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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

night feeds

23 replies

pyjamalover · 25/01/2011 10:56

just wondering what other mums view is on this.

for those sharing a room but not a bed with their baby, (and with no feeding/weight gain concerns) what do you do in this scenario: you wake in the middle of the night and your baby is making hungry noises (mine sucks his hand noisily!) but is not crying. it's a few hours since they fed, but they've gone longer than this before.

do you feed them now?
or wait until they cry? the hope being they will gradually stretch night feeds and drop them.

i don't have a consistent response to this. in the day i don't wait for him to cry, but when at night i've been so exhausted i've nodded off again it can be up to an hour before he cries.

OP posts:

TanteRose · 25/01/2011 11:01

how old is he?

if he's hungry/thirsty, feed him

witchwithallthetrimmings · 25/01/2011 11:01

newborn I would probably feed but after 2 months would wait til they cry.

HappyAsASandboy · 25/01/2011 11:04

My twins are 14 weeks old and sleep in a cot at the side of my bed.

Until recently, I've been feeding as soon as they make a peep. However, I have recently started to stroke cheeks, pat chests, offer dummy etc for a few mins first, and if they settle then I don't feed.

If they're making clear feeding signs (fist chewing, tongue showing etc), then I feed. Unless I am truly knackered, then I am ashamed to say I stick the dummy in. I've only ever managed to buy myself 10 mins or so with the dummy though - they like the dummy but will be vocal about their rejection of it if they're hungry!

HappyAsASandboy · 25/01/2011 11:06

Sorry, meant to add that we very rarely reach the crying stage - they make too much noise just grumbling for me to sleep, so I always feed them well before they start crying ....

MoonUnitAlpha · 25/01/2011 12:18

For the first 2-3 months I'd feed at every peep, after that only if they're crying and won't be settled with a dummy.

GlitteryBalls · 25/01/2011 16:34

I must be a terrible mother but I'd wait for the cry! My DD is also chewing her fist though, and often there is no way she could be hungry, it's just a comfort thing. Get the sleep while you can! He won't starve and he'd let you know when he was really hungry. x

Original poster

pyjamalover · 27/01/2011 08:15

thanks all, no you're not a terrible mother glittery! I was just interested in what others tend to do.

OP posts:

katiecubs · 27/01/2011 17:46

I always fed at the first signs but if i do it again then i think i would wait for the cries. In my case i think feeding before the cries led to DS waking out of habit for a bottle every few hours long after he needed it....

soccerwidow · 27/01/2011 17:53

DS1 was a very "sucky" baby so I would of left him (with a dummy) till he cried.

DS2 - I would of fed him because 1. I didn't want him waking his brother and 2.I knew if I didn't feed him I would be woken up again within the hour so would rather feed him & go back to sleep knowing that I had a couple of hours before he stired again.

soccerwidow · 27/01/2011 17:56

I should add that DS1 has always slept from 7am to 7pm. He stopped having night feeds at around 7 months.

DS2 at 18 moths is still a rubbish sleeper as he has never learnt to self-settle and if he wakes he HAS to have a bottle to go back to sleep. He still wakes at least once if not twice a night.

So I do think that katiecubs might be right in her comments....

snowcone · 27/01/2011 19:47

my lo sucks her fist all the time too, I don't think it's a sign of hunger anymore. She also reaches whenever anything is wrong, not just for food, so i wait for her to be cranky before feeding at night.

She is 8 weeks now, last week she did 3 nights in a row of sleeping 11:30-6am, it was awesome! But now she is back to 3:30/4am wakeups, so I've taken to giving her a dummy when she first wakes in case she is not actually hungry (I have to change her nappy too as she wees like there is no tomorrow! I know some people don't change nappies in the night).

So far she has always been hungry but tends to wait another 20mins or so before getting cranky. It means I'm actually up for longer than if I just fed her and went back to bed but like katiecubs said, i don't want her to think she will always get fed when she wakes up.

I also try to make sure she is well fed before she goes to bed but that hasn;t worked so far! Last night she drank 160ml of ebm at midnight and TILL woke up at 4!

GlitteryBalls · 27/01/2011 20:19

Snowcone, I can't wait til mine does 11.30-6! We had a couple of nights with just the one or two night feeds, but recently she is waking every hour or so for feeds, if she settles at all! She is 3 weeks + 2. I have finally got her to take a dummy, but she will only take it if she is rooting/sucking fists but genuinely not hungry, other wise she just cries and spits it out and only a feed will do. If she is content she won't take it either, and she spits it out before she goes to sleep. However, last night she wouldn't take it at all and just fed and fed. If we did lay her down and she wasn't crying, she was always showing the "signs" so if I fed her every time she did that she would never stop! She is gaining huge amounts of weight though, so I know there is no problem with my milk or her digestion/absorption. Please someone tell me it gets easier!? I am starting to hallucinate...

