4 month old EBF still waking every 2 hours

[WantsALittle1]

Anyone else?

I am going on three days now of horrible sleep, and have a 21 month old DD that I also have to care for full time during the day, when I'm essentially a sleepless zombie. This can't go on. DD was sleep trained by 3 months, and was sleeping two 5-hour blocks per night. We didn't have to do CC/CIO to get her that way--we just started binkying her when she'd wake up to feed, instead of giving the bottle (I pumped exclusively til she was 9 mo). It worked. She has slept beautifully from about 3 months to present day.

The same process is not working with DS. He wakes to nurse every 1.5 - 2 hours, and will ONLY suck through a single let-down in each breast. I think he's become used to my forceful let down (talking a 6-inch long jet from each boob during let down) that now he will NOT work for milk. He sucks through a let down in boob 1, then I put him on the other boob, he sucks until nothing flows, and then stops and is passed out. My boobs remain partially full. I used to pump the excess milk off after he fed, but that just made my oversupply/forceful letdown worse. He is a hefty boy at nearly 19 lbs at 4 months (90th percentile) so he's definitely getting plenty of milk. He just is wanting the boob 12 times a day, literally, even though he's gaining fine. To me, it seems like this up-every-2-hours-at-night is entirely comfort sucking. Basically, he rouses as all infants do from deep sleep every 1.5-2 hours. Instead of calming himself back to sleep, he needs the boob to soothe himself off to sleep again. Does that sound right? Is this what comfort sucking is renown for?

What do we do? We are at wits end.

 

[cat81]

I wish I had the answer. My LO is 6 months and doing the same thing. Will be stalking and hoping someone has some helpful advice. In the meantime know that you are not alone. Xx

 

[nicki01]

I'm not coming here with good news I'm afraid!! My first daughter was 2 hourly till 6 months then went to 4 hourly. She is 3.5 now and has never slept a whole night without waking! She is autistic tho so this could make a difference I'm unsure!

My second daughter is 10 months old now and is still waking for feeds every 2 hours!! She has been like it since birth! I've not had longer than 2 hours sleep for about a year now!!
She was bf till 4 months when she just refused the breast and started to loose weight so I had to combi feed and it was slippery slope onto formula.
Everyone told me she would sleep more too but I can't stress enough how false that is!
Breast milk, formula, weaning, offering water/dummy at night, nothing will make her sleep longer than 2 hours!
I've given up trying now, I just feed her and await the next 2 hours!
Some babies just need to eat often I guess!

 

[snowfia]

All I can say is that it doesn't last forever.
That's obviously what he needs. My daughter was the same, she would wake countless times in the night, it was exhausting. She slept in our bed until she was 16ish months and it meant we got a lot more sleep than we would have if she was in a cot. I'd lie down to feed her so we could both just sleep.
Now at 2 though she sleeps through in her room. It will get better, maybe not straight away, but it will.

 

[luna_19]

Sounds pretty normal unfortunately. My 7 month old still wakes frequently, he does do a longer stretch of 3-4 hours, occasionally longer, at the beginning of the night but he goes to bed at 7 so it does nothing for me. We co sleep after that because he is up every 1-3 hours for the rest of the night