Which night feed to drop?

[yumcha888]

Hey all, my 5 month old DS wakes 3 times in the night at 10pm, 2am and 5am (sleeps 7-7 otherwise). My husband is going away for a few days so I'm going to try and get my DS to drop a night feed but I'm not sure which one to work on.... What do you guys think? The 5am?

[99redbafoons]

Well, the best one for you would obviously be the 2am so you can have some decent sleep. What time does he go to bed?

[yumcha888]

He goes to bed around 7pm. I was thinking that if he has a proper feed at 2am, he won't be hungry for the 5pm (thinking I might do a bottle feed at 2am instead of bf as I'm doing now)....

[cindyrella]

Im interested in what folk have ti say here. My dd is exactly same. 5 mth, feeds 11, 2 & 5 with bed at 7. I was going to go fir dropping the 2am so i could get sleep

[yumcha888]

Hi cindyrella - how were you thinking of getting her to drop the 2am feed?

[Woodifer]

I think the options are
i cold turkey
ii Gradually move forward or back in time
iii gradually reduce volume of feed/water down.

[cindyrella]

I have no idea! Tried only letting her drink for a minute...screamed at me, tried refusing drink & comforting instead...just stays awake for hours, so now i think il feed breast milk from bottle & gradully water it down.

[redcaryellowcar]

i think if she is waking she probably needs it, i think i would not wake her for feeds but just feed her if she wakes up, you probably fide in a couple of months once weaning underway that things change quite a bit with feeds anyhow.

[yumcha888]

redcaryellowcar, that's why I'm thinking to do a bottle feed at 2am and perhaps he'll skip the 5am. Right now I'm so sleepy I just kind of pop him on a boob and fall asleep so I'm not 100% certain but I think he's only drinking a tiny amount before falling back asleep himself.

[yumcha888]

Just to update, we've successfully dropped the 2am feed! I replaced the 10pm with a bottle and just ignored the 2am,after 2 nights he stopped asking for it.

[eagle2010]

Can I ask yumcha - are you giving a bottle of EBM or formula? TIA!

[nannynome]

When you ignored the 2am how did you settle him? Thanks :)

[yumcha888]

Bottle of formula but only because I'm too lazy to express ;)

And I don't settle him, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. However he's used to this as I left him to put himself sleep as soon as he started to self soothe. If he wasn't self soothing I'd've waited before attempting to drop a night feed.

[TheresLotsOfFarmyardAnimals]

It is more natural for them to drop the early feed first usually. BFers usually just reduce the minutes a couple of minutes every few days until they stop or can be settled otherwise.

Bottle feeders just reduce ounces every few days.

Start with the first feed first and stretch out the time. You may want to offer a dream feed before bed and see if it works (it didn't work for us!)

If they still want to feed when they wake up it is likely that they are still hungry at night too though and it may take a while to shift the intake to daytime.

Weaning onto solids should help by 9 months if they take to it well.

[Creamycoolerwithcream]

Could you try doing the 10pm at 11pm and see if your DS will sleep to 3 or 4am. That's what I did and almost instantly mine went to 4.30, then 5, then 5.30.

[Beccawoo]

Next step is to push the 10am one later and the 5 am one should slowly get later too. Do you wake him at 10? Is wait and see when he wakes up for that feed and take queues from him. X