patrickmoore89
New member
Hi, first time poster here, and also a FTM.
My son is currently 1 week shy of 4 months. For the past 5 weeks we've been in some sort of feeding hell that's slowly been chipping away at my sanity, and apparently also my ability to stay asleep. We're EBF, and we have finally gotten to a place where there's no pain and he's got a good latch on both sides. However, his feeding schedule is nuts - even though I know it can be nuts, it feels like it's gotten out of hand.
My son feeds every 1-2 hours 24/7. He only feeds for maybe 2-5 minutes (in the start of this fresh hell this was ~7-8 minutes per feed, when he "ordered more milk"), except for his bedtime feed at 8pm where he nurses for 10-25 minutes.
Despite the longer feed, he still wakes up at 10pm, midnight, and from midnight on it is more every 1-1.5 hours. It's rare that he sleeps more than 2 hours, and even rarer that it's 3. The last few nights I've started having insomnia as well, as my sleep is getting so broken up and I start to dread his wakings.
During the day, getting him to feed for longer stretches than 3-4 minutes seem impossible. He's also far from a calm eater during the day - always bending and flailing and kicking while eating (I describe it as eating with his whole body). Can take breaks for minutes at a time before continuing.
Is there anything I can do to get out of this? Increase his time spent feeding and staying full for longer - if so how? Dark rooms during the day don't work, and spacing out how far between he goes between feeds have so far not helped (he just gets cranky). I have also noticed that while my supply has regulated, I'm getting less and less full during the night the past few weeks as my sleep is so bad I get very few "breaks" to actually produce milk (or so it feels like). I know there still is milk there. But I very, very rarely feel "full".
We're currently cosleeping in bed to get extra sleep (we practice the safe 7) while nursing.
Any advice? I'm EBF and on maternity leave in the EU so I don't have to worry about going back to work right now. But I feel like I can't take care of him when I'm this tired. He also doesn't like bottles, so we've had little success in giving him pumped milk. I also know about the whole thing with 3-4 months being hard but ... It feels like this is getting out of hand? What the fresh hell?
Edit to add: I've always had a lot of milk, and at the beginning before it regulated I had an oversupply. I try to burp every feed but it doesn't always result in a burp.
Edit 2: grammar
UPDATE:
So we did what a few suggested - I moved out of the bedroom and now sleep on a mattress on the living room floor. My husband is cosleeping with the baby and tell you what - the baby was TOTALLY smelling me during his slight wake-ups, and then refused to go back to sleep until he had the boob. The 3-4 month sleep regression is no joke, and hell on boobs.
The first night, we had 3 wake-ups in the night (11 pm, 2 am, 6 am - wake-up was 7:30 am). The second night, one (at 2 am). Let me tell you, I was VERY ready for him when he woke up
So, that's now our new arrangement. Husband will sleep with our son, and see if he can get him used to sleeping in a baby nest during the night, so that we can try to eventually move him to the bedside crib so that I can move back into the bedroom.
But for now, we'll sleep separately until my son can sleep more soundly. I'm enjoying my sleep now. And honestly, enjoying my son more.
My son is currently 1 week shy of 4 months. For the past 5 weeks we've been in some sort of feeding hell that's slowly been chipping away at my sanity, and apparently also my ability to stay asleep. We're EBF, and we have finally gotten to a place where there's no pain and he's got a good latch on both sides. However, his feeding schedule is nuts - even though I know it can be nuts, it feels like it's gotten out of hand.
My son feeds every 1-2 hours 24/7. He only feeds for maybe 2-5 minutes (in the start of this fresh hell this was ~7-8 minutes per feed, when he "ordered more milk"), except for his bedtime feed at 8pm where he nurses for 10-25 minutes.
Despite the longer feed, he still wakes up at 10pm, midnight, and from midnight on it is more every 1-1.5 hours. It's rare that he sleeps more than 2 hours, and even rarer that it's 3. The last few nights I've started having insomnia as well, as my sleep is getting so broken up and I start to dread his wakings.
During the day, getting him to feed for longer stretches than 3-4 minutes seem impossible. He's also far from a calm eater during the day - always bending and flailing and kicking while eating (I describe it as eating with his whole body). Can take breaks for minutes at a time before continuing.
Is there anything I can do to get out of this? Increase his time spent feeding and staying full for longer - if so how? Dark rooms during the day don't work, and spacing out how far between he goes between feeds have so far not helped (he just gets cranky). I have also noticed that while my supply has regulated, I'm getting less and less full during the night the past few weeks as my sleep is so bad I get very few "breaks" to actually produce milk (or so it feels like). I know there still is milk there. But I very, very rarely feel "full".
We're currently cosleeping in bed to get extra sleep (we practice the safe 7) while nursing.
Any advice? I'm EBF and on maternity leave in the EU so I don't have to worry about going back to work right now. But I feel like I can't take care of him when I'm this tired. He also doesn't like bottles, so we've had little success in giving him pumped milk. I also know about the whole thing with 3-4 months being hard but ... It feels like this is getting out of hand? What the fresh hell?
Edit to add: I've always had a lot of milk, and at the beginning before it regulated I had an oversupply. I try to burp every feed but it doesn't always result in a burp.
Edit 2: grammar
UPDATE:
So we did what a few suggested - I moved out of the bedroom and now sleep on a mattress on the living room floor. My husband is cosleeping with the baby and tell you what - the baby was TOTALLY smelling me during his slight wake-ups, and then refused to go back to sleep until he had the boob. The 3-4 month sleep regression is no joke, and hell on boobs.
The first night, we had 3 wake-ups in the night (11 pm, 2 am, 6 am - wake-up was 7:30 am). The second night, one (at 2 am). Let me tell you, I was VERY ready for him when he woke up
So, that's now our new arrangement. Husband will sleep with our son, and see if he can get him used to sleeping in a baby nest during the night, so that we can try to eventually move him to the bedside crib so that I can move back into the bedroom.
But for now, we'll sleep separately until my son can sleep more soundly. I'm enjoying my sleep now. And honestly, enjoying my son more.
luckily it's not been a problem during the night... So far 
this little man refuses bottle too the times we've tried... Even now just pushes it away 