MoonUnitAlpha · 27/01/2011 20:26

Mine does 11-6 about 3/4 of the time now, he's 25 weeks...

GlitteryBalls · 27/01/2011 20:36

Dear lord! Don't think I can go on another 22 weeks! x

MoonUnitAlpha · 27/01/2011 20:38

Are you feeding lying down? To be honest I wasn't too bothered by the night feeding once I got the hang of feeding lying down - I'd barely wake up to latch him on and I'd be asleep again before he finished.

GlitteryBalls · 27/01/2011 20:43

Yes. I had to get to grips with that quite quickly as I had a CS so couldn't move from sitting to lying position and vice versa. Thing is is I really don't like actually falling asleep with her in bed, I can't sleep properly tbh and I'm just not comfortable with it. So eventually I have to transfer her back to her moses basket.

xMrsSx · 27/01/2011 21:04

DS is 12 weeks and wakes 3 or 4 times between 8pm and 8am. GlitteryBalls, your DD is still so young, she'll be sorting out your supply still but feeding all day/night long will wear off eventually

OP, I tend to feed when DS wakes grumbling unless it has been less than an hour since his last waking/feed. But for the first 6 weeks ish I fed at every sign of hunger or any little grumble really (if in doubt lob it out!) I think it depends how old the baby is. I'm not worried about making a rod for my own back at the mo, just going with what he wants/needs - I don't think you can overfeed a bf baby... I'm assuming you are bf?

Elsjas · 27/01/2011 22:48

Dd1 slept 10.30-6 at 7 weeks and 7.30-6 at 11 weeks. Ds2 went down at 7.30 at 8 weeks but would wake once in the night until he was 4 months old. However despairing it seems at the moment, it does get better and the change can be almost overnight. Both of mine screamed for hours in the evening/ night as newborns but have since been fantastic sleepers.

lonesomeBiscuit · 28/01/2011 13:35

My DS is 12 weeks old and for the last week or so (since discovering his hands) sucks his hands as a way of settling himself back to sleep if he wakes up between sleep cycles in the night. This is a bit odd, since he is rubbish at self-settling at other times (I need to hold him for the duration of every nap and at bed time I need to hold him until he is deeply asleep before putting him in his cot), but I'm not complaining.

The way I worked this out is that to begin with I would attempt to feed him each time I heard the hand-sucking, thinking he was hungry. The hand-sucking is normally accompanied by a few cries - one off short cries, rather than sustained crying. But I'd often hear the hand-sucking only about an hour after he'd gone back to sleep after a previous feed and since birth he's always gone 3-4 hours between feeds at night. Then on offering the breast I'd find that he wasn't hungry and he'd go back to sleep after a couple of sucks.

Now I wait to see whether the cries escalate before going to feed him. If the cries become sustained for more than a few seconds at a time or start to ramp up, it means he is hungry. I still get to him before he starts crying properly, but waiting that short while to see if he goes back to sleep makes a big difference to my sleep.

Personally I wouldn't leave him to wait if he was hungry. Like snowcone, I have another one who tantalises me by doing 2 nights in a row of 11pm to 6am or 7am, then the next few nights it will be back to 4am or 5am. He is always really hungry if he does wake at the earlier time. I reckon he'll work it out in his own good time.

GlitteryBalls · 30/01/2011 14:46

Sorry about the slight thread hijack btw! x

Cosmosis · 30/01/2011 14:55

I tend to wait more now as often he goes back to sleep on his own (he's nearly 5 months)

BabiesNeedInstructions · 30/01/2011 17:41

GlitteryBalls, sounds like you might be in a growth spurt? There's usually one around 3 weeks. I fed Ds for 8 hours straight one night - it was so constant he cried if I went to the loo. On the up side, if you're bf it does wonders for your supply, but its a nightmare at the time.

But don't worry, it DOES get better! Ds now 7 weeks and usually does at least 3 hours at a time at night. Still room for improvement but defidnitely manageable and a world away from those crazy first weeks! Hang in there....

MsScarlett · 31/01/2011 05:08

yes she is/has been. Last Monday when she was weighed she had put on 15 oz over the previous week! Thing is this growth spurt has been going on for 2 weeks and the HV says they usually last about 48 hours! I fear it may have initially been a growth spurt, but then she settled into this routine of constant small feeds...

Think the tide may be turning though, It is 5am and she is just finishing her 2nd night feed, the last one starting at about 1am, so she is finally getting back into a 3ish hourly pattern - there is a god! x

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