Help me prioritize.

[rugbywife]

This might end up a brain dump.

We have a lot of 'not ideal' situations with DS right now:
- won't take a bottle
- nurses to sleep (nurses and then is rocked) at night, and for naps unless in the car.
- co-sleeps after his first wake up
- wakes up every 2 hours, sometimes more often than that

I feel like I am at a loss because he is so different than DD. We did Ferber at 5 months with DD because she was fighting bed time. He doesn't fight it, he is fine being nursed and rocked. She didn't wake up until at least midnight (so 6 hours of sleep), which was fine, so we let her MOTN wake ups (for feedings) just go away on their own, which they did at 10 months. But she was on formula. He is EBF. The LCs I have spoken to have said that some kids just metabolize BM quickly, so he may actually need to eat every two hours. But I wonder if sleep training will change that. Then I wonder if it is even worth bothering since when I go back to work he might end up reverse cycling anyway as, so do I bother stressing out over CIO over Christmas only to have undone 2 weeks later when I go back to work?

CN version: see above list? Where do I start?

[Deleted]

I'd start with the bottle for your sanity and making sure he can do it when you go back to work.

Then I would see if you could stop the co-sleeping. He may sleep better all around.

Then I would sleep train so he's not up every 2 hours (although good luck with that. My almost 2 year old still does this in streaks)...so I wouldn't try too hard to fight it.

I wouldn't worry too much about the nurse and rock if it doesn't bother you. This isn't something I ever found to be a big deal. If it's part of his routine and gets him to bed, it's fine.

[MadamePresident]

I'm sorry. My toddler is still up so much at night. It's hard, because you get so tired at night, you just default to whatever will get you in bed soonest.

[namasteak]

I had LC's tell me that ds1 needed to eat every 2 hours because he was big and metabolized BM faster. But I could tell it was comfort nursing MOTN. Is your DS actually eating or comfort nursing? If it's comfort I would sleep train first because everything is so much easier when you're actually rested IMO.

[oswin]

I just started Ferber for DS because of motn wakeups. He'd fall asleep nursing and would barely wake up when I put him down, but recently he's been waking up a lot and screaming until I nurse him - and I'm 99% sure it's not hunger. So tonight I fed him but made sure he didn't fall asleep and was fairly awake when I put him down. Then there was silence, followed by an hour fifteen of screaming with checks. I'm hoping that forcing him to fall asleep on his own will significantly reduce nighttime wakings. Anyway, it sounds like you're having the same problem. And I vote tackle sleep first, since you'll be better equipped to deal with bottle refusal on more sleep. Good luck.

[curbsideprophet]

I would probably get rid of the co sleeping since it does not seem to be helping.

[rugbywife]

Thank you everyone. I know I sound neurotic, lol. It's funny how I can feel so competent at my job but completely incompetent as a parent!

I think I am going to focus on the bottle issues for now as they are the most pressing issue right now.

[bananapancakes]

Do you know if you have excess lipase? I think I may have and if I did, it definitely affected L's relationship with bottles. I'm not entirely sure that I did but by the time I thought about it, it was too late. He already hated bottles too much. I imagine you've tried already, but have you ever given him freshly pumped, like still warm milk? Any difference in his reaction?

As you know, P is basically a clone of L and if I could go back in time, I would've done the following: given bottles more regularly (investigated into possible excess lipase earlier), started the SLS and stopped nursing to sleep earlier, asked for and accepted more help.

Who knows if any of that would've made a difference though. At P's age L was just too busy and distractible to nurse well during the day so I really do think he was nursing for nutrition and not just out of habit overnight. I would say he got more ounces overnight than during his awake hours. I tried all the tricks (nursing in a dark, quiet place away from any distractions, etc.) and it just didn't matter.

I also would've tried to work on @lauralynn's advice of acceptance too. It's taken me a long time to accept that some kids need to eat more than others, are crappier sleepers than others, and simply need less sleep than others. I just didn't win the good sleeper lottery but he is so awesome in so many other ways. And yes, even though it is all consuming now, it really just is a blip in time. He's 19 months now and pretty much STTN about 10.5 hours straight now so it really doesn't last forever. I would've totally rolled my eyes at that advice a year ago though but coming through on the other side, I can start to appreciate it.

I'm sure you've already tried it all but I pretty much bought every bottle, nipple, straw, and sippy cup on the market when I was trying to get L to take milk in any way other than nursing and I'd be happy to send them to you so you can try (and hopefully have more luck than us!)

*I've been typing this response off and on for like two hours so I apologize for the disjointedness of it.*

[luv2rn4fun]

Start with the bottle since that is a must for daycare.

