short feeds and sleeps

My nearly 5 month old son doesnt feed for very long, maybe 10minutes if I'm lucky I am breast feeding and I really don't know how much he is getting. during the day he only sleeps between 30-45 mins then is awake for 3-4 hours. during the night he wakes every 2 hours but only feed him every second time he wakes up, he only has enough to put himself back to sleep again. I wrap him up which he doesnt like. during the day I useally do the controled crying thing which sometimes work but during the night I can't do it because I have other children sleeping to consider, I don't want them waking up as well. This is my 3 child My other 2 slept through the night from 6 weeks.
hope to hear your replies

Have you started giving him solids as yet? If not this may fix the constant waking, during the night as he may be hungry.
My daughter has only slept for half an hour at a time during the day, which is completely normal in some babies as they don't need much sleep.
If he doesn't like being wrapped up I wouldn't do it, I know my daughter hated it and from 8 weeks we stopped wrapping her of a night and she slept alot better. He is at the age now that he probably likes to spread out and gets frustrated when he can't and thus wakes up.
Unfortunately controlled crying will only ever work if it's done at every sleep time as he is probably getting confused as to why he's left to cry himself to sleep during the day but not the night.
My advice would be introduce more solids to fill him up, don't wrap him of a night if he doesn't like it and play some background music when trying to get him to sleep (that's how my daughter learnt it was sleep time). Good Luck!

Hi all,

Wow this sounds just like my son sad

I am now trying to spread out his feeds in hope he will have more. He is 14 and a half weeks and i can't wait to start solids, just as Loulou said, hoping this will fill him up more.

Sorry i have no answers, just wanted to let you know you are not the only one!!

Tepe

Only a suggestion--- what about mixing rice cereal with your breast milk to make it thicker and give it to him in the late arvo and see if that gets him through any longer???
karen

At 5 months your child is really too young to be doing controlled crying - wait until 6 months and try controlled crying then.

I just have a couple of questions. When you say that he's asleep half hour and then awake 3 - 4 hours - is he happy the entire time? or does he have a major grizzly attack sometime in the middle?

I just ask this because I used to think that it was okay for Hannah to do exactly what your son does - until I realised that she was chucking a megawobbly and that she was grossly overtired. Once I managed to get her to sleep a decent time during the day (a couple of hours at a time) then I was able to get her to sleep better at night. Somewhat paradoxically if she sleeps well during the day, she sleeps well during the night. If she sleep poorly during the day - I am up all night! You would think that she would be so tired that she would sleep all night hey?

I've posted the method I use to put Hannah to sleep here already - but seeing as your baby will be nearly 6 months by the time I post this - try the controlled crying thing - but be consistent. After 6 months your baby can be taught to sleep all the way through the night too by using controlled crying and I've seen it work in 3 days (although it can take up to 2 weeks). (BTW -This is all information I've read in a book - not from personal experience)

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!