Night feeds/reverse cycling, still?

[pzyck]

FTM here so go easy please.

DD is 9 months and still (breast) feeds around 6 times in the night. Her feeds have always been short and sweet ever since she was a newborn, and so she is technically having 'full feeds' when she does during the night. I know she is past the point of "needing" night feeds from a biological standpoint, but she's been following her growth curve to the T so it seems like the total amount of milk she takes in a 24 hour period is right for her (and so the night feeds are necessary in the sense of making up that quantity of milk if that makes sense). She does "self settle" some of the time, but other times she isn't pacified by anything other than a feed (cuddling/rocking/singing, etc). I've tried offering her feeds more frequently through the day but she's often too interested in what's going on, or just isn't interested.

I'm due to go back to work soon and I'm worried about being disturbed so many times during the night and trying to function in the day. Any suggestions as to how to transition to at least less feeds?

Hey, I'm a FTM also BF with a just turned 8 month old 😊
My little girl has always woke up for night feeds also, not as many as your little one though.
How many solid feeds are you feeding a day?
Apparently that helps.
All babies are so different, some of my mum friends little ones who are also BF sleep through, others wake just once or twice. 🤷🏼‍♀️ xx

@firsttimemama1994 Thank you.

Weaning is hit and miss, some days she'll eat a good amount, usually still 2 meals a day (we've only just turned 9m). Other days she won't entertain more than a couple of mouthfuls. But even if she has a really good amount in her last wake window (~2 hours before bed), it hasn't made any difference.

What type of meals are you feeding her? I only ask because we had a rocky start too. The HV advised to feed her bland foods (puréed veg) because they thought she must be struggling with the taste, but in fact it was the lack of taste because as soon as I tried giving her what we were having she was loving it. I give her a mix of baby led and blended foods which I will spoon feed. She seems to prefer the baby led though.

What are her naps like also, is she having too many during the day? My girl only has 2 and they last half hour tops, which is frustrating sometimes as I know some mamas get 1-1.5 hours from their babies.

The only other suggestion I have is expressing a big bottle for her to have before bed, that works for my friend. That wouldn't work for us as my girl doesn't take bottles xx

By the way, I say all this as a mum who's baby sleeps in their bed quite a lot of the time and haven't managed to transition her to her own room at all. 🫣

That also helps with the waking up, having them in your own bed as a last resort. X

@firsttimemama1994 She has flavourful things, I haven't even tried veg as I know infant's taste buds are geared towards sweet things at a young age because of milk. So she has lots of fruits, egg yolk, pate, and then bits of our food. She has allergies so some food is off the menu.

She only has two naps a day and naturally transitioned to 2 around 7 months. Again they're hit and miss, sometimes both only 30-40 minutes, sometimes totalling 3-4 hours. No rhyme or reason, I've tried shortening and extending wake windows and it makes no difference.

We also co-sleep. We did try to get her into her own room but again it made no difference, I just ended up having to fully wake up and get out of bed to feed her and I ended up with insomnia not being able to go back to sleep which made me really ill so we just went back to co-sleeping, because although it's disturbed it's actually less tiring than having to keep going into a different room multiple times a night.

I know it won't all be forever. X

Maybe ask your health visitor, mention the eating too. They are supposed to drop a few feeds with eating solids so maybe some advice on how to encourage her?

You are right though, it won't last forever.

I'm due to go back to work in April and there's so many things we need to put in place too. Like my partner putting her to bed instead of me and having her in her own room. I'm hoping things will just all work out eventually x

I had this, my bottle fed baby wouldn't drink in the day and needed full feeds at night. I couldn't find a way to flip it but then we all got a stomach bug which resolved it. I hope you find a better way of getting the feeds the right way round again!

Will she settle at all without all without a feed? I was up around 6+ times a night for a couple of months before I night weaned, and for us it was settling without feeding that stopped all wakeups (over a couple of weeks).

Focus on trying to resettle at the first wakeup only, and resort to feeding as the last thing you try. For all other feeds, i would give a half-hearted attempt to settle but really I would focus on dropping one feed at a time

For us, once he could settle with minimal intervention it all fell into place and he was sleeping better