Breastfeeding and settling at night

[awhistlingwoman]

This is my first mumsnet post so please be gentle with me!

My DS1 is coming up for 7 months, he is EBF and I haven't been able to persuade him to take a bottle, a cup or a dummy as yet! He still wakes up at least three times a night and I generally feed him back to sleep. I never viewed this as a problem, I'm happy to get up with him and I like breastfeeding him. My DD was very premature and, despite battling with expressing for months, I didn't really get to breastfeed her at all so breastfeeding is v (possibly a little bit too!) important to me.

When I mentioned this at a mum's and baby's group one of the other mums was horrified and said that I was creating a bad habit of him waking up in the night to have a snack! Is this what I have done?! Would it be better if I tried to soothe him back to sleep another way? She suggested not feeding him at night at all. I suppose because I'm quite a hungry and greedy person myself my first instinct is always to FEED! The lady who made the comment knows the background and thinks I am using breastfeeding to comfort myself as well as him which I suppose could be true! Argh! It's really been preying on my mind!

Also I'm going back to work soon and, whilst I would be totally happy to carry on like this if I was staying at home, I'm not sure I'll be able to cope with the lack of sleep when I have to be back in the office. If I should be feeding so frequently at night it won't be a problem, if it is something I've managed to create myself it might be a good time to break the cycle!

Grateful for any tips. Thank you x

There is nothing wrong with still feeding at night at his age, nothing at all. If you are happy with it then by all means keep doing it.

If you did want to try to stop feeding back to sleep then there are plenty of gentle methods to try. The No Cry Sleep Solution has lots of ideas. You could try feeding but putting him back down before he has completely fallen asleep and letting him fall asleep himself then gradually reducing the time you feed him for. He will drop feeds eventually himself though, just follow your instinct. If you are happy and he is happy then why change it?

Thank Indith. I'd just been happily going along with feeding him to sleep but this comment just made me worry that I'd inadvertently encouraged him to keep waking up. Made a rod for my own back, as they say. Often! Sigh.

Will certainly look out the book you mentioned :)

I recommend that book too- it's pennies on amazon. My ds is 5 mths and I'm back to work next month. He feeds 2 hrly day and night, so I know how you feel! I would love him to drop a couple of feeds at night, I know (by how roly poly he's become) that he doesn't really need so many night feeds, but it's hard not to when it's so easy to use boob to get sleep!!! I've started using the book this week with good success but very painful teething is disrupting things and is a pure bitch, good luck!

It is very very common to still be waking often at night at this age. Knackering, but not abnormal. Sounds like you are doing a fab job of meeting his needs.

Agree with Indith, if it ain't broke why fix it? Doesn't matter what a random stranger thinks about how you look after your son, it's between you. And if you are fine with it, just carry on. I found it was quite a bit later before the nights improved much TBH, between teething, developmental stuff (wanting to practice standing up at 3 am etc...)

There is no should or shouldn't. FWIW, I found 'trying to break the cycle' with 1st baby was just frustrating and useless. Second child didn't sleep well either for a while, but I was less stressed because I wasn't trying to fight it/'fix' it

Hi OP, just wanted to say that I was given this type of nonsense advice too and I did actually try to stop feeding as much. The only difference it made was that I spent 2 hours rocking/patting/walking/singing instead of popping her on the boob for 10 minutes and then going straight back to sleep. I think as others have said, if you are happy then go with it

I came here about to post the same, so thanks op my ds is a little younger, wakes every couple of hours to 'suck'. Not really hungry. I am knackered as have older early riser.

Madame's post is the reason why I keep feeding; path of least resistance! I am taking the path of least resistance, at least for now...!

OP and ImNotAnsweringIt,

This "rod for your own back" is absolutely a cultural thing. It's biologically normal for babies to wake and be comforted back to sleep. In fact, the reason it's biologically normal is that babies have different sleep patterns to adults which stops them from going into such aa deep, long sleep - which protects their immature systems from slowing down too much and not kick-starting again, which is, it is thought, one cause of SIDS. Therefore, frequent night waking, while tough, is indication of a healthy mother-baby relationship and a healthy baby.

Some babies do sleep really well from very young and it's my understanding that this is fine too provided it's their natural rhythm and not one induced by being filled up with a bottle or being sleep trained.

Saying that, SIDS risk is always tiny and even more rare after 6 months. Really, more important risk factors are parents smoking, sleeping on the tummy and not breastfeeding.

The thing here is, if you are happy then it's not broke and it doesn't need fixing. What you are doing is incomprehensible to many. BUT to many others, the opposite is true and they can't imagine not responding to their babies just because it's night time, or trying to teach them that there's no point in asking for their mummy when they need her, because no one will come. Another great author is Dr William Sears. Well worth a Google :)

Totally normal for babies to wake in the night for milk and comfort. And nothing wrong with comforting them at night by BF either - as others have said it's got to be better surely than spending hours patting/rocking/stroking?

