Hi all
Looking for some advice - I've read the book and around the site some really helpful suggestions but I'm not sure what to do for my situation and am doubting myself.
We have 4 kids, 12,10 (my girls) ,7 (my partners son) and little one who is 9 weeks. I would say he is mix of spirited and touchy. I'm bf'ing him although his dream feed is a bottle of formula. Until now I've been accidental parenting and he has been co-sleeping in our bed, he goes no more than 3 hours at night and after 4.30/5am he's on and off the breast. I've been so worried about waking the children if he cries at night, I've been giving him my breast to pacify him - my eldest has full on school and needs her sleep - her bedroom currently next to ours so she wakes up when he cries.
I have to get up At 6.:30 to get the kids ready for school. fast forward 9 weeks and I'm exhausted and my boobs are so sore some days! I'm I've been poorly with winter viruses too so feel like poo! So I reLly feel like I need to change something to make life easier for mySelf - I know I only have myself to blame for feeding in demand/ co-sleeping etc but hey.
The other three children go to their other mum's and dad's house every other weekend, so last weekend when they were away I thought id try 3 hourEASY at least to get nap times sorted. It seemed to be going well like we were getting somewhere. Then Monday comes, all the kids come back and it's really challenging to do everything as it's very time consuming to pat-shhh and I need to give the others some time.
To add to this, we are having an extension built so there's loads of noise going on during the day and the house is in chaos. It's like picadilly circus here. If it's not the builders drilling it's one of the kids needing me.
So it's hard to create that oasis of calm to get him settled. It feels like I'm swimming upstream with all the other demands on me.
What I would like advice on is -
Should I wait until the building work is completed (2 more weeks) by which time he will have his own room which I can make nice a calm and dark?
Will it be easier once I switch to formula? I do love bf'ing but it's draining me and has always been quite painful with All 3 babies.
Is there something I'm missing or any tips to keep him asleep through the transition stages of sleep? So far my arm seems to be glued to his side to keep him from jolting awake and to reassure him if he stirs. He's not consistent with the dummy which only introduced a week ago. Sometimes he likes it other times not.
May not come through in this but my partner his dad is very good and shares the load, at times though it's hard to be consistent in our methods!
Any suggestions or advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks
Trish
