[Maddie Maughan]

Hi Emma

We’re settled in pretty well in our new home, and actually our little girl didn’t really notice any of it so she hasn’t been disrupted at all which is great.

We’re back to where we were with sleep over a month ago and she is doing some fantastic stretches between 7:30pm and 7am, and this happened with very little intervention from us. This makes me think that all the wakings a couple of weeks ago were more because of her having been poorly.

I wondered if I could ask about two things:

1. Our little girl is sometimes waking at 3am very happy and can take till 5am to go back to sleep – do you have any advice on what this might be about? She isn’t upset, and I just try and feed her back to sleep but I’m having to do this several times in the one-two hours she’s awake before it actually works.

2. A lot of the time at bedtime I am feeding to sleep. There are two things with this. The first is that I’m concerned I’m creating a crutch that will be difficult to stop. Feeding is the last step in our bedtime routine so a lot of the time she falls asleep whilst I’m feeding her. Other times she will finish feeding and I will be able to put her into her crib very sleepy and fall to sleep there. What are the main concerns with feeding to sleep? And any advice on stopping it?

The second is that if she has fallen asleep mid-feed and I’ve put her in her crib. I can guarantee that 30-45minutes later she will be awake and crying because she’s still hungry. This was an issue over a month ago, and it’s the same thing. Do you have any suggestions about how I can keep her awake for a full feed so that a) she isn’t always feeding to sleep and b) she has a full feed in her before bed.

Worth noting, we always give her formula at bedtime to help with knowing how much she’s had and to fill her up. But more often than not she wants to top that off with breastfeeding – a lot of the time she stops taking the bottle about half way down and then wants to breastfeed instead.

Hope you can help!

Maddie

[Maddie Maughan]

Thank you so much, Emma.

Still slowly working our way right through the course and trying to implement the pyramid technique but also aware that little one is about to go through a big change when we move house in a couple of days so I don’t want to cause too much disruption all at once.

She is definitely feeling better, and I think you were right that she was still potentially feeling a bit unwell. We’re now managing to get two/two and a half hour stretches, which still isn’t as good as it was a month ago.

I’ve paid close attention to feeds the past couple of nights and she is definitely feeding for hunger. She has been feeding for 20minutes and more when she’s waking. I’m wondering if she may be having a growth spurt now. I’m removing her from my breast when she’s sleepy and seems to just be suckling and she’s not feeding to sleep for naps at all.

The main issue we have now is that I can’t get her back to sleep! She’s feeding, coming off the breast and then it’s taking around an hour, if not more to get her to go back into her crib next to me. I’m having to get her into a really deep sleep by rocking, but mostly I’m not actually even rocking or shushing and she just seems to be happy to sleep on me. This is happening one-two times a night. Is the answer to keep practicing the pyramid? And do you think we’re right to wait to push too much with this till after the move (Monday so not long at all!)?

Sorry to ask more questions! I know everything is a phase so I’m sure it’ll all change again in a few days, but I’d just love to get more than two hours of sleep, and to not be up for hours trying to re-settle!

Maddie