Will they ever sleep through the night?

I am up with my boys at least three times every night for at least an hour each time . Often more than three times because I can't get one of them to wake up to eat when his brother does. I never get more than an hour's sleep at a time and because I have a toddler, have no opportunity to nap during the day. I am so tired I can barely function. I am breastfeeding, but I have tried giving them a bottle for their last feed before bedtime, or the firs time they wake up in the night. It hasn't made a difference. Am I ever going to sleep again?

 

Have you tried breastfeeding laying down? That was a lifesaver for me because I could doze while the baby ate. Since you have the boys waking at different times this would actually work for you logistically. None of my first three kids slept through the night before 10 months old but learning to feed them lying down made a huge difference in my fatigue level. Just make sure you keep them away from sheets and pillows.

 

I do feed them lying down when one wakes at a time. Some nights the only sleep I get is while one of them is nursing. Feeding one lying down is good until the other one wakes up and I have to stop the first one from feeding so I can go get the second one and then I feed them together. Our double bed is too small to cosleep with them both, or I would do that.

 

I cosleep with them both after their first wake-up and nurse lying down. However, I do this on a smaller than full-size bed in their room that has sides on it - it's an Ikea loveseat that folds out into a bed. Dh sleeps in our room on his own half the night. We're in the process of trying to transition me out of the cosleeping, though, as they are now getting a little big for the bed and one of them is close to crawling. Unfortunately, the one that is almost crawling is the one that STILL doesn't sleep through the night. He still wakes every 2-4 hours for a feeding and he's our reflux baby and super active so he needs everything he can eat. The other one sleeps through until 4am, has a feeding, then sleeps until 7am.

 

I am so sorry that things are rough right now. I dont know if you have someone there at night to help out, but if so is it possible to give them a bottle during the middle of the night so that you can get more than an hour of consecutive sleep?

 

Hang in there!! Three months is a bit young to expect more than a 5-6 hr stretch at night. What time are they going down? It may seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes moving the bedtime earlier helps. Then you go to bed at the same time. (My babies have gone down at 6pm since about 3 mos, and sleeping till 12 or 1 am. But I have a hard time going to bed before 10). Also keep trying and trying to get them to nap while your toddler naps. This was absolutely necessary for me. Even if I could just get one to sleep, I could lie down and side nurse the other. I also found a way to nurse both of them in the recliner so I could lay my head back and doze. I still do this during the day while my older 2 watch a movie.

 

Is there any "schedule" to when they are waking? Will either one of them dreamfeed?

With the boys, I always fed tandemly and I set a clock to wake up to feed them close to when they ordinarily would get up. I didn't start doing this until about 12 weeks old. I would feed around 7p, down for bed, feed again around 10, then back to bed and I would go to bed, feed at 2a and then again around 5a. It wasn't great but it didn't last for too long. Then we were able to move the 2a feed closer to the 5a feed until they didn't need to wake in the night.

With this baby, she was totally uncooperative with eating unless she woke to eat. Now at about 3.5 months old, I've started waking around 1:30/2a to feed her and then she's good until morning. So with her, I do 7p feed and to bed, I go to bed around 10, wake around 2a to feed and then she wakes to feed around 5:30ish.

ETA: The boys officially STTN from 7p to 6a just before turning 8 months. Prior to that we still had a 10p feed from 6 to 8 months.

Baby girl is no where near STTN but she only wakes once which I can deal with.

I hope yours get a little more cooperative with you. I can't imagine having to feed like that all the time.

 

Hi,

No advice here i'm afraid but just wanted to give you a :hug: as i can imagine how tired you must be! I hope you get some help from some of the veterans of this site.

Love
Liz xxx

 

:hug: You will sleep again. Hang in there, sleep deprivation is so difficult to deal with.

 

Hang in there, Momma. They will start STTN, all babies do this at a different pace. :hug:

 

YES.

dd:sttn at 6 weeks. I was thinking "what is everyone complaining about, this is so easy"
ds:Had colick for 7 months and I never got to sleep before 4am and was up with dd at 8am
twins:sttn at about 10 months.

All babies are different. Hang in there. I hope it happens for you soon!

 

Around 11-12 wks old mine would STTN once in a while, but nothing to be excited about. During the first couple months I'd get up between 3-8 times [mine didn't always wake up at the same time either]. Even now at 8 months mine usually wake once each during the night with STTN once a week or so.

:hug: You'll get through it mama. You're doing a Great job!