I am at my wits' end. My second child is 6 months, 2 weeks old and has never consistently slept through the night. I'm so lost. My first son (now 26 months old) slept through the night at 11 weeks and never went back. We had a little bit of separation anxiety at bedtime at 3 1/2 months but we got through that within less than a week. He was exclusively bf, as is this one. I haven't been able to identify a pattern until this week - I'm not sure if that's because there wasn't one or if I'm just too tired to see it.
In any event, ds has started pattern of going to bed at 8:00-8:30pm waking up between 10:30pm and 12:00am, will NOT be quieted without being picked up, falls asleep immediately when cradled but will NOT be put back down without screaming and will not settle. I am worried that it is separation anxiety and unlike my first time through this, I'm of two minds about the SA issue, co-sleeping, etc. With the first child, I was very disciplined about not co-sleeping. Now I worry that if a child has SA, he needs comfort! So, that, added to my exhaustion, has led me to try co-sleeping. The first 2 nights, he slept brilliantly. The subsequent 4 nights, he's woken up around 3:30am and is restless until 5:00am. I finally resort to feeding him then.
So, now I'm not at all convinced that co-sleeping is the answer. Our daytime schedule is this, give or take a little:
E: 7:00am BF (this is pushed to 8:00 if he eats at 5-6am, which pushes the whole day's schedule)
A: 8:00am
E: 8:30am cereal and fruit
S: 9:30am
E: 10:30am BF
A: 11:00am
S: 12:00pm
E: 1:30pm BF
A: 2:00pm
S: 3:30pm
E: 4:30pm BF
A: 5:00pm
E: 6:00pm cereal and vegetables
E: 7:30PM BF
A: 8:00pm
S: 8:30pm
Having been through this before, I would be comfortable believing that this was a phase but I just don't have that confidence since he's not been consistent yet.
What do I do???
