For any of those who remember my posts from the last 6 weeks or so...
Just had to share...finally some progress after weeks and weeks of early starts - Caspar woke up today at 4.40am and eventually made enough noise to get 4oz bottle from me at 5.15...despite a 15 min silence in the middle when I really thought he had gone back to sleep...I treated it totally as if it was some feed at 1-3am, and shut the door on him (in the dark) when done at half 5. He did shout a bit, but then went back to sleep until 7.40am!!!!!!!
I really really wish I had got the blackout blinds sooner, it seems that if its dark, he does think its nighttime and will go back to sleep - I didn't know what he would do as he was peering over my shoulder at the daylight leaking into the room via the door...Anyway, its worked once so it can work again, although hopefully he won't wake up in the night so much now he's eating better...and I got to sleep-in (!!!) too so that was fantastic!
The other thing that has really helped us is cranial osteopathy. I had planned to get him checked anyway, and it turns out that my long back-to-back labour and Caspar turning himself around and coming out with his hand up had slightly twisted him, and so he was stiff on his left side. This probably affected my disaster at BFing as latching would have been uncomfy for him, and has also, she thinks, been contributing to his recent bad feeding and possibly his early wakings.The sucking may be making the tension in his left side worse, apparently. She also said that he might have been waking early as he was getting the equivalent of a stiff neck as you would when sleeping in a funny position yourself at night.
She thinks that this all started at his 4 month growth spurt (when the skull tightened as he grew quickly and the increased pressure's been bothering him since then)...all the wierd stuff started after that...and last week he went from taking 4-5oz a feed, pulling away and crying, and then waking in the night for extra food - to the next day when he was happily and calmly drinking his bottles as he used to, and we've had a couple of sleep throughs!
So, a very happy Vic & Caspar here!
