Does your BF baby sleep through the night?

[Caryliz]

DS2 is now almost 1 year old, and it seems to me that he has been sleeping for shorter stretches in the past few months (during which time I have been working longer hours and traveling more) than he did, say, last summer at 6 months, when I worked saner hours and really didn't travel. The problem for me, of course, is that the more and harder I have to work, the less well he seems to sleep - which means I am pretty much wrecked all the time, at least during the week.  (This would be funny if it wasn't such a huge quality of life suck...)

His usual routine is that he nurses and then goes to sleep (in a crib) about 7pm. He usually wakes around 9 to feed again, then goes back down in the crib. He will then wake again around 11, which is when I try to get to bed. At that point I bring him to bed with me, nurse him a bit, and then he will wake again around 2-ish and then again around 6, nursing each time. (We get up after his 6am feeding.) If I am up late working, he will wake every hour until I come to bed, which is a huge drag as the only way I'm able to avoid long hours in the office (I work in senior management for a large consulting firm) is to catch up late at night after DH and the kids are in bed.  I contrast this to where DS was at 6mos, when he would go down at about the same time (7-ish), wake around midnight for a big nursing session, and then sleep through until 6, when we would nurse again and then get up for the day.

I'm specifically posting this in the working/student mama forum because my feeling is that DS wakes to nurse so many times a night in part because he and I are away from each other all day, and this is one way he connects and gets more cuddle time with mama. Has this been your experience? If so, how long did it last, and HOW did you get through it intact?!

TIA,

Caryliz

[cat13]

My 5 month old doesn't sleep through the night, but thankfully so far he just wakes up, nurses, and falls back asleep. And since we co-sleep, it's manageable right now. I'm still tired during the day at work, but I can still function.

Fingers crossed that he keeps on this same habit, but honestly I don't expect him to STTN for a while.

[Caryliz]

I realize that STTN is relative. And I certainly don't expect my LO to sleep through until morning without waking, especially considering he goes down by 7pm! That said - I do wish he'd sleep more than 2 hours at a stretch.

[Yuba_River]

This sounds so familiar to me. My younger DS is a year, and he wakes up SO much more when I have a lot going on with work. Like you I work a lot at night, and it kills me to get up to soothe him back to sleep every time I've just gotten into the flow of my work. My older DS did the same thing, although now at 4 he is a decent sleeper, thank goodness. I have been known to bring my laptop into bed and sit up next to him, working while he sleeps--just having me next to him seems to keep him from waking as much.

[osker]

DD is 17 months and doesn't STTN. She's up some nights every hour til midnight, then every other hour.. other nights she'll sleep a solid chunk from 8-2 or 3... but then she's in bed with us and can sometimes have a party in the middle of the night where she's laughing and carrying on like it's mid-day.  I don't have a solution, unfortunately, it's exhausting.

[PatioGardener]

DS is 20 months old and I work outside the home in a job that also would have long hours if I didn't bring work home with me. I usually get along stretch from 7-9 pm when I work like crazy, and then he nurses and I can work until about 11 pm when he needs me in bed to sleep soundly. Often I can sneak away at 6 am as well, and then he wakes at 7 am.

It is not easy. I try to be as efficient as possible with work, and to enjoy the awake time with him as much as I can.

[Taos Mountain Mama]

SAME DEAL HERE. My daughter will be one next week, and although I have fairly normal hours (8-5), I also feel like she's waking up a lot more than she did when she was younger. I think it's a combo of being away from me, and all the developments that are taking place in her little brain. She wakes up about every 1-2 hours. I think the only solution might be nightweaning, but I'm just not ready to do that yet. I love our cuddle time (mostly - except when I'm totally exhausted during the day). Good to hear that others are experiencing the same thing, even though we're all sleep deprived.

[JudiAU]

Both of my kids have slept and nursed the same way. Dealing with crib made it doubly exhausting for me i.e. getting baby,nursing baby, making sure they were really asleep, putting in crib, sneaking away, etc. I chose co-sleeping with #2 to get more sleep and I did.  With the first one I felt like I really struggled and LO was "supposed" to behaving a certain one. With #2 I just...stopped struggling. I knew I would wake up to nurse and did and do. And I appreciated the physical element a lot more.

