3 month old - do they really need to feed in the night?

[Nadene]

i have read that by the age of 3 months, babies don't need anymore night feeds if they go to bed on a full tummy. is this true? my baby is 11weeks and still wakes 2 to 3 times per night. i don't mind feeding her once but i am not convinced she is waking up from hunger. any advive appreciated.

she's still tiny.... go with it.

Jess is 13 months old and still occasionaly wakes for milk in the night!

babies have very small tummies and need little and often, unfortunately when they are the age of your lo this means refuelling nite and day, imo definately too young to expect to not need a feed if she is still waking.

No,they usually need constant filling at this age.My ds did for 9 mths which i was perfectly happy with.

Both mine slept through at 12wks and 14wks their last feed was about 11pm and they slept till 7am. But as everyone else says some need little and often, some like a full tummy at bedtime and sleep through, as long as the little one is happy it doesn't matter if us mummies don't get much sleep!

It depends what you mean by 'sleeping through' the night. The definition is to sleep for a period of 5-6 hours without a feed. Babies can also NEED a night feed up till they are 6 months old (sometimes a bit older, especially if breastfed).

My dd never slept a full 10 hour stretch (8-6) until she was 5 1/2 months old but as I knew to expect that I wasnt too bothered about it. I think its unrealistic to expect a 3 month old to sleep through without at least 1 or 2 feeds in a 12 hour period. p.s. there is also a growth spurt around this age and your lo could want feeding more often

yes they do

I think DD went from 11-6am at this age straight through, we dropped the 11pm feed at 6 month-ish and she went 8.30-8-9am at 12 mo.

babies need to BF once or twice a night until they are a year apparently

great thanks for that highlander dh thinks I am turning ds into a mamas boy by still feeding him at nite! He is just 1yr.

it's a bit annoying to be woken up for one single ounce of milk though isn't it? My baby wakes twice during the night but never takes anything like her normal amount of milk.

I can appreciate the need to refuel, but she doesn't fill up!!!!

Jess was a sucker for waking in the night and not taking a lot of milk!

Even now if she occasionally wakes, she will take 3-4 oz and go back to sleep.

At about 3 months she was waking teice a night and taking about 2 oz each time.... but the good thing was that it was over with quickly, and ended up doing it on auto-pilot so didnt really totally WAKE UP if you get what i mean!

still, you'll have to do it all over again now!

ahhh

well that's where I have a problem. I find it very hard to fall asleep, even when I'm really tired, so waking up twice a night means I have to try and get back to sleep again...really hard for me. Sometimes I'm getting a total of two hours a night (knackered emoticon)

i know and i cant wait..... hahahaha!

DH is really good though and tends to do a lot of the night wakings but im hopinf to BF this time, so we will just have to wait and see!

I had nearly 8 year gap and it was a shock

ah you see.... thats why im only going to have a 15 month gap - no time to adjust!

My DD slept from 8.00pm until 8.00am when she was 12 weeks old and was a fantastic sleeper always, excpet when she was teething when I used to feed her to settle her.

Now DS has come along 7 years later and what a shock he has been. At 12 weeks old when I thought he would go 12 hours, he was still feeding every 3-4 hours from 10.00pm. He is now 5 months old and goes to bed at 7.00pm but still wakes for a feed anywhere between 3.00am and 6.00am. It's the inconsistency that does me in.

So IME every baby is different and I think you just have to go with the flow so to speak.

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Sorry to gloat but I can't believe my luck with ds......he is now 17 weeks, is 100% bf and has been sleeping from 7.30pm to 6am (with the very odd exception) since he was around 8 weeks. I wonder why some babies do this and some don't?

I fed my DS2 to sleep for about a year
Didn't really bother me whether he "needed" it or not - I just knew it would send him back to sleep!

snap Tommy!

Ds slept through from 7 pm - 6 am at 13 weeks.
He is now 19 mths and has NEVER, EVER, woken up in the night.
I appreciate how lucky We are.
I appreciate that some babies need feeding through the night for a long time.
I'm just saying, that it is possible.

We were on a 'rough' Gina Ford rountine from day one.
It worked for us.
It is highly likely that your dd is actually hungry.
Feeding twice per night is not at all uncommon at her age.

Hope that helps.

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