how do I blend two night feeds into one gently?

[lolalotta]

Hello,I wander if anyone can advice me on blending 2 night feeds into one, gently! My 4 1/2 month old is EBF has a bedtime feed at 5.30pm goes down at 6.00pm, wakes up for a feed at 10.00pm (which she is really hungry for and feeds really well) and wakes up for another feed at 2.00am which she is less hungry for but stil hungry enough to wake IYKWIM and then goes through until 7.00am.
The thing is she then doesn't want her breakfast feed, which I feel is throwing her day off, any tips on how I should go about this turning two feeds into one would be lovely!!!

If I were you, I'd try to cut back and cut back on the 2am feed until it's gone. Maybe it'd help to move the 10pm feed back to 11pm instead - is she waking up on her own for this or are you lifting her for a dream feed? Am not a BF expert - I'd switched to formula by 4 months but maybe the principles are pretty similar? I just slowly cut back the 2 or 3am feed until my DTs no longer woke upfor it. Was all a bit stressful for a couple of weeks but then they were sleeping through 11pm to 7am and it all seemed worth it. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply bellabelly,she wakes independantly for her 10.00pm then kind of sleeps on my boob at the same time as having a really good feed!!! clever aren't they lol!
i thought it would be the 2.00am one that wwould go first...i suppose it's not possible to do this without tears...

I found the book 12 Hours Sleep by 12 Weeks by Suzy Giordano really helpful - we didn't qute manage that but by 16 weeks we were about there... I seem to remember that she gave advice for BF and for FF. What I really liked about it was that it was quite gentle with regards to crying (although I remember getting an absolute flaming on another forum for admitting to usng the ideas in the book - eople assumed it was all about letting hungry babies just cry themselves back to sleep which is absolute nonsense!) Anyway, well worth a read for very practical advice.

tbh at her age she probably still needs the feeds at night. if she doesn't want one when she wake sup that's fine... just wait until she is ready for it

i don't think there is any way to blend feeds that are that far apart without leaving her to cry tbh

I'm not sure if there is exactly a gentle way to cut out feeds unless you let them do it in their own time. With DS (also bf) I was on my knees with exhaustion and desperately needed him to start sleeping through as I couldn't cope with my 2 yr old and 4 yr old during the day after broken nights with him. When he was 12 weeks I simply decided I would stop feeding him in the night. He had a great weight gain and was healthy in every way. At the time he was waking once or twice during the night. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for everyone, but it worked brilliantly for me and DS.

So.... I gave him a really good feed at 10.30pm. He woke again around 2am and I didn't feed him. I didn't leave him either, I held and rocked and cuddled and patted him. He was obviously pretty cross and crying. After about an hour or so he fell asleep in my arms through sheer frustration and exhaustion, and I took him into bed with me so as not to wake him. He then woke again at around 5.30am and I fed him. The second night after feeding at 10.30pm he woke around 2am and again I rocked and cuddled him until he went back to sleep. Again it took a long time (although less then the previous night, approx 45 mins). This time I put him back into his cot once he was asleep. Again he woke around 5.30am and I fed him. 3rd night he woke at 2am ish but settled after about 5 mins, 4th night he stirred around 2am ish, but settled himself without me doing anything. And that was it - feed gone.

He was then waking around 5am / 5.30am, so I used the same approach on that wake too, arbitrarily choosing 6.30am as morning at which point I would feed. Funnily enough though he dropped that 5 / 5.30am wake really easily - 2 or 3 nights of popping a dummy in at 5am when he woke and he was soon going through to 6.30 with no intervention and he never looked back.