Help, baby cries to nurse ALL night!

amother

↑ OP ↓

Fri, Jan 19 2024, 2:15 pm

pause wrote:

If you are on your phone while baby is nursing/sleeping on you, he can't settle into a deep sleep. Room must be dark. We have blackout shades and literally no light. Even my alarm clock is turned away so as not to shine on baby.

IDK if it was said already but a noise machine is very helpful, especially for sleep association.

And then yes, some of my babies were like this. They sleep attached to me until I can't handle it anymore and then we sleep train in another room. For one kid that was 18 months and for another it was 8 months, and the rest were someplace in between.

It varies. Usually I give him my full attention and no phone or anything for that first couple of putting to sleeps. At some point I start to lose my mind and he's not falling asleep anyway so I do go on my phone.

I don't have another room to sleep train in so that's not gonna happen. Working on rearranging my room though, if I'm successful I may have a place to put up a divider around the crib. But it's slow going because I'm so busy and spending like 15 hours a day on this sleeplessness!

amother

↑ OP ↓

Fri, Jan 19 2024, 2:17 pm

amother Orange wrote:

I don’t want to add to your stress if scheduling doesn’t feel like the right direction but if it does- it starts in the morning. A baby that got up at 10 and had his last nap at 6 can’t go to sleep at 8.

It does sound like the baby is less hysterically overtired? So maybe trying to be on a better schedule over the weekend will slowly help things?

Yes I'm too tired to push for a morning wakeup when I was up all night plus if I try to wake him up he just goes back to crying to nurse back to sleep, but over shabbos and Sunday I'm putting dh in charge of taking him out in the morning and hopefully that will get me enough rest to take over Monday. Pray!

↑ Rachel Shira ↓

Fri, Jan 19 2024, 2:49 pm

I don’t have time to comment details right now, will try to come back, but three quick things - unfortunately a solid bedtime and night of sleep really does depend on a consistent morning wake time. No judgment on waking at 11! But if that’s his morning wake time, he wouldn’t be ready for bedtime until 11 pm or later. And, a wake time of 1.5 hours is much too short for a 5 month old. Lastly, after the newborn phase you can’t really rely on sleepy cues or seeming tired. You need to follow appropriate wake times even if they’re sort of cranky. They might take a quick snooze with a shorter one, but the right timing creates the right naps and then a solid night of sleep.
Actually, one more thing. It takes time to create change, and consistency is the most important piece.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Fri, Jan 19 2024, 3:54 pm

Rachel Shira wrote:

But I'm ok not being ready for bedtime until 11. I mean it's not ideal but it's far better than 3am. My issue is the all night behaviors, not the bedtime. Though I accept that changing the bedtime might be one key to the rest of the night.

The wake time website linked earlier upthread said that it's normal at this age to have the first wake window be in 1-1.5 hours and then get longer as the day goes on.

↑ Rachel Shira

Fri, Jan 19 2024, 4:27 pm

amother OP wrote:

Yes for sure, if you’re good with that, that’s fine - just the whole day has to be adjusted to it. You can’t have wakeup at 11 and bedtime at 8 or 9.
Most wake window charts skew very high sleep needs. If your baby doesn’t need a huge amount of sleep (most don’t), it won’t be accurate. In my experience most 5 month olds need more of a 2/3/4 schedule, heading to 3/3/4 by 6/7 months. Whatever changes you make will need to be gradual (move wakeup - and the rest of the day - each day earlier by 15 minutes).

amother

↑ OP ↓

Mon, Jan 22 2024, 1:38 am

Update.

It's 1am. I am not asleep. My baby is not asleep. I am again aching from tiredness.

But I am working on rehabilitating our attachment and our relationship to nighttime. We haven't done much sleep yet (none for me. Nap for him that would have been a sleep except it ended) but have been doing a lot of relaxing, a few times he started to kvetch but calmed down with holding instead of nursing (that seems to have ended and now he's on and off nursing and chilling) and he did a lot of experimenting with the paci. Chilling with a paci seems like an improvement over crying or nursing, even if it isn't sleep. He did some playing but I didn't really engage in it so as to keep up the charade of bedtime.

Did not succeed in having dh take him in the morning to reset the clock. We woke up late both days of the weekend. I am quite annoyed but being that we have many layers of dysfunction going on I'm not quite going to blame dh for the fact that we're not sleeping... Just a little... Like I very very clearly explained that I need him to come straight home after the early minyan because I need someone to wake the baby in the morning and I'll be too tired to do it. He came home after 10:30 saying he thought after minyan included after the shiur he always goes to straight from davening because don't I know his schedule? And I'm like WHICH PART OF STRAIGHT AFTER DAVENING WAS NOT EXPLICIT ENOUGH FOR YOU???? Today I don't know what the excuse was. Probably just because I was too forgiving yesterday. So that was a bust. I'll have to try making morning happen on my own so I sure hope sleep comes soon. He's definitely tired, just not sure how to go to sleep especially since he already nursed a FEW times and only fell asleep once of them and woke up as soon as he unlatched Can't Believe It

Anyway so we didn't get morning but he did have a nice outing with fresh air and daytime activity which is also supposed to help with day/night issues. Haven't seen it do anything yet but I'll give us some points for doing the right thing in theory.

In other progress I was able to rearrange the room to move the crib away from my bed. I did not get to the point of being able to switch it to a place where I could put a room divider but I think it's a step in the right direction.

In between typing this and pressing send, he ALMOST fell asleep in my arms not nursing. Can't put him down (yet?) because he keeps peeking and threatening to wake up, and I really need to use the bathroom before I can sleep. But if he successfully falls asleep without nursing that will be a first in over a week. It's a far cry from independent sleep because there was a lot of rocking and walking and shushing involved but I am NOT complaining.

