Hanging on to the 5am feed

[mooki]

My DD is 11.5 months.

Her sleep has gots loads better since about 10 months and she (generally) just wakes once in the night now, somewhere between 4am and 6am. I give her a breastfeed and then she goes back to sleep in the cot for maybe another 2 hours.

I don't mind this too much as it's pretty much the only breastfeed I do these days and as long as I go to bed at a sensible time I get a good chunk of sleep.

I am just wondering though if anyone else has had a dawn feeder and if they eventually dropped the feed of their own accord?

thanks

[mooki]

I'm bumping this as a few weeks later we are still feeding at 5am and I am wondering whether I will want to continue when I go back to work next week.

Anyone managed to drop an early morning feed without ending up with an inhumane wake up time?

[pudding25]

Would you be able to try and settle her without feeding her when she wakes to see if she will go back to sleep? Or gradually feeding her a minute less each day? Don't know if those work but I read them in a book!

[mooki]

She didn't feed for very long this morning as she's got a cold. She did eventually settle back to sleep but then woke up again after 30 mins so I think I will try settlig without feeding but might wait until she feels a bit better.

[eviz]

I have 2 friends who still do a 5am bf and their children are nearly 2.

Assuming you do last feed around 6/7pm, have you tried a dreamfeed at 10/11pm? That should be enough for her to get through to 6:30/7am (although habit might keep her waking up at 5, so that would take some patience/perseverence to overcome!)

[eviz]

Just reread your post and realised your DD's age - in which case ignore my suggestion re dreamfeed as she should be able to get through till 7 at that age (my experience anyway)

Does she eat well during the day?

[bluewolf]

friend just advised me that i feed dd only water from a bottle and reassure at night even tho I usually bf and dd nearly 1. is this cruel? haven't tried it yet as afraid of dds angry response (she shares a room with ds who has to be up for school!)

[mooki]

Hi Eviz and others - I'd say she does eat well but not huge portions. She drinks between 50 - 150 mls of milk 3 times a day including bedtime.

She stayed over at my mum's last night - first time I've ever been away from her. She did wake at about 5am and my mum gave her some milk in a cup which she drank and then went back to sleep - so maybe it is genuinely hunger? I had kind of thought she was maybe just hanging on to the last breastfeed for comfort.

hmmm

[n5rje]

I've posted a similar problem in the development section this morning (I couldn't find a sleep section when I looked) so I can sympathise with you, I'm going to watch both to see if anyone can come up with anything. My DS (6mths) has a bf at 7am and 7pm and three ffs inbetween (about 6/7oz each) and he has cereal for breakfast and then fruit/veg for lunch and tea, I added some chicken for the first time yesterday so I don't think he can be hungry at 5am but like your DD he just keeps waking up.

[n5rje]

I should have said that one of the ffs is 5oz at 11pm which I've tried to drop but he wakes up at about 12.30 so I think he still needs it and he then sleeps through until 5am and he's always been on the 50th centile (he's 8kg now)