to think it's not odd my baby wakes up at night?

[hereagainalways]

DS is 4 months old, EBF. He goes down for the night between 6 and 630 (early I know but he just can't stay awake past that) and is up for the day around 6am, sometimes 5.30. During the night he wakes (to feed) at approximately 10, 2 and 4. I have tried resettling him without feeding at the 2am feed (dummy, white noise etc) but he won't have it and it's just easier to feed him peacefully and have him go straight back to sleep tbh.

My NCT group look at me like this when I tell them how much he wakes up and say stuff like oh sorry you have such a dreadful sleeper. Their babies either sleep through or only wake up once apparently.

Don't get me wrong as I would love it if he slept through obviously but I really thought this was quite normal for babies??

My job is to give him comfort. If that's in the form of boob at 4am, that's ok with me.

Fine for you. Not fine for lots of people.

I don't think that people whose babies wake up are people who don't t need much sleep, and I think it's actually pretty horrible to suggest that they are. I felt like crap when my children were frequent wakers and it affected me pretty significantly. But I would make the same choices and go through the sleep deprivation again if I were in the same situation, because it was the least bad option.

My babies did wake up, we just didn't respond to them with a boob when they didn't need it and funnily enough they learned not to wake up so much very quickly. If people choose to do differently then fine, but if you're tired then there is definitely something that you can do about it at four months old with 3/4 night feeds. An otherwise healthy baby, at four months old, simply doesn't need that much feeding. You call it comfort, I call it a rod for your own back.

What absolute nonsense. It's very much normal for babies (e.g. 4 months old) to need feeding through the night a couple of times. It's not a rod for someone's back. It's parenting and fulfilling your child's basic needs i.e food, comfort, fluid

I call it a rod for your own back.

My SIL has done it with three of hers - offered them boob that is. They all slept through on their own from 6/7 months without requiring any sleep "training".

It's not true to suggest 4 month olds don't require feeding every 3 hours. Sorry but some do. Mine does, because he's a little and often feeder. Babies do have different feeding habits.

If you feed a baby every ten minutes, every hour, whatever, simply when they whimper and want a cuddle, are bored, are sore from teething, then they will eat a little and often by habit - they will never get hungry enough go to take in a proper feed which will take them through a few hours of really good sleep or play or life living. If you leave a few hours between feeds they can take on a proper meals worth. If they sleep through the night, and my definition of that is all night, 12 hours or at least the 8 or so hours an adult needs to be a properly functioning human, then they'll have a massive breakfast at 7am or so, and then go til 10 ish, then 2 ish, 5 ish and bedtime feeds which can be substantial because they they are not snacking all day. It's like children who are fed packets of crap at every point through the day where they may possibly play up (in public, on the bus, in assembly, every bloody waiting point) and parents then wonder why they don't eat their dinner properly. It's not rocket science that you, as an adult, may have a better idea of a sensible baby routine than an actual baby. You are the adult, you are in control, or ought to be.

4 month olds do vary wildly in size and stature. My babies were teeny tiny with associated teeny tiny feed sizes. Yet they were able to take in enough milk to sleep at least 8-9 hours when fed in meals rather than snacks. Demand feeding of that nature, at night, is most certainly a choice, not a requirement. Like everything else about parenting, sometimes getting the right result does not mean following the path of least resistance.

Got no issue with people who do this, your call, your sleep, your issue. But do admit to yourself that it is a choice.

No, it isn't like older "children who are fed packets of crap". Breastfeeding does not work that way. Sometimes babies physically can't take enough at one time to last them for the next 4/6/12 hours - because their stomach size can't manage it, because the mother's milk storage capacity isn't high enough, because they are going through a growth spurt, because they are thirsty. There is a lot more to infant feeding than Establishing A Routine, and what worked for your babies would not necessarily work for everyone else's.

Mine went from sleeping 8-10 hour chunks at 3 months, to hitting the 4-month sleep regression a couple of weeks later and waking hourly all night. Didn't want feeding every time. Still woke. There's a lot more to baby sleep than how much milk you can get in them, there really really is.

ilovemyhubby

Your posts are judgy and are making me feel like crap tbh.

My baby is not a comfort feeder. In fact he gets livid if I offer him the boob and he isn't hungry. I do not plug him up with a boob whenever he whimpers. If he asks for food, he is hungry. I do not respond to him immediately: I give him a couple of minutes to see if he resettles himself. He usually doesn't. I then go in and try to resettle him with dummy, cuddles, patting. He gets more upset. Because he's hungry. So then I feed him, he gulps it down, goes back to sleep immediately and so do I. No fuss or bother for either of us. On the rare occasions my partner goes to him at night, he won't settle without a bottle of expressed milk - proving it isn't comfort sucking. It is perfectly possible, regardless of your experience with your babies, that my baby is actually hungry and requires feeding every 3 hours at night. I'm his mother. I'm there to meet his needs. He goes down on his own in his cot at the beginning of the night; I don't feed him to sleep.

So yes, it is a choice. But as demonstrated above, my alternative choice would be leaving him to cry. I won't do that.

