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North Carolina Babies
Reverse Cycling?
Has anyone dealt with this? I think we are definitely starting to have a reverse cycling issue. He used to never even wake up once I would start to feed him during the night and now his little eyes are just staring at me the whole time and he is wanting to eat so much. When I put him down he is awake and won't fall asleep until he has eaten from the other side as well. He is also not lazily eating, he is eating like he is starving. Last night I got all of 3.5 hours of sleep that was frequently interrupted.
Everything I am reading is saying to co-sleep, and we do have a co-sleeper that has never been used since he hated it and preferred his crib that I could put back next to my bed, but would it be bad to go from the crib to a co-sleeper? He loves his crib, but now that I am back at work it is becoming so difficult during the night.
My sweet boy 
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Re: Reverse Cycling?
I really don't think using a cosleeper is really cosleeping, personally. It's more like having the baby in a convenient location nearby. Cosleeping, IMO, is having the baby in your bed. The difference, to me, is that the baby gets used to sleeping next to you (physically touching you, cuddling etc) when cosleeping in your bed. In a cosleeper, they are still sleeping on their own, just closer to you.
We coslept w/Nate in a cosleeper and then in our bed until he was 3 months old I think. He was even STTN at that point, but I liked having him nearby. When he started teething & reverse cycling, we slept with him in our bed a lot. For me, it was much easier to nurse with him right there in bed. I could nurse from both sides without having to roll over or anything. It was awesome.
When it comes to sleeping & nursing at night, I think it's one of those things that you have to determine what works best for you and your family. For me, I preferred not getting out of bed at night. I was tired! I also knew that DS needed those nursing sessions because he didn't eat a lot during the day (often he ate fewer than 6 oz and I nursed at lunch). So there waas no reason for me to try to cut his nursing back... that would have been cruel. We just did what worked for us to get through it.
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Is he actually eating less during the day and then wanting to eat more at night to make up for it? If not, it doesn't sound like reverse cycling to me. If he's still eating well during the day and now wants to eat more at night, I think it sounds more like a growth spurt. Natalie reverse cycleded around 6-8 weeks because we had started trying to get her to take a bottle and she was refusing and thus, wasn't getting as much during the day. Because she didn't want to work with the bottle, she just waited till night time for me to nurse her constantly to make up for the lack during the day.
Either way, I would definitely keep feeding him as much as he needs it. I never co-slept because I wasn't comfortable with it so I ended up just getting up a lot at night to nurse. But I could see co-sleeping being beneficial for these longer night nursing sessions.
He is taking about 10oz during the day. I am not sure how that compares to what he was getting nursing on demand, but he is only eating 4 times a day compared to what would have been about 8 or so nursing sessions during that same time frame. He also sleeps for as long as I will hold him, but as soon as I put him down he is awake. It seems like he is wanting to be close to me.
I hadn't considered a growth spurt again, although that could be it too I suppose.
It stinks because I love that time with him when he is all sleepy and just lazily eats a little and his shallow little breaths and now it is not so fun!