Im exhausted and need advice!

[Prugh12]

My DS is 5 months old and has never slept longer than 2 hours! Sometimes he wakes up more freqently. He cannot be hungry and sometimes it feels like he's using me as a pacifier. I know he's not hungry because he'll nurse for only a few minutes and immediately fall asleep once he's latched.

I'm exhausted and have 2 other children to care for. I'm just at my wits end and really could use more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. Any thoughts are appreciated!

[teachma]

Ugh. I can relate to this. My little one is 4.5 months old, and I also have two older children. While my baby *used to* sleep through the night (9pm-4:00am) this was only temporary. (It lasted three or four weeks.) After a few weeks of sleeping these lengthy stretches, he abruptly gave them up and started waking every hour or so. He has now settled into a nighttime routine of waking every 90 minutes to nurse, and there's no end in sight! While I sometimes think "he can't be hungry this often," he continues to weigh in the 70th percentile and has not left this growth curve, so part of me thinks he really needs to nurse this much to sustain the size he is meant to be. (He is 26" long, and 95th %ile for height, so he's big overall). I wish I could find a gentle way to stretch out his sleeping periods to even 2 or 2.5 hours, but nothing I read (inc. the No-Cry Sleep Solution) really appeals to me...

[kfillmore]

maybe he wakes when he has to pee.

check out the Elimination Communication forum. At night we use cloth diapers w/out cover. I now know that EVERYtime she wakes she pees. She wants to nurse before/during and/or after she pees.

It is pretty amazing actually. I am still tired because i wake to nurse and change her in bed.

[DeannaK]

Oh this is me times 2. I've got one that will go 3 hours and the other baby goes 1 1/2 hours at the most! Six months of never getting more than 2 hours per stretch is killing me!

I think a bit of reflux caused Nathan to wake up often and now it's become habit, but even my happy guy Wesley is giving me issues. They are six months one week now, they should be able to go at least 4 hours.

[susumama]

I haven't got any solutions for you - other than co-sleeping and napping through his feeds - but wanted to say that I know how you feel. My DS#1 didn't sleep more than 40 mins night or day for 12mths. It was murder but it did get better eventually & I did survive (I don't mean that in a belittling or flippant way, it's just nice to know, sometimes, that others have been there and this isn't something only you have to go through).

Good luck with it ending soon mamma ((hug))

[DeannaK]

Originally Posted by susumama

I haven't got any solutions for you - other than co-sleeping and napping through his feeds - but wanted to say that I know how you feel. My DS#1 didn't sleep more than 40 mins night or day for 12mths. It was murder but it did get better eventually & I did survive (I don't mean that in a belittling or flippant way, it's just nice to know, sometimes, that others have been there and this isn't something only you have to go through).

Good luck with it ending soon mamma ((hug))

I do co-sleep. Still not enough sleep.