To think there is a correlation between babies that wake a ridiculous amount in the night and breastfeeding?

[toomuchpeppapig]

I've seen quite a few threads on here over the last year or so that I've been on here about babies who wake constantly in the night and will only feed to sleep etc. It seems that virtually all (if not all) of these babies are breastfed.

I bottle fed my 2 DCs and although my oldest has never been a great sleeper (now 16 months old), I don't remember him waking as much as many of these posts say. Is it because bottle fed babies sleep better or is it just coincidence?

NB - I have nothing against breastfeeding. I personally tried and failed, and my thinking is that fed is best. This isn't an anti breast feeding post. I'm just wondering if my thinking is correct.

I don't follow the idea that a baby gets fed in the night therefore somehow makes themself wake up on purpose in order to get fed.

It doesn't make any logical sense to me.

1. If you're unconscious aka asleep, you can't just choose when to wake up, if we could, alarm clocks wouldn't be a thing that virtually everybody needs.

1. Babies can't tell the time anyway, and also it's the middle of the night, with no time cues.

1. Why would you rouse yourself out of a nice comfortable warm slumber in order to cry/scream (doesn't feel nice, hurts your throat, etc), be removed from nice warm bedding into the cold JUST for milk, which you can presumably get any time you're already awake, if your mum is feeding on demand which most people do.

It's like the argument that if your favourite restaurant opened a 24 hour free buffet on the street corner, you'd go there at 3am all the time. No, I wouldn't, because I would be fucking asleep! I mean OK, if I woke up randomly at 3am, and I was hungry, then why not. But I sure as hell wouldn't be setting an alarm clock specifically to get up at 3am and go to the restaurant because that makes no sense.

I do not get it. And I don't see why not feeding them would therefore get them to decide this is pointless and not bother waking up. Which is probably the biggest reason why I've never attempted sleep training because it seems to me to be based on a totally ludicrous premise - the idea that babies while asleep suddenly decide to wake up in order to have milk.

I can see that:

Baby enters a light sleep phase/wakes slightly (as we all do several times throughout the night)
Feels a little uncomfortable with slight hunger sensations/isn't sure where mum is because they fell asleep in mum's arms and now they are alone in bed.
Cries
Mum gets up, feeds, baby is soothed back to sleep.

But I don't think this is anything conscious. It's just a consequence of the fact they are not used to either falling asleep alone or the feeling of being slightly peckish.

So I can see in this case - if you can work out which one of the two it is (and if you're lucky it's not both) - if you can somehow achieve the voodoo of putting them down "drowsy but awake" and get them used to falling asleep in their own bed, or if you commit to soothing them back to sleep in ways other than involving feeding, you might get to a point quicker where they do that slight waking up thing and instead of reacting to that feeling of not-quite-full tummy or "where's mummy gone?" they just consider these things perfectly normal characteristics of night time and roll over and go back to sleep. I could see that working, but I think acclimatising a baby/toddler to either of these things is likely to be a lot of work and personally I just found it easier to co-sleep, which they do grow out of eventually.

I don't follow the idea that a baby gets fed in the night therefore somehow makes themself wake up on purpose in order to get fed.
Eh?
GENUINELY not being goady here, but am I misreading it or does your entire post argue that babies don’t wake in the night for a feed, they just wake up and want reassurance.

I’m genuinely confused.

@dropyoursword

I do agree with PP in that most babies wake up for simple reassurance

"I do not get it. And I don't see why not feeding them would therefore get them to decide this is pointless and not bother waking up. Which is probably the biggest reason why I've never attempted sleep training because it seems to me to be based on a totally ludicrous premise - the idea that babies while asleep suddenly decide to wake up in order to have milk."

Well, all I can tell you is when I gave my baby water instead of milk one night, for a night feed, it stopped waking up in the night. It never woke up in the night again.

"if your mum is feeding on demand which most people do."
I dont agree with this, I dont think most people do feed on demand. Most people I know want a routine.

If your theory of them just waking up for reassurance is true... How come when people are reducing night time feeds, the baby sleeps longer? Ie a lot of parents feed at a 4 hourly interval, so eg 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, then a night one of 2 or 3am. Then they try and take the 2 or 3am feed out...then the baby stops waking for that one. To me that shows they are waking up for the feed, because their body is used to it. If they were just waking for reassurance..why bother giving them the feed?

"It's not a "ridiculous" amount of times to the baby though. They are meant to wake frequently."

I agree. I view night-waking as normal and natural but sadly it's very common for young babies to be labelled as 'poor sleepers', 'shit sleepers' etc. It's part of their development to wake at night.

Most breastfeeding mums I know have fed on demand.

No, I'm not saying that babies don't wake up for milk. What I'm saying is that I don't recognise the idea that babies consciously decide to wake up for milk.

They wake up (as we all do) and if they are comfortable and warm and they don't consider their level of hunger to be a problem they will just drift back into sleep again. Just like if you wake up in the night and your bladder isn't totally full it won't wake you up, but if you wake up in the night at 8 months pregnant, you'll have to go for a wee.

If they wake up and are actually ravenous (e.g. 3 month old) then they'll cry of course. If they wake up and are just a tiny bit hungry, but aren't used to this sensation then they'll probably cry as well. So they are waking up - and wanting milk - but these two things are disconnected actions.

