6 Months not STTN !

My boys are nearly 6 months and are no where near STTN. I get up every 2.5-4 hours (3-4 times ) to nurse and it's really starting to be too much for me. Has anyone else been through this and what did you do? ( and they will absolutely NOT take a bottle)

 

Yes. It's normal for breastfed babies to wake up at night until they are a year or older. It's hard. My first was up every 2-4 hours until almost age 2. My twins still get up 2-3 times a night and they are 4.5 months old.

We tried tips from the No Cry Sleep Solution the first time but it didn't gain us much at night. At 10 months it worked much better and we finally realized that attempts to change sleep habits take 10 nights or longer to see consistent changes and it usually involves a regression the first week.

I don't use cry it out so can't comment on that. I think working on spacing feedings could be useful at 6 months but requires patience and consistency which is hard when exhausted!

Hugs. It's hard to be this tired. I work full time and I'm not sure how I get up each day.

 

Thanks for the hugs. I think I just needed to know I am not alone. I think it's amazing jsquared that you are working full time and BF! There are few in my local twins association who are BFing ( and nobody doing exclusively) so its hard to get questions answers or support.

 

It's pretty normal. I would say if they can do 2 hours during the day, you should be able to get 4 hour stretches at night from them. Around that time (mine were healthy weights) I did work within their limits and just not feed them if they woke too early. (Say 3.5 hours was the minimum). I sent DH in to sooth them back to sleep which took a couple of days to work but when it started to work they slept much, much better.

 

I think I need to get DH on board with this. He is not very patient so just ends up waking them up instead of soothing back to sleep. And from the time I wake him up he takes about 5 min to first wake up, go to washroom, then finally get the one that is crying by which time, the are both up. He is SO NOT an infant guy. Me breastfeeding gave him excuse to have no night time responsibilities and now it's hard to start for him.

 

:hug: I feel your pain. My twins at 3 slept worse than my newborn. My twins did not STTN until about 20 months old. At 6 months, they're still hungry. They need you. Adding an additional feed in the day MAY help. GOod luck! That is totally normal!

 

It wasn't easy for my DH, either. He fought me on it for a week or two, but luckily I've made him get up with me to change and reswaddle babies so he was used to that. Does your DH have to go to the bathroom every time he gets up? That would drive me nuts, too.

 

We had an agreement that after the first 4 weeks or so I would do the nights alone until I went back to work. The problem is that by then my DH (who like yours is difficult to rouse anyway) had gotten so used to sleeping through any baby noise and I had gotten so used to responding to the little noises that I ended up doing the nights alone even after I went back to work. It stayed like that until we started actively reducing the night-time nursing sessions when they were 12 months old; one of our LOs was sleeping a few hours at a time by then at least once a night, but the other was still nursing every 2-2.5 hours through the night at 12 months. Partial night-weaning would never have worked without DH's taking over certain parts of the night.

Our good sleeper started going 4-5 hours once a night around 6 months and managed 7-8 hours most nights by 12 months. The other stayed on her 2-2.5 hour schedule until we partially night-weaned once they turned 1; she would still wake every 3 hours or so until she was around 18 months, so breastfeeding on demand was not to blame - she was just not ready for STTN earlier. Every baby is different when they are ready.

 

The 6 month old(3 month adjusted)twin boys have have have been sleeping through the night for 3 months. They are on a strict day time feeding schedule. The twins are bottle fed but I have done this exact same schedule with BF babies too and it has worked well to get them all to STTN. It is not always easy but usually they are STTN after 1 week. The twin I care for right now dropped to 2 night feeds the 1st night back when they were 3 month old. After a week they were only waking once and after 2 weeks they dropped all night waking except normal sleep pattern stirring.

This is their schedule right now

8 wake/eat
10-11 Nap(sometimes they only sleep about 30 minutes)
11 eat
1-3:30 Nap
3:30 eat
6:30 eat
7:15 bath
7:45 eat(just to top them off)
8 bed

For bedtime they sleep with fan as a noise machine and they now sleep unswaddled because they are able to flip themselves over when they swaddled.

How soon do you respond to their cries? Babies have sleep patterns that are shorter then adults. The have times when they will wake at night but they will fuss and go back to sleep. It can actually mess up there sleep patterns to be taken out of their usual sleeping area. Typically I wait 15 minutes after I hear them start crying before I go in and pat them. Now they are at the point that they do not fuss long enough for anyone to go in from 8pm-8am. If you want them to sleep you will have to train them to STTN. If they know that they can wake up and cry and mom/nanny will come in and cuddle/feed them then they will continue to wake up at night. When I went to their 4 month doctors appointment he told me to no longer feed them at night.

They are at the age where they can CIO but if you don't want to go that route you can start by just going in and patting them but not picking them up but wait the 15 minutes before you go in. They will probably decide that it is not worth it to wake up. Also if you can hear them through the house try turning off the monitor so that you don't hear every noise but only if they are crying for real.
HTH

 

Thanks for the help and suggestions everyone. I think part of the problem is that they are still in our room. ( the local health unit here says babies should sleep in parents room till 6 months cause it lowers SIDS risk. But it's time for them to go to their own rooms.

DH agreed to get up and comfort them when we talked at lunch yesterday then 10 min ago (@3:15am) when one woke before he was due to eat, DH waited forever to get up, then went to bathroom, then took baby to computer room and put him on floor on playmat!!! So he could just play games while baby.fell back asleep. I am so mad right now.

 

Same boat as you, my girls are almost 7 months, EBFing, not on solids yet and most definitely not sleeping through the night. Some nights I get 4 hours, but most nights I don't. It sucks. I'm not working, but I am home with the twins plus my older girl so I don't have a chance to nap. I've accepted tiredness as part of my life right now lol. I will always be tired. It sucks. The end Sorry I can't be more help But it did help me when I accepted it and tell myself it's temporary and I will be able to sleep in a few months. Till then, coffee coffee coffee.