(Almost) 9 month old still breastfeeding through the night....is this the norm?

[Fionamcmahon79]

Hi All,

I'm hope someone can offer some advice here. My baby is almost 9 months old and is on solids, eating two meals with a snack now most days. I BF her in the morning when she goes back down for her morning nap and also around lunch-time (she sometimes naps here also). I feed her in the evening just before bedtime and usually give her a top-up at around 11.30 or midnight, whenever I'm going to sleep myself. She has never slept through. The most she has ever slept in a stretch is 5 hours but that was way before she started teething and also very rare. Basically she is waking every 2 - 3 hours and I nurse her back to sleep as I've been doing from day 1.

Obviously I would love her us both to be getting a full nights sleep but I'm worried if I stop giving her the feeds through the night then she won't be getting enough milk/fluids. She won't take milk, pumped or formula, from a sippy cup or bottle. For over 2 months now I've been trying to coax her into drinking juice from a bottle by getting her used to the tit in her mouth and the feel of the bottle etc. She is taking a few sips each day from the bottle now but very little fluid intake apart from what I'm giving her.

With all that said I would really appreciate advice the following:

• How much milk should my baby be getting at 9 months?

• Should I keep up the night feeds?

• What are other mums doing with their 9 month olds?

Just to say also that I am not looking to stop BFing but would like to cut the middle of the night feeds out or down and help my baby start sleeping without me as an aid.
All advice great appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Fiona

The norm is whatever works for you - some 9 month olds don't have any night feeds, some have one or two, some have lots.

It's difficult to say how much milk a breastfed baby should have, because you can't know how much they actually take! At 9 months mine had a feed/co-sleep session between 5am-7am, before and after naps morning and afternoon, and bedtime. So if I count the early morning feed as one I'd say about 6 feeds a day - sometimes an extra one late afternoon.

Hi OP, it sounds perfectly normal to me. There are loads of reasons babies wake in the night, sometimes my 23 month old still wants a feed in the night.

In response to your questions,

• As maja says, you really can't answer this as it's impossible to tell for a bf baby.

• Dropping night feeds is a tricky one, 9 months sounds a bit young to me but as I said earlier, I have an occasional snacker at almost 2!

• I can't answer this, as 9 months seems such a long time ago!

Good luck, whatever you decide.

My little one is 8 months and he seems to nurse all night. I work and he gets expressed milk, but is always happy to have it direct from mom.

I don't really have any advice except this seems normal ti me!

My ten month old is still in pretty much the same pattern. However DD1 was bf too and at nine months we moved her to her own room and she dropped the last night feed with no problems.
Depends on the baby I think. I could also seriously use some sleep so am about to take a slightly tougher approach!

If you are not co sleeping then I would imagine that she will gradually start going longer periods. If you think she is ready to sleep for longer stretches, wait a couple of minutes before you go to her. She may go back to sleep herself or drop that wake the next night. Or try rocking her instead of feeding. Even if you end up feeding, it will start to wean her off a bit. Another thing you could try is feeding her a little before bedtime and then doing something else at bedtime eg. a song, rock, just put down etc. to break the feed&sleep connection. On another thing, I wouldn't encourage juice from a bottle, it is not good for their teeth. Stick to water/milk and maybe juice at a mealtime.

It's normal for us, DD has a bf first thing in the morning, mid morning before nap, mid afternoon before nap and then at bedtime (6.30-7) she stirs when I go to bed and usually has a short feed then but still wakes in the early hours for a top up so probably 6 feeds roughly 4 hours ish apart over 24 hours.

Hi,

Thanks all for the responses.

It's a comfort to know other mums are in the same situation as myself. It's so hard to know what to do especially when I'm constantly being given unwanted gems of advice like "That baby should be sleeping through the night by now" and "You should have never started that breastfeeding, now you can't get her off it"....and other variations on those about how the breastfeeding is the root of all my/her problems.
Obviously I ignore all this....

Thanks again.
Fiona

I was told that "sleeping through the night" for a baby means 6 hours. So if she's sleeping 6 hours, you can tell folks she is indeed sleeping through, but she's a morning lark!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but my 18 month old still nurses through the night.

I'm tired

It's perfectly possible to night wean, or limit night feeds, and still breastfeed/feed on demand in the day, so bfing isn't the root of any problems imo.

I'm having the same issue. Dd used to sleep brilliantly from about 12 weeks to 5 months she would wake only at 4am, but this last month she seems to be waking 5/6 times a night and wanting feeding. She also won't settle in her cot next to the bed, she wants to a snuggle up next to me. Not good as I'm a smoker. She won't even co sleep in the trus sense, she likes to be right next to me with her head on my arm and my arm round her. Can't say I blame her for that!

I BF both my sons and DS1 dropped his night feeds by 5 months (had adream feed around 11pm but otherwise slept 7-7. DS2 is now 5 months and hasn't fed in the night since 7 weeks. So BF definitely isn't the cause of sleep issues I would say.
Maybe if you want to reduce the night feeds you could try offering more frequently in the day?

Sorry should have said, I think a lot of sleep stuff is just children's personalities. I am very lucky to be blessed with good sleepers (but they're still trouble in other ways!).

Sounds just like my DS (11 months, 9 months corrected age). After sleeping brilliantly for months he is now waking up 2/ 3/ 4 times at night to feed and be helped back asleep. I do think he is genuinely hungry though, and all this started not long after start of weaning. I try to get more milk in him during the day, but without much success.

When I'm not here he is now drinking small amounts from a straw cup - not enough to make up for the missed feeds, but at least it's something. Have you tried straw cups?

Hi OP, I can't answer all of your questions but on the question of whether you should keep up the night feeds I'd say you don't have to if you don't want to. I was in a similar situation with DD never going more than 3 hours between feeds. She'd go down at 7pm then a typical night would see her waking at 10pm, 12.30am, 2am, 4.30am... Everyone kept saying "oh, she'll drop a feed naturally as she gets older" but she didn't. I was so exhausted and at 6 months I decided we had to improve things or I was going to go mad. By that age I was pretty sure she was just waking out of habit not genuine hunger. She was also feeding much more at night than she did in the day so needed to have her schedule turned round.

So I picked the 12.30am feed first (that was my worst - an hour into blissful sleep and then being woken up felt like torture) and over a couple of weeks I cut the feed times down by a minute or two each night until I was only feeding for about 5 minutes. That way I was sure she didn't need that feed from a hunger point of view.

Then when she woke at that time I just didn't feed her. She cried a little bit but not out of hunger, more in a sort of "Eh? This isn't how things are supposed to go" sort of way. But after 3 or 4 nights her sleep massively improved and now she only wakes once between 10.30pm and 6.30am. She is much happier in the daytime now too - eats more, goes down for naps easier, is generally a happy bunny whereas when she woke a lot at night she seemed to be in tears for half the day.

Hope this helps! And I share your pain over those "Not sleeping through the night yet?" comments. When the fact you look like you've been living in a hedge for the past 6 months and have bags under your eyes the size of a suitcase should really answer that question for them..