waking in the night again!!

[woodward]

Any advice would be great...my 4 month old is totally breastfed (she refuses bottles but thats another story!) and has started waking at least twice a night for a feed when she used to sleep through or maybe wake once. Is she ready for weaning? is my milk supply low? Or is she just having a growth spurt?? Any suggestions??

GROWTH SPURT!

Definitely. There reading for food when they start stealing it off your plate!

See here for info on growth spurts.
This is a great article about 4mos waking up!

Have to admit I am , bf ds has NEVER slept through the night!!

HTH and well done for getting this far

They're not There!

Hides from the pedant brigade.

Hi Woodward. It could be any of those things I'm afraid. DD did the same. Had slept till 7am (bliss) and then suddenly started waking between 4 and 5am at around the same age. I made a decision that developmentally, she could happily cope without being fed in the night again (she had been putting on weight fine), so I would just go in and talk to her quietly for a few minutes and then let her work it out for herself (not easy at 4am when a quieter option would have been to bf!) It took two nights (where she only grumbled in the end for 15 mins or so) and she got the message. Interestingly, she stayed on the boob a bit longer in the daytime, so it could have been a growth spurt, but she happily adapted to getting what she needed in the daytime. Every baby (as you know!) is different, but this is what worked for mine (and worked for me). Good luck.

Thanks...i was starting to doubt that i had enough milk.

Growth spurt definitely.
DS2 is going through one atm, he had started sleeping through 4/7 nights, and only waking once the other nights, now he is back to 1.5hourly wakings.

The research behind weaning shows that when born baby's stomachs are permeable, to allow them to absorb the milk easier to digest. Only milk should be entering the stomach when it is permeable to avoid possible allergies or stomach/digestion problems in later life.

Somewhere between 17-26 weeks the stomach becomes unpermeable, and 'seals' which is when the baby is physically internally ready for solids. Unfortunately we can't tell which baby is ready at 17 weeks, and which is ready at 26! That's why they say to wait.

It has been suggested though, as BT says, that once your baby can sit unaided, grab food, put it in their mouth, chew and swallow that they are likely to be ready internally, until then nature wouldn't allow us to be developmentally ready and we would fail at some point in the process.

HTH.

Weaning would have been a last resort anyway. Would rather wait till 6 mnths. Will just have 2 soldier on and hope it passes. Thanks for the advice.

VS is very wise
(I've never heard the weaning thing explained like that. I'm going to commit it to memory now! thank you!!)

DS (5 mo) never slept through but at 3 months was doing 1-2 feeds each night (bliss!) Last time I counted he was doing 3-4 (hell!) but at least he settles as soon as he has fed. We now sit up and put him back in his cot for the first feed then bring him in with me from the next so i only have to wake up long enough to latch him on or scoot him over if he's too hot next to me which makes it all bearable.

The article about the 4mo baby describes DS perfectly. he feeds much less during the day and I guess makes up for it. I'mgoing to try taking him away from distractions during the day at least once for a better feed to see if that helps.

DH thinks it might be habit so this weekend I'm going to give him 10-15 mins at each feed to try to settle DS to see if it helps. I don't think so but its worth a try and we can always feed if he gets upset!

Good luck and thabks for posting - its made me think!