any tips on structuring night feeds?

[lindso]

my little girl is 3 months old, and after weeks of constant breastfeeding has settled into her own (dare i say it) routine of following daytime breastfeeds (ish): 8,11,2,5,7. At night, she goes to sleep between 7.30 and 8 and then wakes to be fed between 12 and 2 and then again between 4 and 5. struggle to get her to go back to sleep sometimes after this, but that's another story.

my partner will be working abroad for a month soon - he currently does one of the night feeds (3.5oz of ebm). I'd like to try and cut out one of the night feeds. thinking of feeding her at 10/10.30pm - probably ebm, in the hope she will just wake once in the night.
any advice on this please - what has worked for you?

cheers.

Sorry not to be able to offer any concrete advice, but just wanted to say that 3mths is still pretty young and she will still be changing her pattern regularly and hitting growth spurt when everything goes out of the window for a few days. My DD (now 16 months) dropped her late evening feed at around 4 months and only woke once at around 3 (didn't last, but close your eyes to that bit) but when I tried to adjust timings of feeds it threw her completely. Depends on your child I guess. I'd experiment a bit before your DP leaves, in case it doesn't work straight away!

I tend to recommend Elizabeth Pantley's No-Cry sleep solution for good ideas on all sorts of night time stuff. It's a very gentle approach.

I agree 3 months is too early to cut out a night feed, maybe try again 5/6 months. You may be about to hit the awful 4 month growth spurt, I wouldn't mess with anything now.

May be worth trying at 10 or 11 to see if she'll eat without waking up - that might get you to 3 or 4am and thence to 6 or 7 ie 'the morning', so you won't have dropped a night feed, just shifted it a bit.
But it might make no difference at all, or it might mess up her daytime pattern (which you may or may not mind)...

I agree with mrsbadger in trying to move the feeds. My dd is 10 weeks and she feeds about 6.30-7 pm then goes to bed I then give her a dream feed when i go to bed between 9-10pm and she now wakes between 2-3am then at 6-7am for morning. I found it easier to do the dream feed as did not get woken 2 hrs after getting to sleep myself therefore I feel better in the morning.

my ds is 10 weeks and he doesnt go to bed till about 10. He dozes a little in the evening but wakes himself up so I havent seen any point in putting him into his pyjamas etc at that time.

He gets his nappy off for a kick at about 9.00 if its bath night and 9.15 if its not, and kicks for as long as he enjoys it which is usually about half an hour (or shorter if he's having a bath). Then I take him upstairs and feed him and out him in his crib - he usually is asleep by about 10.15 or so and up until this weekend, I was going to bed at the same time, but stayed up last night and so might start doing that more - just for 20 mins or so.

he wakes for a feed usually between 4 and 6am, then sleeps again till 7 or 8.

this has only been working like this for a week or so - until then he was waking twice usually so i guess it could change again, but i will only start putting him to bed earlier when he is sleeping through i think.