Missions bottle & sleep through...

CC has done a remarkable job of mirroring his closest brothers sleeping habits at the same age. i.e. unlike his biggest brother he is still awaking at 7 1/2 months for a few wee feeds through the night. This doesn't bode well, along with the fact that he still hasn't fed from a bottle, for his pending visit to his Gran's for the weekend in 2 weeks time!

We decided to start a mission to get him fixed!

It started 5 nights ago when he had a grizzle at 10:30pm and both BFS and I were still fully awake and alert and downstairs watching the box. I quickly boiled the kettle and scrambled together a formula feed from the box which had been sitting unopened on the kitchen worktop for about 2 weeks in anticipation of this moment. It was definitely on the spur, and there was no time for any hesitation or mental preparation for this wee milestone. We saw an opportunity and grabbed it!
BFS marched upstairs with the bottle in hand and I sat on a step and listened to the tug of wills going on in the bedroom. Eventually he re-appeared brandishing the pretty much untouched bottle and informed me that CC just kept dosing off with it in his mouth. He then duly informed me that I was going to 'have to stop feeding him at this time'!!!! Yeah - I've only been trying to do that for the past three months! I'm not spending all this time with a small person power sucking at my boob through choice! I too would like for a bit of respite that is longer than three hours - it's only been 206 days (and nights) of enduring this so far....

Anyways on the back of this failed effort BFS decided to take the bull by the horns (2 days before returning to work and therefore leaving me with the brunt of the hard work) (did you nibble at that?) and do the 'night shift'. ie getting up to our crying loon and trying to settle him back to sleep without letting him feed. I fed him a last feed at 10:30pm and the plan was to not let him have any more milk until at least 5am. He did a triumphant job - albeit succumbing to the tiredness and eventually taking him into our bed for the last stretch. He did last until 5 for his feed though. BFS informed that on the second night CC did go back to sleep a bit more easily than he did on the first night, but I did awaken again to find them both snuggled up on the other side of the bed again!

The big test came the next night as BFS had returned to work and CC would smell the milk on me and be less likely to settle. He fed at 10:15pm and actually slept until 3am. When I picked him up he tried latching onto my neck, then he got my hair and started sucking on that, I lay him back down and gave him my fingers to play with and suck on, but my nails kept catching on the roof of his mouth (ouch) I found a dummy in a drawer and cleaned and tried that - all the while making loud shooshing noises. Eventually he flung himself on his side and started nuzzling into his pillow (his signal that he's going to attempt going to sleep) I continued shooshing and crawled back into bed. I then recorded myself shooshing for 5 mins for future use and dosed off. I think this took about 45 mins. He woke up again at 5 so I fed him and he then slept (in his own bed) until his usual 7 am rising time. Phew.

Last night came another breakthrough in that, because he hadn't stirred when I went up to bed, I made up a formula feed and went upstairs with the mission of lifting him from his bed and trying to 'dream feed' him the bottle. Well it worked! He took it all without any problem and I lay him back down feeling pretty chuffed with myself - thanking that (as many know-it-alls have advised) he would sleep longer having a formula feed in his tummy. Total bollox. He actually woke up 2 hours earlier than the previous night at 1am! Aaargh. It just shows there are no rule books for babies! He was pretty frantic, but settled surprisingly well with a chew on my fingers and playing my pre-recorded shooshing on repeat! He woke again at 3am, I didn't pick him up this time and just let him chew, then at 4:30am when he grumbled again I fed him as I was pretty engorged having missed the 10pm feed.

Slowly but surely we're getting there. Not sure whether to do the dream feed thing again tonight or not. I think it may have given him wind last night and that's why he woke early? Anyways really sore boobs for me today having dropped that feed, but I probably need to stick with it now if I'm going to start getting him weaned off...