You can say you haven't got a problem with it all you like but by being all smug "rod for you own back bla bla bla" you clearly do.

My question was not "how can I get more sleep". My question was "isn't it normal for babies this age to wake up at night?" and the answers on this thread prove that it is. That does not mean I'm saying it's abnormal for babies to sleep through. I'm well aware that lots do.

My baby actually has a great routine. Waking at night doesn't mean he has no routine.

Your posts are extremely judgmental.

Breastfeeding is on demand. That is how it works. You are there to meet a baby's needs. I don't expect my baby to slot conveniently into my pre-baby life.

Oh fgs op you must know Yanbu. Do you really, really think that all babies are the same? You honestly are surprised that your baby wakes up a few times a night? Stop comparing yourself to other people and their experiences.

molly.

No I am not surprised. I was put out by other mums saying my DS is a dreadful sleeper.

What is it with this place? I haven't said anything even vaguely offensive and I get people getting all snarky.

Sounds totally normal to me although our 16 month old DD slept through from about 8 weeks and has continued to do so. If we're lucky and she's worn out we get 14 hours!

Sounds awesome Toga

It is Here 11-12 hours is her norm. We are seriously lucky. It puts me off having a 2nd as there's no way we could be this lucky again

inlovewithhubby stop being so judgemental.
The op didn't ask how to get her child in some kind of regimented routine but was it normal for her baby to be waking up - answer is yes and I hope she can take some comfort in that
fWIW my 3.5yr old has 3 meals a day as advocated by yourself and no 'crap fed all day' and has very very rarely slept 12 hours. Some people do not have those kind of sleep patterns.
Your sanctimonious posts just make those of us who are tired feel like shit

Perfectly normal - my daughter slept though at 8 weeks my son was more like a yr old and he still wakes most nights now and he is nearly 3! You are doing just fine!

toga not necessarily! My SIL's 3 all slept through from very young.

OTOH my mum has four: two of us were terrible sleepers and two slept through from about six weeks, despite her doing the same things with all of us.

It is normal for babies especially as young as yours. NCT should know better!

Here's a link which might make you feel less like the odd one out.
sarahockwell-smith.com/2013/09/30/the-great-sleep-obsession-the-problem-of-modern-day-life-versus-the-primitive-infant/

My second baby has never slept through and I spent ages thinking it was something I was doing wrong. People would give me the same expression as your NCT friends. It sounds like your doing a great job treating your baby respectfully.

You always get people who are arses about children/ babies sleeping and eating. It's the only area of life where such a lot of people assume their personal experience can be universally extrapolated and that a sample size of usually only 2 or 3 individuals is in any way valid.

For everyone who can be gracious enough to admit that they were lucky you seem to get someone who thinks their baby slept because they Did Parenting Right

I don't even mind the night feeds (honestly!). I mean obviously I'd be delighted if he slept through but otherwise...meh. I've got used to the fragmented sleep and he's a very settled and contented baby generally which more than makes up for it.

It's other people around me making me feel like I should be doing something about the night wakings. I had the classic MIL comment the other day of saying I should thicken his milk with baby rice to get him to sleep longer. I pointed out he's EBF and she said well that's part of the problem isn't it

I had 'when he gets to 6 or 7 months you should make him stay awake all day so he sleeps all night' the other day. Hahaha

DS is 3 months and has slept through the night once (11.30-6). Perfectly normal.

Hereagain my dc3s sleep actually got worse when I weaned him... I remember trying dd on baby rice at 5 months (though not in a bottle) after being told it would help her sleep all night and her sleep also got worse rather than better.

A big meal close to bed time isn't usually conducive to high quality sleep in adults either of course...

My 4 month old ebf DS wakes around the same as you - goes to sleep at 7.30 then wakes at 10, 1.30 and 4.30 before starting the day at 6am.

As mothers we are there to meet our babies' needs, and so if baby wakes in the night and starts getting upset, they are telling us that they need us and imo this should not be ignored. Having a baby means that we prioritise our baby's needs before our own.

As babies only have little tummies, it's expected that they will wake during the night for some milk.

I think this is a subject which will divide parents - those who think their lives should revolve around their babies and those who want their babies to fit in with their existing patterns. I fall firmly into the latter. It doesn't make me an unresponsive parent, far from it, but it does mean I look for solutions in relation to what are, to me, unacceptably invasive practices.

A newborn needs feeding on demand, so all bets are off there. If you choose to continue that for as long as it takes baby to learn their own, more sociable, habits, you'll be waiting a long time. If you are doing this sort of demand feeding with bigger babies and are exhausted as a result, as many of you say you are, then know that there are solutions. It doesn't have to be like that.

Of course there are certain situations which mean bsbies don't sleep well regardless of feeding - teething, illness, etc. But even in those circumstances, sleep is a healing nectar. You are doing your child a great service by teaching them healthy sleeping patterns early on in life, because good healthy sleep, in large chunks, means better feeding, better mood, better behaviour, all round.

And yes of course I'm judging, just as you are judging me for not jumping up every time my baby wakes in the night. Every post on here is a judgement, funny that people only call judgeypants when the judgement opposes their own.