should a 7mo be sleeping through the night? and how do i get her to do it without CC? help!

[beautifuldays]

have decided to stop the 2-3hourly feeds as she is having 3 good solid meals a day and 4 breastfeeds and i don't think she really needs milk at night. but how do i do it? so far she has woken twice tonight and i don't want to leave her to cry. are there any other gentler ways of encouaging her to sleep longer at night?
i was going to feed her at 4am cos she usually wakes then and has a good feed so i figure maybe she is really hungry for that feed. but i really don't have a clue what i'm doing! help me please!!

[beautifuldays]

oops posted this twice somehow

[emkana]

Personally I think it's very normal for a baby that age to still want milk at night.

But I have heard good things about the no cry sleep solution book, maybe you could try that?

[berolina]

It will resolve eventually. Things sorted themselves out with ds at around a year. He did still wake on (mostly) one occasion for a while, but has slept through or almost through for a good long while now, and if he does wake at night, he never wants a feed (is 2.3 and still bf).

I think it helps not to see night feeding at this age as a case of nutritional 'need' as such. She wakes up, feels possibly lonely and wants the comfort of mummy/milk. In babies, wants = needs, IMO.

snap em was about to recommend the NCSS - not from first-hand experience, though.

[Lyndag]

You could give her cooled boiled water so she doesn't wake up for milk just water therefore better to carry on sleeping? This is how friends have managed to get little ones to sleep through

[massivebigpantsface]

sounds like you are in the same boat as me op! - i will watch with interest for a magical answer

I suspect that, as with every stage of dds life so far, I will jst ride it out and go with the flow (i'm too knackered to do anything else )

[MuddlingThru]

Your dd sounds like mine at 7 months (ie 3 meals and 4-5 bf but still waking at least twice a night) and I decided that she didn't 'need' feeding at night. She had never like the bottle but I decided that if she was hungry enough she would take it, the plan was to gradually make up the bottle with a weaker solution of formula to wean her off needing feeding at night. I decided that for the 1st 4 nights I would send DH in to break the association with bf. The first night she woke about 10.30 as usual, screamed if DH offered her a bottle but was quite calm if he didn't and went back to sleep after 1.5 hours - she just needed to be kept company. Ditto at about 4 in the morning. Didn't bother offering her bottle after that. Same sort of pattern on night 2. Night 3 she only woke once. Ditto night 4. Night 5 regressed slightly. Then over the course of the next couple of weeks she seemed to alternate sleeping through and waking just once. After that slept through as consistently as you can hope for. It was hard work for the 1st week but it was worth it in the long run. HTH.