9 month old still 3hourly nightfeeding!

[piginclover]

My DD2 is a settled and happy baby in every way except overnight,where she still wakes 2-3 hourly and won't settle unless fed.

She is BF on demand, and I'm quite a relaxed parent , generally happy to go with her "routine". Having said that we do have a loose routine at bedtime which works well and she settles easily into her cot at around 7.
We do some co-sleeping, she starts the night in her cot and comes into our bed for night feeds and tends to stay there.

However I'm increasingly tired and beginning to fear that she won't change this pattern unless I actively change it. At the moment she wakes for feeding at roughly 9, 11.30, 1.30,4 and wakes around 6. It's exhausting after 9 months! I don't like the idea of CC and she sleeps in our room anyway, so it would be difficult, but maybe that's what i need to do? Last night I tried settling her without a feed and it took 2 hours trying and her becoming increasingly upset before I cracked and fed her.

I put her down awake for naps and at 7 so she can get herself to sleep.
She sometimes uses a dummy to sleep during the day.

She is a distractable BFer during the day time, could it be that she needs these feeds because she doesn't take enough milk during the day? She is on 3 meals a day.

Anyone with advice on how to change things or reassurance that this will settle down would be greatly received.
TIA.

I partially night-weaned DD1 when she was around 9 months. We had a similar sleep set-up to you. I got ideas from the Jay Gordon method but added in a lot of extra steps. Essentially I decided between 11pm and 4am I wanted DD1 to sleep through. When she woke within those hours I only fed her for a short time (I sang a song in my head repeatedly to count about 5 minutes of time), then settled her back to sleep (cuddling, patting, whatever). I didn't feed her again until she had fallen asleep and re-woken - and when she did it would be 5 minutes only again. I did that for a week, then cut down the feeding to 2 minutes. Then, I didn't feed her at all between those hours but just tried to settle her to sleep another way. Eventually if she woke I would pat her in the cot and not pick her up. After 4am and before 11pm I would feed her as normal.

It worked brilliantly for us, she cried but only a little bit. Sometimes I accidentally fell asleep during my 5/2 minute counting but it still worked. It did take a good few weeks as you can see, but after that having 5 hours of sleep in a row made me feel miles better. She then of her own accord started waking up later than 4am for her 'first' morning feed until eventually it became 6am and I was sleeping almost the whole night through, bliss!

Thanks Zimbah, I hadn't thought about cutting down the length of feed, I'll try that, I'm sure I'll probably fall asleep too though and I'll look into the Jay Gordon method. Good to know it worked for you, the idea of sleep from 11 until 4 is heaven!

exactly the same problem here OP.

very grateful for Zimbah's advice.

I have tried shorten the feed before, but DS just hits at me and screams. he's then very awake and takes a long time to get back to sleep.

i've found that if i catch him quickly enough when he's just waking up and instead of feeding do pat/shush, sometimes he'll fall back asleep.

he only seems to really want a feed if he's stirred himself awake completely... if that makes any sense.

Hi Born, good to know I'm not alone, It seems like every RL mum I ask about their babies sleep pattern tell me "They slept through from 3 weeks old" or something ridiculous!

My first slept through from 8 weeks - it was quite a shock when my second was up every 2 hours at 8 months!!! At around 9.5 months, I decided enough was enough and she should be able to go through the night. I just didn't feed her when she woke up, and DH went in to see her so she wouldn't smell the milk. I was at the end of my tether, but this worked after 3 or 4 days. She now sleeps 6.30 - 6.30 every night!

there's quite a few of us on the sleep topic with this problem.

it is exhausting and i've only jsut managed to get DS to self settle some of the time.

hate, hate, hate controlled crying so trying everything else but.