Hungry baby milk just at night to ensure a full nights sleep

[mumsrthebest]

Hi all, my son is 11 weeks old and is still waking in the night. I know he is still young but would like to try and get him to sleep through the night. He usually has his last bottle at around 10pm - 10:30pm and wakes at 2am and then 5am. On his 2am feed he generally only has an ounce and falls asleep. This tells me he doesn't really need it so I have been trying to put him off by putting his dummy back in and this works for about an hour and then to be honest I give in and give him a bottle (too tired).

My friend suggested I give him hungry baby milk for his last feed before bed. Has anyone else tried this? She tried it with her son and he slept through as he felt fuller I presume.

My son has had awful colic too that seems to have gone this past week or so but we are still putting colief in the milk (going to reduce dose next week as he will be 12 was) Do I need to do it ŵith the hungry baby milk too?

LittleBear I'm still waiting to hear how resettling my baby instead of feeding at every waking makes me a bad parent.

I would say feed a baby on demand whether ff or bf.

What hungry baby milk is? I'm just taking the description from the manufacturers website.

Don't shoot the messenger

I have seen babies on Hungry Baby milk from as young as 8 weeks.

Eh?

Catsmeow I didn't say you were a bad parent but I don't agree with leaving an 8 week to it to get bored eventually which sounds like CIO to me. If this isn't what you meant and I inferred something incorrect I apologise.

Ah I see unimaginative, apologies!

I didn't think hungry baby milk was advised from birth either, remember a relative who had a baby shortly before me going on about her baby being too young for it when she wanted to start feeding her it.

If we are going to trade websites Cow & Gate hungry baby milk www.cowandgate.co.uk/article/infant-milk-for-hungrier-babies. This clearly says it is from newborn

I'm sorry that comment about babies being fat enough .

Hungry milk has the same number of calories as normal. Do your research!

LittleBear it's not leaving him to cry. It's resettling him and then leaving him if he's still awake to get bored. I don't leave him crying.

Then I apologise.

Thank you LittleBear

A little nervous to suggest something as don't want to get torn apart...

To be clear I am not recommending this, or saying this will work, or saying any different approach is wrong, or that this is better...but it worked for us.

At about 10 weeks my DS needed to be woken for his dream feed at 10.30pm and although he drank it, clearly wasn't excited about it. But we woke him and fed him, then he woke again at 3am, and again at 6am.

A night nanny who we loved suggested that we try ditching the feed that he didn't appear to want (10.30pm), and not trying to ditch the one he did want (3am).

Amazingly this was our turning point...we stopped waking him for a dream feed and just waited to see what happened. This meant I could go to bed at 8pm, and DP wasn't waiting up either. DS immediately slept until 3am (meaning he was going from 7pm to 3am by 11 weeks), then waking for a big feed. Which meant he then lasted until at least 7am. Whether we fed him at 10.30pm or not appeared to make no difference whatsoever.

Slowly that 3am became 4am, then 5am....By 16 weeks he was sleeping from 7pm to 7am. Never had to ditch a dream feed.

I have no idea if this is helpful, maybe DS was peculiar, but if I have another baby I will not be worrying about staying up for a dream feed unless baby really really wants it.

What I suggested LH and got ripped to shreds.

Sounds sensible though.

The difficulty is that whilst you can encourage healthy sleep habits, a huge majority of 11 week old babies will need milk at nighttime. You can't really advise a system to get the same result with every baby as at 11 weeks it's just not up to you.

my ds slept much like the ops baby. I tried everything and ds didn't sleep as he was a tiny baby but I was convinced I was failing as a mum as he didn't sleep - how silly is that.

Sleep is not a measure of anything!

Every child is different I have just had my 4th child and hungrier baby cow and gate is from newborn so if it wasn’t ok for them to have they wouldn’t sell it!! I give my little one who is 9 weeks old hungrier baby milk for her last bottle between 8pm and 9pm and she sleeps until 5am and has no problems digesting it! Also still putting on a healthy weight each week without the extra bottle blush]

This thread is from 2016 Minxy