I think it is sort of silly she isn't night weaned at this point but I also admit I will loose the connectedness I get from it. I miss them so much when I am at work.

But yes, for little ones they make up calories and snuggles they don't have during the day.

[Caryliz]

Although I don't wish this level of sleep-deprivation on anyone - it is nice to know I'm not the only one in this boat!

Luckily I've had a breather on big deadlines the past few weeks and have been able to enjoy longer stretches of sleep myself, which in turn means I have more patience with my youngest and his sleep issues. ITA that the nightwaking must have something to do with mental processing and DS2 going through more developmental stuff. Just in the last week or so he's been exhibiting fierce separation anxiety when I leave him with his DCP, even though he loves her and has been with her daily since he was 10 weeks old - I assume this is all part of the same developmental leap his little self is making about now.

What I *have* found, now that I have more time and patience to attend to the issue, is that DS doesn't necessarily need to nurse every time he wakes in the night. I finally got smart and thought about how much he eats (solids and bmilk) during the day, as well as how often he would logically need to nurse at night - and how long he *does* nurse, when he has access. Though he roots around looking for a nipple (and once managed to get under my nursing top and latch onto my belly in his frantic sleep-deprived search for a breast ),  I am more inclined, now, to see his nightwaking as a need to connect with me before he can resettle - especially given that he nurses only briefly before sleeping again if given the breast. The past few nights I have been pushing myself to get off autopilot, and to check the clock when he wakes. If it's been less than 3 hours since his last good feeding, I rub his back, cuddle and sing to him softly until he goes back to sleep - but don't open my shirt. He initially had a fit each time this happened - and it was painful to ride out the hollering and thrashing around - but after a few days of maintaining this routine he's now sleeping longer stretches (which means I am too! Yay!), and taking less and less time to get back to sleep after he *does* wake.

I love sleeping next to my LO and am not in any hurry to nightwean him (heck, his brother wasn't nightweaned until he was well past 2), so am vastly relieved that the sleep thing is improving for all of us. At least, this week it is.

Hope maybe this helps someone else, too.

[cat13]

Originally Posted by Caryliz 

Although I don't wish this level of sleep-deprivation on anyone - it is nice to know I'm not the only one in this boat!

Luckily I've had a breather on big deadlines the past few weeks and have been able to enjoy longer stretches of sleep myself, which in turn means I have more patience with my youngest and his sleep issues. ITA that the nightwaking must have something to do with mental processing and DS2 going through more developmental stuff. Just in the last week or so he's been exhibiting fierce separation anxiety when I leave him with his DCP, even though he loves her and has been with her daily since he was 10 weeks old - I assume this is all part of the same developmental leap his little self is making about now.

What I *have* found, now that I have more time and patience to attend to the issue, is that DS doesn't necessarily need to nurse every time he wakes in the night. I finally got smart and thought about how much he eats (solids and bmilk) during the day, as well as how often he would logically need to nurse at night - and how long he *does* nurse, when he has access. Though he roots around looking for a nipple (and once managed to get under my nursing top and latch onto my belly in his frantic sleep-deprived search for a breast ),  I am more inclined, now, to see his nightwaking as a need to connect with me before he can resettle - especially given that he nurses only briefly before sleeping again if given the breast. The past few nights I have been pushing myself to get off autopilot, and to check the clock when he wakes. If it's been less than 3 hours since his last good feeding, I rub his back, cuddle and sing to him softly until he goes back to sleep - but don't open my shirt. He initially had a fit each time this happened - and it was painful to ride out the hollering and thrashing around - but after a few days of maintaining this routine he's now sleeping longer stretches (which means I am too! Yay!), and taking less and less time to get back to sleep after he *does* wake.

I love sleeping next to my LO and am not in any hurry to nightwean him (heck, his brother wasn't nightweaned until he was well past 2), so am vastly relieved that the sleep thing is improving for all of us. At least, this week it is.

Hope maybe this helps someone else, too.

Yes, I've woken up to hickies on my breast and belly before. Turns out that on the few stretches of sleep I get, that I sleep pretty deeply!