Hi everyone,

I'm a new mom and my ds is almost 5 months. I have been trying very hard to keep with ap from about 3-4 weeks - made some mistakes in the beginning - listening to others advice instead of my heart. Anyway - I am burnt out bigtime and am starting to find myself disengaging because I am completely exhausted. We are co-sleeping and I've been ebf from the beginning - no pumping for bottles either.
The things that are burning me out are:
1) ds is all night nursing - at least every hour and half - many times more often - and often needs to keep my nipple in his mouth to suckle for much longer than he's eating.
I have been trying Elizabeth Pantley's "The No Cry Sleep Solution" - to no avail - if it works with the nursing - he's rooting 15 minutes later and I usually give in and give him his soother.
2) by 3 am is very restless and starts nursing every hour to half hour. (Gas??)
Usually between 5 and 7am - he has my nipple in his mouth almost the entire time. I'm not a pro at laying down so I'm awake through much of this kind of propped up.
3) doesn't fall asleep nursing any other time - we literally "dance" him to sleep for his naps and bedtime. Bedtime is now taking sometimes 2 hours to get him down. We can't rock him to sleep either - which would be nice since he's almost 18 lbs now.
4) He rarely will go down for his naps so he sleeps on either me or DH or I nap with him (unfortunately this is rare - once a week probably)
5) naps only for 45 min to hour tops - less if he's in the wrap - which I try to use at least once a day if not more.

Now if it were one or two of these things - I would be fine and all of this was ok for the first 5 months but now that things are getting worse it's burning me out.

By worse I mean - taking 2 hours to get him down to bed (used to be about 1/2 hour) - he used to sleep good in between nursing at night - now he's so restless he usually keeps me up. It's taking longer to get him down for naps now too.

I'm trying so hard but I find myself crying at bedtime now so quickly when he won't settle for sleep.

He deserves so much better than the care hes' been getting the last 4 nights (DH has been on night shift)- it's so unfair to him for me to be impatient, angry or any other negative emotion. He's much too young to deserve that. I know I'm burning out and not sure how to make the changes necessary.

Looking for any advice on how to make some changes.

Would love to be able to rock him to sleep instead of dancing or nurse to sleep (that would be wonderful!!!) I don't want to stop parenting him to sleep - maybe a change in style and how to make the change gently?
Would love to know why he's so restless at night? I also do not expect to lose night feedings either - love them when he sleeps soundly afterward.

Any other advice would be very welcomed!!! Even if it's to tell me that this is the way it is and that what I'm doing is ok - even though I feel I'm doing nothing right at this point. Especially while at a baby shower yesterday - I hear how he should be sleeping through the night by now and that his cousin who's 6 weeks younger only gets up once to feed and takes 3 hour naps during the day!!! I know that's not realistic for us but is there an in between this early on???

Sorry so long - it's just all come at once!