It works for you and your family and that is waht matters. I coslept with my 3 and found (especially with DD) that they latched on themselves if they wanted milk so I got loads of sleep.

Thank you so much for the reassurance. Goes to show that perhaps I'm more sleep deprived than I think as I've let an off the cuff comment from somebody else shake my confidence in what I'm doing to such an extent!

I'mNotAnsweringIt - Sorry to hear that you are in the same boat. My DD is three and doesn't believe in having a lie in either.

MadameJ - I am SURE that is what would happen and I am a big believer in the past of least resistance! As mampig says, it's just too tempting to use the boob to get sleep and I'd never be able to stop myself after half an hour of patting and singing (who am I kidding? probably more like ten minutes in the wee small hours!)

organiccarrotcake - thank you so much for that response, that really interesting about sleep patterns and SIDS, that makes a lot of sense to me. I've always found it a bit strange that SO many people tell you that you are making a rod for your own back or spoiling them. My dd spent the first four months of her life in hospital and so I couldn't get to her consistently when she needed me and, as a result, I like to respond now when either dd or ds (totally healthy and never been parted from him) get upset. I'm usually totally confident in this approach but I think this comment, as it was related to bf which I'm a novice at, really got to me and I suddenly felt I'd messed it all up!

WoTmania - if I just can just persuade him to latch on by himself I'm laughing!

Rather than being shaken by one little comment I think that the atttitude that sleeping through is a good thing and the competiveness of it all is everywhere so you've probably picked up lot of ideas about what your baby 'ought' to be doing without realising it.

The self-latching baby is a wonderful thing :)

awhistlingwoman I totally understand. We all - everyone of us - get thrown by comments, no matter how well meant, from time to time.

Sometimes it's competitive parenting and sometimes it's just people not realising that there are other ways of doing things. Possibly that woman went away and happened upon some research about baby sleep patterns which would not have caught her eye without the conversation with you :)

but when my DS1 was three I put a bowl of cereal out for him with a cover, and a small jug of milk in the fridge where he could reach, and he would get up and eat brekkie before leaping on my bed and announcing the start of a new day :) Gave me an extra blissful 1/2 hour. Just a thought!!

Just thought I would add my experience here as I too was feeling the pressure from others to night wean my 13month old DD, mainly because I was returning to work.

I meant to try to cut back on three night feeds before I went back to work a month ago. This got put off firstly as she was teething then had the worst cold ever during my first week back. She stopped eating in the day and was feeding up to five times a night. I thought it would kill me but I got on with it and it was amazing to be able to comfort and nourish her. She's now back to being up two or three times in the night.

It's been really difficult and I am exhausted but my baby is happy. Also, being away from her for 10 hours a day is really hard and I love being able to snuggle up with her at night and for her to know I'm still there for her.

One last note, a friend night weaned her DD. Unfortunately her DD still wakes at the same times every night and friend can no longer quickly feed her to sleep. She says she finds it harder to get to sleep as well as I think breastfeeding helps the mother get back to sleep as well.

To be honest there are times when I think I will never get more than three hours sleep again (it's already been over a year) but as there's no guarantee DD will sleep for longer if I stop breastfeeding I'm not sure I can go through the pain of night weaning!

I too do the same thing with my DS. If one more smug/competitive/bossy/opinionated mother tells me that he should be on baby rice now, and I shouldn't feed him back to sleep, I won't be responsible for my actions.

I don't agree with their crying it out and early weaning parenting styles, but I keep my opinions to myself. I'm sure they think they're helping, but I wish they would mind their own sometimes.

go with your mothers instinct, dont listen to stupid comments from 'friends'. Your baby will sleep through the night when it is ready. My son who is 6 fed through the night whenever he needed to and weaned himself when he was ready. He slept in bed with me he went his his own cot when he was ready. My son who is 10 months old feeds when he needs to in the night just the same, and to be honest you get a far better night sleep settling them with a breastfeed than leaving the poor little things to cry themselves back to sleep.

missrose I think that I will also have to resign myself to never getting more than three hours sleep. I do like the comforting and nourishing and I know I will just want to snuggle at night as I'm already dreading being separated from him during the day time. And would be really rubbish if I did the night weaning but didn't get the benefit of any extra sleep!

nancerama It would be nice if people would keep their opinions quiet on occasion. I've never had so much unsought advice in my life as I've had since I had children. Tis madness.

mumof4darlings thank you, I just need to have faith in myself. I know that he will do it when he is ready and I wouldn't be able to leave him to cry himself to sleep. Yet more evidence of sleep deprivation as even the thought of DS crying himself to sleep is making me feel teary. Time to go to bed.

Thank you so much for all your help and advice all. Looks like I won't be getting the sleep but I WILL still be getting my lovely snuggly night feeds and I can enjoy them with a clear conscience now