Do demand-fed babies ever sleep through?! How?!!

[lowrib]

DS is BF on demand, and at a year old he still wakes up in the night a few times most nights. If I BF him he falls straight back to sleep. But if anyone else tries to comfort him he throws a total wobbler.

I've always fed him to sleep - it works so well! But this new year did make me think. MIL kindly looked after him so we could go on a rare all-nighter (yippee!), but he really wasn't happy in the night when he woke up and I wasn't there.

So where do we go from here? Do I just accept that I won't be going on any nights out, until after we wean completely? (Don't know when this will be but quite possibly another year). I don't mind this so much - I did plenty of partying in my younger years and I'm quite happy to just be mum for a while.

It would be nice if he slept through though. Is there any nice attachment-parenting style way to encourage my DS to sleep through?

My DS does really fight sleep, and he's not really a cuddly baby. I've seen friends put their babies down to sleep and was amazed to see them quietly coo and drift off to sleep. My DS on the other hand won't go off unless he's already asleep when you put him in the cot. As soon as he find himself awake in the cot, he stands up and starts crying. Actually I think sometimes he stands up first and then wakes up! It's tricky because feeding back to sleep works, in just a matter of minutes. Whereas any kind of rocking back to sleep can take maybe an hour! MIL used to ask why didn't I just cuddle / rock him to sleep until she tried and saw that he's just not that kind of baby.

I'd be very interested in any tips though, and to hear what other people who fed on demand did about nights.

I'm not up for any kind of controlled crying stuff though - I'd rather have no late nights out than go for that.

TIA

It sounds like the feeding and the sleeping are two completely different issues here. As I understand it, feeding on demand means feeding when hungry, which should become less frequent as their tummy gets bigger and can take more milk at a time. At your DS's age he won't actually be hungry several times a night, but rather looking for comfort from you.

I'm afraid we did end up doing a form of controlled crying, but not in the strict sense of the phrase. It was more like a gradual withdrawal technique. You have to do something to break the cycle and the association between waking and food.

Google Jay Gordon. Aimed at co-sleeping but can be adapted. We did it when dd was 2. Marvellous. No tears.

My DS is exactly the same, fights sleep and will not be settled by anyone other than me. I sometimes get him to sleep by pushing him in the pushchair or if we have been out in the car I bring him in asleep in the seat (he is still in his baby seat) but if he wakes up after about 6 or 7pm, nothing, not even the magic car, will get him back to sleep but being breastfed in bed with me!

About nights out, I have been out a couple of times and if I am back by 11/12ish it is ok, as he tends to go to bed much later and then doesn't wake up for a couple of hours, by which time I am home. My sister has looked after him and got him to sleep by pushing him in the buggy, then when he woke up she gave him a bottle of warmed expressed milk, he took a whole bottle and wanted more, but by the time she had sorted another bottle out he was getting really distressed and just refused it, so she just woke him up a bit more and distracted him until I got home. I tend to think like you, that it's only 2 or 3 years out of my whole life and I will be able to go for nights out when he is older.

I have just recently started a thread in Sleep though about the book the No Cry Sleep Solution, having read through it it definitely mentions the kinds of problems you are having and might well be worth a try. There are a load of us going through the process together, if you can get hold of a copy of the book (on offer at amazon atm) you could join in. It's basically about changing your behaviour and gently encouraging rather than "training" the child to sleep through, and is supposed to take about 30 days to have a noticeable effect, but you do logs every 10 days so you can see the improvement.

My DS is nearly 15 months BTW. (Forgot to mention )

Hiya, I have experienced exactly what you have described with all 3 of my children.
On rare nights out DH suffered if they woke, they'd scream the house down, fight and reject him, many a time I was summoned home from a bar and club and baby would be asleep within seconds of feeding from my breast.
I worked when I had DC1 & 2 so night weaned them at 6 months when I was confident they were eating plenty throughout the day.
I've been a SAHM with DC3 so I didn't mind the night feeds up till she was 12 mths old.
The first night was really funny actually as I was giving her her bedtime feed I kept telling her not to bother waking in the night as I was not going to feed her again in the middle of the night and she wasn't to wake until morning.
Low and behold the child slept through .
Ha, not the next night though.
When baby wakes I would offer water only, obviously baby will kick off. I'd say time to go to sleep, put them down awake and crying and leave, but I'd return in one minute cuddle, then leave again, then two minutes, then three etc. If baby is standing I'd physically lie them down first.
You've got to have nerves of steel and a supportive partner.
Take a pen, paper and watch to bed, in the cold dark of night listening to your baby crying it feels endless but if you note all the wake times and sleep times you should see improvement which is really encouraging.
In my experience it averages 3 nights and they've slept through thereafter.
Unfortunately during times of ill health or teething you do take a few steps backwards but try to stick to what you've started as much as possible as it'll make it easier to re train them if you need to.

feeding on demand is not the same thing as feeding to sleep.