I know people say they give water and it works (and I am glad this worked for you!) but I just don't trust it enough - it doesn't make sense to me. Also every time I have offered mine water in the night they rage at me because it's not what they want. But that's probably because a beaker of water is hugely different to a breast, whereas a bottle of water and a bottle of milk is probably close enough that if they are sleepy they don't protest enough to wake themselves back up again.

@TabbyMumz

I know I switched to water thinking it would cut the sleeping, but it made no difference.
So I now continue to feed on demand at 18 months. If DS wakes up and wants milk, he gets milk.

I have breastfed 6 babies on demand and the amount of night wakings/feeds varies greatly between them all with some sleeping for 5/6 hours from the start and some (yes you dd4) not sleeping for more than a couple of hours until well after 1yo.

My take: breastfeeding isn't just about milk and being fed, it's about comfort too. I was more happy to give my babies that if they wanted it in the middle of the night.

yes sometimes they will self settle without breastfeeding, which is fine.

I did feed all of mine to sleep right from the start and all of them cluster fed all evening for the first few months. They all learned how to put themselves to sleep -some quicker than others. And actually now that they are older (some are adults) they are all fine, and it actually doesn't matter anymore what happened when they were 10 weeks old.

I dont think anyone consciously wakes up for anything...we dont think "I'm going to wake up now"..in the night...we just do.
If you have your lunch early one day, you might find you are hungry at that time the next day. You dont consciously do that.. it just happens. If your stomach gets fed at regular intervals, it will want food at regular intervals. If a baby is fed on demand..it wants food more often, whereas a baby in a routine will want it when it gets close to the set time.

@TabbyMumz

That might be true for your baby, but it isn’t of all babies 😀

"@TabbyMumz

I know I switched to water thinking it would cut the sleeping, but it made no difference.
So I now continue to feed on demand at 18 months. If DS wakes up and wants milk, he gets milk."
A friend told me giving water instead of milk works, so I tried it. My friend said it took her 3 nights for baby to sleep through..mine did it after one night. My other children did too.

Did you really actually give water for one feed once and the baby never ever woke wanting any night feeds ever again? Because that sounds quite astonishing to me. I'm not being goady either BTW - I just genuinely don't know if you're being literal or if you're missing out information which seems obvious to you but isn't to me.

I assume when people drop feeds in a planned manner like you mention taking the 2-3am feed out, they also do controlled crying or sssh pat or whatever method as well - you don't literally just decide to stop the feed and the baby goes "Oh right o then, I'll see you at 5". If it was as easy as that nobody would do any night feeds surely?

But perhaps mine were predisposed to it as I had them in a routine from birth. Might have been harder to get them to sleep through if theyd been fed on demand.

@TabbyMumz

So you only ever fed yours at exactly certain and the same times since birth? Just clarifying

Bertie...yes it literally took one night. When baby woke up for a feed, I gave her warm water. She sucked a few sucks, realised it wasnt milk, and stopped sucking. After about half an hour, she got tired and went back to sleep. The next night, she didnt wake up at all. I couldnt believe it was that easy..but it really was.

"TabbyMumz

So you only ever fed yours at exactly certain and the same times since birth? Just clarifying"
Yes, pretty much. Most people did this. For a few weeks it was feeding every 2 hours, then every 4 hours. So 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2 or 3am.....then we pushed the 10pm one to 11pm and then missed out the 2 or 3am one. They stuck to that routine right up to age one when they went on cows milk.

Actually I've got that last bit wrong..the other bottles were reduced once weaned.

Ahhh @TabbyMumz I think you may be slightly older than me and potentially have older children!

The advice now is to feed on demand, and that is what doctors and midwives advocate.

Every friend I know has fed on demand, and there is still a fair share of babies who sleep through and babies who wakes 6-7 times a night still at 18 months.

I personally see absolutely no problem in either way. If my child wants to wake up that many times, then I’ll be there.

I have a breastfed on demand baby who slept through from 2 months old. Until 4 months old when she stopped and now only sporadically sleeps for long periods. She isn't waking because she's hungry, she's proved she can sleep 8 hours with no milk, she's waking because her sleep cycle is interrupted and it's dark and scary and she wants comfort. Fine by me. I don't like waking up in the dark on my own either.

"The advice now is to feed on demand, and that is what doctors and midwives advocate."
I think that's such a shame ...how on earth can you go about your day, feeding on demand, and how many bottles and stuff do you take out with you? Feeding to a routine, you know exactly when they will be hungry and can plan ahead. I was always told train the baby before it trains you. My babies were perfectly happy and content.
Everyone's different. Feeding on demand wouldnt have worked for me.

@TabbyMumz I fed DD like this (after bf on demand for first few weeks). With bf she woke hourly every night. I know it’s normal for young bf babies, but it was too much for me.

When I moved to formula I had a pretty set routine of feeding 3 hourly through the day. I would try and stick to that and settle DD with a dummy / patting etc rather than feeding if she was crying. Obviously if she didn’t settle I would feed her - wouldn’t leave her crying in hunger, but feeding would be more of a last resort. She was much more settled & happy in general with this routine, and so was I.

@TabbyMumz yes agree with you. Feeding on demand is what works best with bf, and helps build supply etc, but I don’t see how it would work with formula feeding, especially after the early newborn days.

@TabbyMumz @Sipperskipper

Feeding on demand with formula is absolutely fine and worked brilliantly for me.

I just always made sure I had 2-3 bottles in my bag, enough formula and whenever baby was hungry, I fed.

It made me a better parent I felt as I was much more responsive to my child’s needs