Knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care

[radegund]

I am decidedly frayed around the edges after a difficult couple of weeks. Oisín has adopted the habit of waking up twice or three times a night, rather than just the once. (On Sunday night, in addition, he YELLED for two hours, which necessitated my taking a sick day on Monday. I still have no idea what was up with him - could have been trapped wind.) He wriggles over to the bars of his cot and complains until I hoist him into the bed and attach him to a breast. This basically means that he's flipped his milk-drinking schedule: he pigs out at night and will only take about three ounces all day at the creche.

We tried giving him a bottle feed a few nights ago (milk sneakily diluted with water, in a bid to make him hungrier during the day), but he was having none of it. None. He knows what he wants, and he can communicate it quite clearly. (Needless to say, when he wakes me in the small hours I'll do pretty much anything to settle him so that I can go back to sleep. It's remarkable how little strength of character I have at four in the morning.)

It's a tough one. Physiologically, there's no reason he can't go twelve hours without milk - in fact, it'd be good for him to sleep for longer chunks. (Come to think of it, last night he did actually sleep for almost nine hours - it's just that they were the wrong nine hours for me: 19:00 till 03:40.) It's just habit, everyone says, and the desire for comfort.

The question is, how do we help him break the habit? Do we go cold turkey? Make a decision not to feed him one night, and stick it out, secure in the knowledge that it won't cause him any lasting damage and that we'll all be happier and healthier for it? Or do we try to ease him into a better schedule while working full days on insufficient, broken sleep, secure in the knowledge that we're being the loving and kind parents he deserves?

This is completely irreducible to a poll, but here goes anyway :-)

[Poll #484589]

Comments

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine that it'd be very pleasant, no! We've yet to try being hardline, actually, because on a schoolnight I'm unwilling to do anything that'll disrupt my sleep even more.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

You'd want to go on something more than my say-so, but I've seen a few episodes of baby psychologist programs and it seemed to just take a few days of firmness for new routines to stick. So this weekend might be a good time to try it. But check with people with actual experience (or the interbets) first.