Night feeds - BF

[Peanutbutteryday]

Hello - I am after some advice on weaning night feeds for an ebf please

My baby is six months and has always been a poor sleeper - although I am tired I find it manageable.

She had also just hit 13 pounds which I read is the weight babies can typically start to sleep more as they need less feeds.

The last three weeks or so she seems to have got herself in a routine with night feeds (who knows if it will last but I assume it will) so she goes down at 7.30pm and then wakes:

11pm
3am
5am
7/8am (start the day)

Any tips on dropping even one or two of these feeds? I find the above manageable, at the moment but I am on Mat leave m - i will struggle when I return to work in four months!

Or should I just do a wait and see and hope her sleep improves by the time I go back to work and that she drops a feed or two herself naturally? Is this likely?

A lot can change over the next few months. For now I’d work on getting some decent sleep prior to her 11.30 feed as I bet you fit a lot of stuff in between 7.30 and then, instead of prioritising your sleep… and I wonder if anyone is disturbing her at that time perhaps when going to bed yourselves?
Is she having a dream feed around 3 as the 3-5 stretch seems quite short- so she either doesn’t really need the 3am one or is half awake and only taking enough to get back to sleep rather than a decent amount. Could you try a nappy change at 3 to waken her a little more, and then she may feed enough to sleep right through til morning.
To be fair she doesn’t sound like a bad sleeper at all to me. All my BF babies were unable to be put down and didn’t sleep any stretch longer than 1 hour without a boob in their mouth for the first bloody year!!!

She’s a little on the small side, I would keep the night feeds going as she obviously needs them.

Thanks both
@fourelementary I’m pretty sure I do disturb her possibly around 11 actually when I come to bed (yes spend the evenings doing chores not prioritising sleep!) so will be interesting when we try her in her own room next month if she drops her 11ish feed.

To be honest she has woken every 45 minutes until the last three weeks when she came up with this little routine herself! (Thank goodness)

Glad to hear that a lot can change from now onwards. Good point about the 3am feed I’ll have a think and see if she is feeding properly or if she’d benefit from being woken a little more to do a bigger feed.

@Garethkeenansstapler yes she has always been small so I have been very hesitant to do anything bar feed on demand. I did initially explain this in my op but then my op got so long I deleted it before posting!

I wouldn't class her 11pm feed as a night time feed. It would be her last feed before bed. My DS is only 6 weeks (11lb 7oz). But I class his last feed as the one I give to him when I go to bed, so between 11-12.
He wakes up around 3ish, and like other comments suggest, I change his nappy and wake him up a bit, otherwise I'm up and down all morning after that.
Sounds like she's doing great!
It's the 5am feed you need rid of, then it's only one wake up during the night !
Can she be soothed at 5am rather than fed ? Sometimes my DS whines but he just needs his dummy or a head stroke 🥰