DF problems - anybody else?

[Gabriella]

Hello,

My LO is 5 months old and we put him on 4 hour EASY about three weeks ago. For the first few nights he did quite well, even managed to sleep through once, but then he regressed really quickly.

Now he's waking 4-5 times a night, sometimes he's awake for more than an hour and a half. DH is working abroad, so I am all alone 24/7 and I am getting seriously sleep deprived. I breastfeed and I used to express milk for his DF, as he is usually too asleep to take the breast. He'd swallow 160-180ml for DF (6oz.) but he still keeps waking a lot.

I am wondering if anybody else had problems with DF, if yes what kind and did it get better if you just stuck with DF?

I am considering dropping the DF as it takes me a lot of work to pump that much milk and it seems that it doesn't serve any purpose.

Thanks for sharing experiences,
Gabriella

[Ruggie]

Hi Gabriella

We went thru something similiar, around the same time.
What time do you DF? If you leave it too late, it interferes with their sleeping pattern. around 10:30 is ideal.
Having said that, it didn't make a difference for us then, so I dropped the DF, went to bed early and I feed him when he woke, that was how I survived the sleep deprevation then.
That worked for us for a while until he was immunised at 6mth. Things went haywire, he was waking at 1ish and 5ish. I re-introduced the DF and that cuts out the 1am waking and feed him at 4ish when he woke.
Now he is 7.5 mo and we battling a whole bunch of issues. Thats a different story. Anyway, thats my experience. Sorry I cant be of more help.
I am just wondering if yours is a DF problem? Were you able to rule out other possible causes? Such as sleep association, day time nap, growth spurt... etc.

Good luck

[Gabriella]

Hi Loanne,

Thanks for your reply. I DF around 10.30, so not too late, but I am really considering just feeding him in the night instead. As it is now, I have to spend about 1 hour each day to pump, then stay up until 11 pm to do DF and then being woken up half the night by DS anyways... If DH was home, he could do the DF and take over some of the nightshift, but me being all alone, I just don't get enough sleep.

I don't know if this is a proper DF problem or if there are other causes, but DS never used to wake at night before we started EASY. He'd wake, eat and fall back asleep, then maybe wake once around 6 and go straight back to sleep until 7.30 or 8. Now he wakes all the time and doing PU/PD when you are alone and sleep deprived is just not possible. I tried a couple of times, but I sometimes ended up crying beside him while sshhh patting him back to sleep.

He also had his first vaccinations last week, so that for sure did upset his routine and I ended up doing some nightfeeding BESIDE the DF, simply because he'd fall asleep after 1h30 of PU/PD in the middle of the night, only to wake up 10 minutes later.

I guess I could do better if I just stuck strictly to PU/PD in the night, but as I said after a few nights of toughing it out, I just can't find it in myself anymore.

Any suggestions?

Gabriella

[Ruggie]

Hi Gabriella

<<Hugs>>

I know where you are comming from coz that exactly what DS#2 did. And once thing calm down for us, it repeated itself after the 6mth vaccine. I am blaming the vaccine

One tip I learnt from my fav midwife is that you only attempt to change thing when YOU are ready.
For me, I feel I am not doing my baby justice if I am not ready to commit and do the changes properly. Think things through first and be ready to go the full course before you try, otherwise its not fair on the bub nor you.
If you feel dropping the DF for a few nigths while you rest would help you do PU/PD better, do that. Whatever you do, make sure you got a plan B.
At that time, just dropping the DF seem to did the trick for us.

Are you keeping the room dim & stimulation too a minimum when he wakes for feed? Around this age they suddenly becomes more aware and perhaps too distracted to go back?? Just a thought

Sending sleeping vibes your way