How do you know when baby no longer needs night feeds?

[CJ1990]

Probably a really stupid question but my daughter still wakes at least every 2/3 hours at night for feeds. Was worse over the regression, best I’ve had is 4-5 hour stretches. I’m not sure If she is just feeding to fall back to sleep or if she’s genuinely hungry.

Not to sure how to fix it either way. I’m exhausted 😩 she does self settle after a feed before naps if that makes a difference? She feeds but seems to stay awake and chatters / moans herself to sleep. Not sure if it can be a different scenario at night?

How old is she?

DD and I were cosleeping. When she wanted a cuddle she would snuggle in when she was hungry she would really cry. She was 13 months when she had her last over night feed.

How old is your little one?

How old is she?

With my DD I monitored time between feeds and how long she fed for at night. I found that if she had fed within two hours or so that she was feeding for comfort and I could settle her in other ways (dummy, rocking her etc). If she didn't settle in 10 mins or so I would feed her but always gave it a go and she started going longer between feeds.

We struggled through the 4 month regression, so much so it pushed me into PND, but I found that creating positive sleep associations helped. She is older now but has the bottle/dummy/comforter/white noise associations and bed time is a breeze. She even turns on her white noise when she wakes up at night to settle herself.

Ah sorry thought I’d put her age!! 5 months x

When I realised the feed was only a few minutes and I was being used as a dummy!!!

I offered comfort before immediate food from around 4 months ish. DS had last night feed at 5 months.

—woke for 5 minute bursts of comfort every 3/4 hours until he was 3 mind you—

Thank you! And @Bobbiepin I feel you. I think I was almost there and took the first steps to see someone! Luckily I think we’re on the way out of it finnaly so she goes down ok! Still 30 min cat naps and 4/5 naps a day but can handle that now as it’s not a fight..it’s just keeping her down at night...!

Mine all slept a stretch at night if 10 hours by 4 months, I was militant about ensuring they fed lots in the day used to wake them up from naps etc.

3 months. Ds just slept through one night. I panicked as thought I’d slept through him wanting feeding. But hadn’t. He kept doing it...so we stopped might feeds.

Hoping for similar with dc2...

@cj1990 I had CBT and it was very helpful, worth doing if you can access it. It's helped me be much more laid back about the usual motherhood stresses.

Another bit of advice that was very helpful was about helping them distinguish between day&night. Daytime naps have noise, tv on etc and light. They are naps. Night time sleep is dark, calm, hushed voices and routine. When they know the difference naps become shorter and night time sleep is longer until summer early dawns and they get confused

Maybe I’ll try feed more in the day...! I’d expect a few feeds but I feel she shouldn’t need one every 2/3 hours! But she’s still young so I just don’t know..maybe it’s just her!?

My first stopped night dress at 5 months. My second fed every 2-4 hours, day and night, for a year. They are all different.

I personally wouldn’t remove night feeds until a child was well into weaning and you can guarantee they are getting plenty of calories during the day. But that’s just my 2p.

My 8 month old eats aaallll day and has also been weaning onto solids and still wakes during the night at least twice. So yeah.... Maybe it's just her!

Sorry... That probably doesn't help.