Also he was so freaking cute today. this boy... Tongue Out

cbs880

Mon, Jan 29 2024, 8:00 am

I skimmed through the pages, your post reminded me of what happened to my firstborn. I'm posting it here in case this helps you..

In my case, it turns out my constantly waking to nurse son was not receiving the hind-milk from nursing, although at the time, I had no idea. And therefore, no matter how much I nursed him, he was not sufficiently full. I was going out of my mind with sleep deprivation, my husband suggested trying formula. At first, I felt offended (remember, he was my first, and I had been taught breast=best)..but after a few days the suggestion seemed more appealing since my husband could feed the baby and I could get some much-needed rest..
But the biggest proof that it was the right decision was watching how my son gulped that bottle down and gave all the sounds of satisfaction. And the sleep that both he and I got afterwords.....bliss.
So yes, I was sad to give up nursing so early. (I tried alternating nursing/bottle but he refused to nurse from that day on) But for us, that was the right decision...

amother

↑ Trillium ↓

Thu, Feb 01 2024, 1:42 pm

cbs880 wrote:

How did you figure out what the issue was? About the hindmilk? And why wasn't he getting it?

amother

↑ OP ↓

Mon, Feb 12 2024, 1:08 pm

I'm back.

Good news:
Baby has learned to chill in crib. Still won't sleep there but it's hope.
We are back to square 1, meaning that he sleeps with me and nurses a lot but we get a couple of nice stretches between nursing sessions, unlike when I started this thread and he was nursing non-stop.

Bad news:
He is still going through some streaks of non-stop demanding to nurse. This is even after he is clearly well fed and using me as a pacifier which he can't stand letting go of for a moment.
He is still hardly ever falling asleep without nursing. When he does it's only with a LOT of work, see thread re breaking back.

Worst part:
He wakes up almost every single time I try putting him down at all, anywhere, any way, any time. I think I was able to put him down sleeping twice in the last week. A couple more times he woke up in less than 5 minutes so that doesn't really count.

Read another thread yesterday where someone was swearing by putting them down drowsy but awake, and I laughed and laughed. Not going to spoil her fun but I read all the things before this baby was born and it didn't work. I was cleaning up my phone and I have videos from the very beginning showing how he just doesn't know how to get from awake to sleeping. And conversely I was supposed to not let him fall asleep while nursing to avoid that strong association but I literally couldn't stop him. Video evidence of that too. Funny to watch and oh so futile.

amother

Milk ↓

Mon, Feb 12 2024, 2:01 pm

Oy, Op, I had a baby like this. She wouldn’t even take a pacifier. My sanity went out the window and my marriage took a hit. My other kids had a hard time too and they were too young to help.

Eventually she slept. Not gonna tell you how old she was when she finally slept through the night. She’s 6 now and still my earliest riser but at least she sleeps.

It was h@ll. We “sleep trained” countless times but nothing worked until she got older. I don’t really have advice but I can empathize!

I have a new baby who also loves to nurse but it’s a whole different ball game BH. I still shudder thinking of my last kid’s babyhood. Incidentally she turned out to have some allergies and I always wonder if that contributed to her neediness. Is that something you’ve explored?

amother

↑ Chestnut ↓

Mon, Feb 12 2024, 2:13 pm

amother Milk wrote:

Did you do anything different that helped her sleep through? Going through a difficult time with my 2.5 year old (was never great sleep though). I think temperaments play a huge role. Especially since it seems like your older kids slept?

amother

↑ Milk

Mon, Feb 12 2024, 3:07 pm

amother Chestnut wrote:

No, nothing. She just got old enough to understand that she had to sleep and I couldn't sit with her for hours.

My older kids took pacifiers. This one didn't. I had one amazing sleeper (and patted myself on the back for doing such a good job, that one sure came back to bite me) and a couple of not-terrible sleepers, then the sleeper from h@ll, and now a semi-decent sleeper bli ayin hara.

They all have similar temperaments (intense and ADHD). The worst sleeper has a pretty intense temperament but is actually the best at self-soothing, and my best sleeper is my most challenging child and teen years later. Go figure.

amother

Burgundy ↓

Mon, Feb 12 2024, 3:59 pm

I have a baby the same age.

1. Cluster feed in the evenings, even if you're FINALLY getting stuff done. That way you know your baby is stocking up on calories for the night time.

2. No medicine for reflux? What's that about? My doctor gave me pepcid for reflux, and mylicon for gas too. If they won't prescribe, the gas med at least is over the counter. But try to push for the reflux med. When baby is inconsolable and nothing works, I try each one until baby calms. The poor baby is probably having tummy trouble all night, and the trickle of liquid he gets while "nursing" soothes him.

3. When he falls asleep on you, stuff the paci in his mouth instead of your nipple. You can try having a prepared syringe of the reflux medication, and squirting it in past the paci as well.

4. Do you have a noise machine? Keep it running all night.

5. Try having DH cosleep with baby instead. I do that sometimes when nothing else works.

6. The Baby Whisperer book has a good sleep training method.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Mon, Feb 12 2024, 5:22 pm

Of course I've tried paci instead of nipple. Gets him very upset.

He won't sleep with dh. Alas.

With medicine I think acid blockers can mess up the natural acid system or something. I'm giving elimination diet another try but if I continue to suspect acid reflux I'll have another talk with the doctor.

I have the baby whisperer solves your problems and haven't read it, will see if it includes the sleep training method.

Grasping at straws here... It's come to the point where sometimes even if I know he's tired I try to distract him instead of putting him to sleep because I just don't have the energy to hold him for the next hour. I know that's terrible and counterproductive and everything but that's desperation.