As for sleep, C was a nightmare for 6 wks until I sleep trained at 4 months (well he really only slept good week 8-11.5). Anyways, it just kept getting worse until he was up every hr or sleeping for 2 hrs if we co-slept. I got to my breaking point since all the nursing/co-sleeping wasn't working for anyone. Sleep training was a very painful but quick fix. Truly a lifesaver...so awesome to finally sleep and freeing knowing I could just put him down for his naps and he would put himself to sleep (before ST naps were an exhausting 40 min ordeal for crappy naps).

Hang in there...it will get better! Prayers that DS takes a bottle and starts sleeping better before the end of your ML.

[rugbywife]

Omg, bananapancakes, I wonder if it is lipase!!! Holy crap. I have to at least investigate to see.

[bananapancakes]

Nov 26, 2015 9:20:29 GMT -5 rugbywife said:

Omg, bananapancakes , I wonder if it is lipase!!! Holy crap. I have to at least investigate to see.

Yeah, I thought of it way too late too. Take out a bag of older milk from the freezer. If it smells/tastes kind of soapy, it's likely lipase. Unfortunately I think L was so turned off by the bottles that it was too late for him once I figured it out. I think he just began to associate bottles with funky tasting milk so he even rejected freshly pumped milk. I bought a tiny sauce pan and thermometer to try scalding but I had pretty much given up by then.

[mekia]

Nov 26, 2015 9:26:20 GMT -5 bananapancakes said:

Nov 26, 2015 9:20:29 GMT -5 rugbywife said:

Omg, bananapancakes , I wonder if it is lipase!!! Holy crap. I have to at least investigate to see.

Yeah, I thought of it way too late too. Take out a bag of older milk from the freezer. If it smells/tastes kind of soapy, it's likely lipase. Unfortunately I think L was so turned off by the bottles that it was too late for him once I figured it out. I think he just began to associate bottles with funky tasting milk so he even rejected freshly pumped milk. I bought a tiny sauce pan and thermometer to try scalding but I had pretty much given up by then.

Does this only happen after the milk has been frozen? Or can it happen when it's been in the fridge?

[booboo173]

Id start with the bottle as that can help your sanity sometimes and then the cosleeping. Fwiw my ds ate every two hours his first year of life. No amount of trying to give him more changed that, he would just refuse the extra.

[bananapancakes]

Nov 26, 2015 9:31:20 GMT -5 mekia said:

Nov 26, 2015 9:26:20 GMT -5 bananapancakes said:

Yeah, I thought of it way too late too. Take out a bag of older milk from the freezer. If it smells/tastes kind of soapy, it's likely lipase. Unfortunately I think L was so turned off by the bottles that it was too late for him once I figured it out. I think he just began to associate bottles with funky tasting milk so he even rejected freshly pumped milk. I bought a tiny sauce pan and thermometer to try scalding but I had pretty much given up by then.

Does this only happen after the milk has been frozen? Or can it happen when it's been in the fridge?

It can also happen with refridgerated milk. The process happens differently for different women. It can turn soapy after an hour or two or be good for a day or two. It totally depends. 

[bananapancakes]

kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/milkstorage/lipase-expressedmilk/

[rugbywife]

Nov 26, 2015 9:26:20 GMT -5 bananapancakes said:

Nov 26, 2015 9:20:29 GMT -5 rugbywife said:

Omg, bananapancakes , I wonder if it is lipase!!! Holy crap. I have to at least investigate to see.

Yeah, I thought of it way too late too. Take out a bag of older milk from the freezer. If it smells/tastes kind of soapy, it's likely lipase. Unfortunately I think L was so turned off by the bottles that it was too late for him once I figured it out. I think he just began to associate bottles with funky tasting milk so he even rejected freshly pumped milk. I bought a tiny sauce pan and thermometer to try scalding but I had pretty much given up by then.

This is my worry too, that he just sees a bottle and loses it.

[kershnic]

I can't help on the bottle issue, but if that's the one that's bothering you most then by all means focus on it first.

For your other problems I would start with expecting him to spend the night in his crib (or at least until a certain time), and then start gradually reducing how long you let him nurse MOTN. So, if he likes to nurse 10 minutes move to only allowing 8 minutes, then only 6, etc. When I did this with Squishy she would still cry when I put her back down but not the endless hysterical sobbing that cutting her off from MOTN would have caused. He's old enough that I promise you he does not nutritionally need to eat every 2 hours in the MOTN.

Good luck, I know these issues suck a lot.

[humpforfree]

Huh I need to test out the excess lipase issue too. L never really took frozen bottles. I should figure it out before I store too much for E.

[rugbywife]

I tasted my milk. It seemed fine.