OUCH to the gastro and the nightwakings. I just read your previous posts .... there's lots of stuff going on here and lots of different advice so no wonder you're feeling overwhelmed.
Mothering - in my experience, and it's more limited than yours, so bear with me,
- is enough of a rollercoaster without being sleep deprived. And lady, I visit that parallel sleepless universe regularly. I find it incredibly hard.
(BTW despite all of the toll this is taking on you, your son sounds like he's obviously thriving with the weight and the great interaction with his brother and granny, etc. Also, your husband sounds like a fantastic support and help, and your son seems to really respond to him.)
The wakings you're having could easily be partly because of overtired if he's not sleeping enough during the day. Also, if he's not good at putting himself back to sleep, it's probably a prop issue too.
Reading all of your previous posts, it does sound like he's eating a hell of a lot of milk and using it to put himself back to sleep at night.
Although I see Bryony on the nightwakings board says he's eating too many solids?
I know. Conflicting advice everywhere, us, your HV, your mother-in-law. Sorry. It's really only opinions and I can only add mine to the pack.
I guess I'd ask first, what feels right to you? You're the closest one to him, so your gut instinct is probably right. Do you think he's eating enough solids or not? And at night, do you think he really needs to have the milk? What I did about the nightwakings - and do again, when they recur, which they do! - is tackle it all at once and expect hell.
I waited until a weekend when my husband was free and then made a rule about when I was going to feed. The rule depended on his age.
(At the moment with my eight-month-old, I try to offer only one night feed between 7pm-7am. I say "try" because I mostly do it that way, but sometimes he wakes at 4am after being fed at 11pm and I crack, and then he starts waking every three hours again until I institute my rule and get tough. I know, everyone says "consistency consistency", but I find it blo^^^dy hard when it's 4am and I'm exhausted. When he was six months old I allowed for two feeds between 7pm-7am).
I couldn't use PU/PD as it made my son hysterical. He also hated sshh/pat when he was small.
So I used a kind of WI/WO technique, although I found I had to stay out a little longer than recommended, almost controlled crying, (I know, I know) as when I went back into the room it tended to make my touchy/textbook son wail louder.
I'd go in every two minutes or so, whenever the crying started to get intense. We had to do it for a good forty minutes the first night, each time he woke, which was three times perhaps? The next night it got less, and less again. Then we had a good patch. Then he got a cold and it all spiralled out of control again. Repeat.
I think with the solids, you just need to experiment and stick with an experiment for a week to ten days to see what the effect is.
Sorry, I know there are not a lot of real answers here. Just my take on it.
