

So he usually goes down for his bedtime with not too much of a problem - sometimes needs to be soothed a little more or cries for 1-3 min but he is asleep by 8pm most nights. The problem is the night wakings... he first wakes up between 11-11:30pm and I feed him. He eats well at that time and seems to doze off on me.. when I put him back in the crib he becomes wide awake, smiling and kicking and not wanting to go back to sleep. So I spend about an hour soothing, rocking, patting, rubbing, try leaving him alone even (but that just makes him cry). So after about an hour he will fall back asleep. Then an hour later he will wake up again, sometimes putting his pacifier back in his mouht and rocking the crib will make him go back to sleep. Then around 2am he gets up again and he doesnt feed well at that time, just plays and pulls away form boob and at that point refuses to go to sleep - is super alert and just wants to play, giggles, jumps, etc... takes 2-3 hours for him to go back to sleep .. my hubby and I soothe, rock the crib, take out the crib projector, let him lay there, try putting him in bed with us... nothign works he just thinks its play time.

This goes on for the rest of the night and around 8am he will be up for the day. An hour after that he will be tired and wnats a nap but the nap is a battle of soothign, rocking, etc etc and often it takes longer to soothe him for the nap than the amount of sleep he will get. He likes to nap at least 3-4 times a day and its always a battle.

I read a few sleep books - no cry sleep solution and dr. weissbluth's but things don't seem to work for him. Especially since most of it deals with baby having problems going to bed for the night. My problem is not that, he goes down easily initially but the night wakings and refusals to go back to sleep at those times is what the problem is. And i have no clue how to deal with that.

At this point, no one is getting rest - not me, not my hubby and not the baby and it is affectign all of us. I feel like he is crabby all day.

What should we do?

As I mentioned before, he does not like and will not sleep with us in our bed for some reason - we tried on multiple occasions. So instead we have his crib right next to our bed.

I was having the same problem.....but according to some people my way of dealing with it is not appropriate!anyway my lo who is also 5 months old goes to sleep around 8:30 but then she wakes up almost an hour later,instead of trying to put her back o sleep as I initially was I just play with her,feed her,play with her some more until by 10 or 10:30 she is actually so sleepy that she goes to sleep for the night waking up once around 3-4 for a mini feed and then back to sleep till 8.I don't know how babies sleep 10-12 hours not a single night has my girl slept that much! Lucky people whose babies do.

Good luck though.hope this helps.

I know how hard it all seems when you get no sleep! I joke that my OH would be better off with a grizzly bear then me when I am sleep deprived

It sounds to me that you're going through a sleep regression. Basically it's a phase where lil one is suddenly learning a lot of new stuff and wants to practise it all at every opportunity! Remember though it IS a phase and will pass. Say it over and over like a mantra

Have you tried doing the 11pm feed as a dream feed rather than waking lil one up? Might get you that little bit extra sleep and that can make the world of difference to your ability to cope.

Might also be worth considering moving your little one into his own room. If he can't see you he might not want to play at 3am. This worked for our little one, and because I knew that he was safe, and not tossing and turning next to me all night I was able to relax and get a better sleep too.

HTH!

me and my husband sleep in seperate rooms so i have the baby overnight and pass her on to him in the morning so i can go back to bed so then at least you both get some rest.

We were going through a similar thing with our lo. We did pu/pd whicj has helped with naps and personally I've noticed the more/better lo naps in the day, the better she sleeps at night - sleep promotes sleepp. Lo is still a bad night sleeper and naps are still too short but things have definetly improved. Lo used to be up hourly but now goes down at. 7pm, and wakes between 2-4 hours during the night. Good luck lack of sleep is horrible. X

There are some great tips on this thread as my 5 month old isn't sleeping as well as he has done before! He's always been quite wakeful in the day but today he literally napped for about 30 mins total and that was on me, nursed to sleep as per usual! Every time I tried to put him down in his cot BAM eyes wide open again! He's always gone to sleep well at night though, but now waking more frequently at night again urgh! As a PP said, it might be because he's learning lots if new things atm.... like trying tk sit up and rolling both ways instead of one way lol! Trying to keep up with his 2 yr old bro methinks xx