6 month old - how many night feeds do they NEED?

[Liloosmum]

My DD will be 6 months tomorrow and we're breast feeding. She's currently waking anywhere between every hour and every 3.5 hours (some night are better than others).

I'm convinced she doesn't need feeding every hour so must be waking for something else, but how many feeds do they actually NEED at that age?

She's still in our room and I'm thinking of moving her this weekend, but someone mentioned that they get separation anxiety around this age. Would it be a good idea to move her or not?

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Lil, at 6 months she could be having a growth spurt so just feed her whenever she asks. Also, are you weaning? Its just that my DCs sleep always became worse when I'd started weaning.

As for her own room, its entirely upto you. Just do what you are all happy with.

[MoonUnitAlpha]

Do you feed her to sleep? Could it be that the breast is her sleep association, so whenever she wakes in the night she needs to suckle to drop off again?

[Liloosmum]

I don't think it's a growth spurt because she's been like it for months. I started giving her a little bit of food a couple of weeks ago and I don't think it's made any difference either way (I didn't expect it to either).

I do feed her to sleep during the day, but at night I take her off as soon as her breathing and sucking have slowed so she's not completely asleep when I put her down. She has gone to sleep from being completely awake during the night as well.

We had a night a couple of weeks ago when she only woke twice (at 10.30ish and 2.30ish) which was lovely. I just wondered if that was realistic

[GoldenGreen]

oh god going through exactly the same with dd (28 weeks). been like it for weeks. Food, naptimes, feeding to sleep or not - nothing seems to help. Every night is different!

I am sorry you are having this too but relieved I'm not the only one. I wouldn't mind feeding twice in the night if I knew roughly when and then I could slowly stretch out the times or whatever - but the totally random nature of it is making it really hard.

[MumNWLondon]

My personal view is that a healthy baby who is weaned (ie eating 3 meals a day, including protein) & has sufficient supply of milk late evening can go between 11pm and 7am. However some babies would need a lot of persuasion, and not all parents are prepared to do what would be required.

However a baby of this age who is only having small amounts of food and bfing on demand may well be hungry during the night.

At 5.5 months DS2 was also EBF & waking 2 hourly - he was clearly hungry, was given a BF and went back to sleep (put him down awake though).

At 6 months introduced solids (only 2 meals a day initially, not BLW) plus switched to half BM and half formula (was going back to work) including HIPP goodnight milk at 11pm (offered after breastfeed) and he slept until the morning. He has now slept every night since then (7.5 months) although still do 10pm dreamfeed. I am not convinced he'd have slept all night without the formula because I always had less milk in the evening.

I am in no rush to drop the dream feed, think 12 hours in a long time to go without food or drink. Sometimes do it at 10pm if I am having early night and he's fine with this.

DS1 was harder - needed several nights of offering only bottles of water in night. I would never do sleep training etc unless the baby was eating decent amounts of solids and was having decent feed at 6pm and 11pm.

[porcamiseria]

my aunty gace me the advice to stop night feeds at 6 months, she said although its hard for a while they start to take more food in the day and then they eventually are less hungry. i followed this advice! good luckb

[AppleAndBlackberry]

Mine didn't have any by 6 months so one or two night feeds is certainly realistic. Kind of depends if you think it is hunger or just feeding back to sleep. If the latter then moving might help her wake up less and you might be able to settle her another way (or send in DH?).

[Liloosmum]

Sometimes she certainly feeds more than at other times. I know she will need feeding at some point during the night and I really don't mind feeding her 2-3 times. I just don't know when she's waking because of hunger. I think I'm worried that if I try to settle her another way and it turns out that she is hungry and I feed her, that she's then learning that if she waits she'll get fed anyway.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Well yes Liloo, I think she will too. How is she after a feed, does she go straight to sleep? I never minded feeding mine in the as long as they went back to sleep as I knew I'd be back in my bed soon enough.