3 month old & night feeds

[Chocolateyclaire76]

Our 3 month old little one used to wake 8 times a night and take ages to settle but recently she's had a few nights when she sleeps from 7pm through to 3am which is great! My question is though, if she wakes at midnight should I feed her or just try and settle her? Previously I'd have said feed but I'm confused now that I know she can make it to 3am. I'm scared of getting it wrong as she'll scream the house down!!

I'd try settling her. If she does get stroppy surely you can then offer her milk after a while anyway. If she can go till 3 then you know she's not necessarily hungry but might just want a bit of comfort instead.

My DD started sleepling from c.7pm-4am at that age and it didn't take her long to start going for 12 hours at night. If she did wake I tried to encourage her to go back to sleep without milk as I knew she could and was fairly sure she wasn't going to waste away overnight. Sometimes she would inexplicably decide she was starving at midnight but then babies are a bit bizarre

Mine has nights where he wants to feed twice and others four or five times. At this age with all the growth spurts I'd follow baby's lead.

I would suggest it depends on your chosen feeding strategy.

My DS is almost 3.5mo and EBF. I have employed feeding on demand from the start. He changes his sleeping/feeding pattern every couple of weeks or so which I have put down to growth spurts or development. The only time he has woken without needing feeding was while he was ill. At best he was down at 7 waking at 12 and 5 (around 3mo). At worst it was every 2 hours (newborn and again recently while poorly)

If you have always fed on demand, I'm inclined to suggest you need to continue to follow baby's lead.... If you have always worked to a routine then you should continue to dictate the routine, but perhaps adapting it to match baby's new ability to sleep longer.