How can I make night feedings stop?

[offmyrocker]

Age old question I know, but this is really getting out of hand.
My daughter is 11wks and refuses to have a proper bottle during the day feeds, so she hardly eats, then of course she's hungry at night and gulps the food down then.
Have tried to elongate the feeds by giving pacifier (during the night), but this just makes her hugely angry and then I just get a lot of crying first then her gulping the milk which takes twice as long and makes us both knackered by morning.

I do try to stick to a bedtime routine at around 7pm, but she's just not hungry and so ends up waking at around midnight or 1am, then again around 4 or 5am, so of course she's not hungry at 7 in the morning. However, I've also tried to follow her lead and see if by staying up later she will have a bigger feed but by 8pm she's so overtired that she cries and doesn't eat. I've tried dream feeding but she clamps her mouth closed and refuses to eat. And I'll admit the the terrible truth, out of sheer desperation I thought I'd give her water at the 4am feed to see if that would stretch her to at least 6am...never again, I've learned my lesson there.
I can't stand the thought that I'll never sleep more than 4 hours in a row ever again.
Please does anyone have some magic advice? so she might at least start eating during the day.

DD (12 weeks) sometimes goes up to 7-8 hours and other times not and there seems to be no pattern to it and no difference to what I do during the day. So I can only echo other posters to go with the flow and take care of yourself when you can.

I do try to feed more frequently in the day, maximum 3 hours between feeds even if she isn't demanding it and less if she is.

Mind you, knackered this morning because DS(4) wet the bed last night...he causes me as much if not more sleep deprivation! I don't remember anyone warning me about that

at that age, my dd was sleeping through but needing 3 night feeds. sounds absolutely normal to me.
during the day you can try to feed her in a quiet, dark room...

She's 11 weeks old. Most babies this age are sill feeding at night. It won't last forever - honestly. Just feed her when she asks to be fed for the next week or two and things will gradually get better.

Love your post climberchick. Have decided I must stop being so envious of others and just be pleased my 14 week old DD2 sleeps 7-7 but needs 3 night feeds and I am still coping. Have a 3 year old DD as well.

Two happy well fed and clean girls and one tired mummy. Poor DH has to take care of himself at the moment.

Roll on food though. Can't bloody wait.

I remember that overwhelming tiredness all too well! I sympathise. It seems endless, but really in 6 months time it will be a memory. Meantime, can you express milk and have your OP do a night a week (maybe Friday and/or Saturday night if he works Monday to Friday) so that you can have at least one or two nights of unbroken sleep?

At a certain age (eg 6 months), I did find that gradually watering down the night feed (on mixed feeding by then) did the trick over about a week...First just 25% water then 50% water a few days later and so on.......it could have been coincidence but I read about it in a book which explains that babies get hungry at the times they were fed the night before etc and this takes a few days to reset. That makes sense to me and worked.

IMO 11 weeks is too young to water down feeds as your baby needs all the nutrition she can get, so for now you will just have to be brave and remember it is not for so very long.

I meant other half not OP