Getting 4 month old to start sleeping longer than 2.5 hours at night

[Aselinac]

LO will on go a max 2.5 hours at night before waking for food, if I'm lucky he may push it to 3 hours. He always takes a full bottle (6oz)in the first feed but the rest of the feeds only half the bottle. If I catch him in time I can get the bottle to him before he properly wakes and starts shouting but this obviously means I'm on edge all night waiting for movement to indicate he's about to stir. Any tips? Very tired mummy :(

[FATEdestiny]

Have you tried settling with a dummy instead of feeding?

[Aselinac]

unfortunatly his dummy doesn't fool him for long he's not a big dummy fan anyway and usually only has it to go to sleep then spits it out.

[FATEdestiny]

Dummies are only meant to be used for the process of getting to sleep. Once asleep the jaw muscles relax and dummy drops. That's what's meant to happen. It isn't then needed until next wake up.

If baby is genuinely hungry, then more frequent feeds during the daytime will calory load through the day so less milk is needed at night.

Always good practice to try to resettle with a dummy (or whatever method you want to use) before feeding anyway.