BLW, night feeding and sleep training

[sDs]

Not sure where to post this really but I'll try here.

The story is - my LO is 6 months old and since she was born we have co-slept and I breastfeed through the night (she basically helps herself). She has never shown any signs of sleeping through the night, but recently wakes up at between 10 and 11 for her first night feed (after going to bed at 7.30 ish). Often she won't go back into her cot and is restless until I relent and bring her in with us. This is ok, but it means that I can't really stay up and have to get into bed with her even if I'm not tired. This is a pain in itself, but also for the last few weeks, her sleeping in wih us has been restless and I'm not going enough sleep, which I can't keep going on with, particualry as I am now back at work part time.

I think the waking is habitual and don;t feel as though she needs food through the night, even though she does seem to be hungry when she's feeding. If I was spoon feed weaning, I may be more inclined to be a bit toughger, but becasue she's being BLW'd, I know that she needs her milk feeds and she will self-wean when ready.

In addition I'm not sure how to go about sleep training. I used CC'ing with my first son who's ten, but have always felt a bit guilty about it, even though I did work and after 3 nights was sleeping though (after again co-sleeping since birth and he was 7 months when we did this).

So after this long story (apologies for this), I think my questions are;

Should I still keep feeding her through the night and co-sleeping as we have been doing or should I attempt to stop the night feeds and get her to sleep in her cot.
What other methods are there other than controlled crying to get babies to sleep through. I probably should mention that her cot is still in our room and until we move into our new house (about 2-3 months away) she won;t have her own room.So it seems really mean to let her cry when we are right next to her.

Grr, I just don;t know what to do for the best, but I need to sleep!!!

Sorry for the long post, and I hope someone can help.

Thanks peeps,

xxx

 

[Sarah+]

Our LO wakes in the night and seems hungry, so we're in a similar situation. I have read and researched widely, and got lots of advice from family, friends, drs etc. which is alll different

The advice that made most sense to me is that until the baby is properly established on solids - including protein - you can't really assume they are waking out of habit and not hunger (although like you, I'm fairly sure it's probably the former). As they are so active at this age and have so much going on, they do need a lot of food/milk.

I know you said you are doing BLW but if you're not opposed to it, you could also spoon feed just one meal (to get the protein established)?

We did controlled cyring for his daytime naps and it worked well. (You do mean controlled crying - where you give then a certain amount of minutes before going back in etc. and not Cry It Out - where you leave them to cry until they fall asleep?). I'm not a huge fan of CIO but we might have to use controlled cyring during the night if he keeps waking, as we've just started protein so figure we'll give that a chance first). CC might be a good opportunity to tacke the cot issue and the waking issue at once?

Sorry can't be much help but just thought I'd share what our plan is

 

[sDs]

Thanks for your post Sarah+. Yeah, I mean controlled crying, which as I say worked wonders with my older son. But, I've never felt entirely comfortable about having done it, so wanted to try a different (dare I say it, kinder) method with LO. But I don't know about any other methods.

 

[diz]

i'm also in a similar situation, my son is a month younger then yours.

He goes to bed at 7.00pm, and wakes for feeds at 10, 12, 3, 5, 7 then we get up around 9am. its habitual waking. I was kind of co-sleeping, mostly because i was so tired but for me this made matters worse as he continually grazed all night, and also became restless.

We tried shush/pat technique, rocking, but it did not help and in some cases made a rod for our own back as the rocking turned into a prop and he would not go to sleep with out it being done.. then he needed it to get back to sleep if he woke up.

So i have introduced one meal a day (i want to BLW) and two nights ago we tried CC which has worked well. The first night was awful, last night was so much better, and hopefully tonight will be better too.

I don't know what to suggest hon, but hang in there...sleep deprivation is the worst. x