I feed on demand but rarely let them feed themselves to sleep (would just gently rouse them so they went of to sleep without actually feeding)

They slept through the night (12 hours) one at 4 months & one at 10 days and the other one at about 3 weeks but she had acid reflux so would wake a few times between 7 and midnight to belch.

lowrib - I am in a similar situation with dd2. She is 13 months and gave up breastfeeding during the day (her own decision) months ago but is still feeding frequently at night.

If I refuse to feed her she immediately kicks off and screams the house down whereas if I feed her she doesn't actually wake and goes back into a deep sleep within minutes.

I am very tired now - the broken sleep is very hard. I also have dd1 in the bed with me most nights with DH relegated to the spare bed. I am really fed up now.

I have the No Cry Sleep book for Toddlers and am steeling myself for some very difficult nights ahead.

It is wreaking havoc on my life at this stage. DH and I get no time alone together and I don't feel comfortable leaving dd2 at night even for a few hours.

During the day she has one or two naps in her pushchair after a small bottle of formula and although she needs to be pushed a little it is never a problem to get her to sleep.

I don't know why she is so addicted to the night feeds.

DD1 was very different. She gave up nightfeeding at 5 months and all I did was give her the soother instead of a feed one night when I was very tired and that was enough so I am stumped with dd2.

I don't know about the OP's DS, but I do know that the suggestion to "gently rouse him slightly" after a feed would not work with him, he would wake up and want to feed more.

However I did have great success with the Pantley Pull Off (from NCSS) which is where you wait until they have finished doing the big gulps and are doing the small, nibbly, intermittent feeding, and gently break the seal (I find it easier than usual, I just squeeze the breast slightly and it comes out) - if he starts rooting again you quickly put a finger on their chin to close their mouth, if they still root or struggle against it or cry then you feed them, but once they are back in that sleepy intermittent feeding you remove the nipple again, after a while they will go to sleep when you do this and now DS rolls over once he has had enough and definitely doesn't wake as often at night, so I think it has broken the association but it's another option than going cold turkey or offering water etc.

My problem now is getting him to sleep at a reasonable time in the first place - hence the NCSS again! (Have a look at the website)

Thanks everyone for the replies. It's much appreciated!

LymeBayToEbay thanks for the Jay Gordon tip. I found this online,

It looks like just the kind of thing I mean - DS is in the bed for at least some of the night most nights, so something aimed at co-sleeping is the right kind of thing for us I think.

I'm really not interested in anything that involves any kind of controlled crying! I'm certainly not hell bent on getting him to sleep through, more wondering how other people manage, particularly those with attachment-parent type leanings.

I also wonder if left to his own devices he's likely to ever grow out of it naturally, or whether it's something we do have to train him out of eventually.

I think the rousing thing usually only works successfully when they are very young. Sometimes there would be tears but they would quickly be soothed with a cuddle, there again I did pick up put down with my youngest from a few days old, she was my 4th I have a bad back I needed her to be able to go to sleep without me being a sleep association (if you held her she would sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and not bother with feeding ). It worked very quickly - 24 hours with no crying as such, first whimper and she would get a cuddle.

Your son would eventually grow out of it - don't know of any school age children who breast feed during the night!

That Jay Gordon thing does read a bit like controlled crying to me though... and it is very similar to the "last resort" outlined at the end of the No Cry Sleep Solution. The bulk of the suggestions in the book don't involve any crying at all.

I would never, ever, ever use controlled crying. We used the basic jay gordon framework and as a hippy attachment parenter, can confirm it worked brilliantly.

I taught her to self settle first using the pull off technique. No tears through the whole thing and it works for older bfed children. DD was especially receptive I think as she understood what was happening and could talk about it.

of course they sleep through eventually.

i know of no teenagers who still need feeding to sleep

jay gordon is ok though, ditto elizabeth pantley

I agree with posters who say this is a sleep issue not a feeding issue.

I would do something about it, but then I like my sleep too much to be awake comforting a baby through the night if they could be pursuaded to settle themselves.

Personally I would feed as normal but put down slightly awake, even if that means gently rousing DS to let him settle on his own. Comfort him if he cries by stroking, cuddling while he stands in cot or picking up if he is not quietening and then repeat the process. This sort of tactic might be hard the first time you do it but would get easier and hopefully lead to him going longer at night without needing you.

I think by always feeding babies to sleep it is possible to take away their ability to settle themselves so if they are disturbed when they come up into lighter sleep they will wake and cry rather than just go straight back off.

"That Jay Gordon thing does read a bit like controlled crying to me though" does it? Oh dear! I was in a rush and only read half of it and bookmarked for later. I'll have to go and have another look ...

Jay Gordon method worked for us. Not like controlled crying, IMO as the baby is never left alone. I led into it very very gradually as well, with shorter and shorter 'feeds'.

Having said that, do it only if you really want to - not because you feel DS OUGHT to sleep through. Because he will stop on his own eventually. But if you do want to do it, you can try it, and stop if you're not happy.