Night feeds for 16 wk old

[meera21]

I have a 16 wk old DD and since last week I was feeding her 2-3 times in the night. I felt she didnt need the night feeds, and that it was just of habit now that she was waking up and using that as a comfort to go back to sleep. So I am trying to eliminate the night feeds slowly. I give her a bed time feed as usual around 7ish, she stirs around 10/11pm so i give her another feed then to tank her up for the night. If she would wake up in the night eg at 1/2am my DH would shush her back to sleep and she just would fall back to sleep after 5/10 mins of small moans. I realised with me trying to get her back to sleep she smelt milk and would get upset if didnt feed her. She would wake up again around 3/4 and then i would give her a feed. Now after a few days like this she just has a late night feed and getting up around 5am for another feed (now she goes abck to sleep even shush her!)...my question is should i still feed her at usual morning feed time of 7.30ish...??she doesnt seem to feed as much as used to prob because she had a feed only couple of hours before??? Her daytime feeds are roughly every 3 hours now.

Are you bfing?

you might find this useful

yes i am EBF. the health visitor said baby of her weight (7.1kg/15 lbs) should be able to go up to 8 hours without feeding at night..thing is at 1/2am i think if she was hungry she would scream and scream but she just fumbles around and goes back to sleep..i'm just not sure abt when it comes to early morning whether i should just continue my usual feeding routine with her. this morning i fed her at 7.30 and she was distracted so again tried an hour later and felt she finished of her feed better..

sorry but your HV is talking nonsense. Ask her to provide you with research to back her claims and when she can't write to her boss and request she goes on feeding training.

tbh, it sounds like you are doing a fine job and if it ain't broken don't fix it.

But do be prepared for her to change her mind about what she wants and go through the ocassional demanding spurt.

Your health visitor is talking bollocks. Weight of a baby has no relationship to whether they can go 8 hours at night or not. 16 weeks is very young to be going all the way through (though some babies do naturally). My DD feeds at least twice, sometimes up to 5 times a night at 16 weeks.

Follow your instincts. If you think she's hungry, feed her. Honestly, ignore the clocks, and the HV.

All I can help with is my experience...DD is 20 weeks old, 8.8kilos and still bfing through the night! In fact the last two weeks she has been feeding more and more often than before!

It's bound to get better though at some point isn't it?? :)

and 4 months is a classic sleep regression time iirc

oh, just clicked on Starlight's link and it's all about that

But agree, the HV is talking rubbish- babies don't just wake for food after all, they wake for a cuddle, because they are ill, teething or just want to be close to their Mum. I would just follow your baby's lead, it's much simpler than following any timings.

thank you for your experiences..i'll stick to her demand for now and see how we get on..i think the 1/2am wake up is just her wriggling about and not out of hunger as she would only feed for a few minutes before falling back to sleep on me!