Night sleeps and feeds

[pumpkin2]

Hi, my DS, 4 months this week, has for the past few weeks just been waking once in the night, anywhere between 3.00am and 5.00am, feeds for about 1/2hr then goes back to sleep til 7 / 7.30.
(I feed him at 10.30pm before I go to bed).

Last night, each time he cried (2.45,4.15,5.00) I just resettled him without feeding (we have a CD of hairdryer noise which generally sends him to sleep) till 6.00am when he was starving hungry and I fed him....

My questions are -

am I doing the right thing, encouraging him to go longer in the night ? Will this mean soon he won't wake up till 6 rather than me having to keep settling him? Because at the moment it just feels like I was up four times instead of once , with the same result - a night feed...

also, if I am still going to feed him, would it be better to do it earlier than later as then it wouldn't have so much of an impact on his day feeds esp the 7.30 one...- he is a GF baby, following the routines re day feeds and sleeps etc.

by pushing him to go longer will it mean eventually he will go longer still and sleep till 7.00 of his own accord or will all this still end in controlled crying? I know according to the core night method once they have gone till, say 6.00am you aren't supposed to feed them before that time again as they have 'shown they can do it' - however as DS is breastfed, I'm sure his intake varies in the day and some nights he just won't resettle wihout a feed - I've tried cool boiled water etc, nothing seems to work - has anyone out there done this sucessfully ? How ?

Hoping there is some light at the end of the tunnel as I really don't mind night feeds that much at the mo but if I go back to work I can't bear the thought of still having broken nights !

Sorry, rather a long post.
Thanks a million

All I can say is I'm doggedly sticking to 'no night feeds'after a 10.30ish one - started cutting them out about a month ago and it seems to have worked (dd2 is now 3 months). If, that is, you don't count 5am feeds which I think I shall start doing.

And, of course, the odd backslide. Which is particularly galling when a child drains two F cups and STILL stays awake!

With my formula fed 4 month old as soon as I cut out the night feeds ( not before 7am ) he started to take more in the day - why should breast feeding be any different ??

Saying that he still wakes up once or twice at night and I put him in front of the dryer to settle him back to sleep. He has a cold which doesn't help it has to be said.

Is your DS in your bedroom - get him out of there, and no cheating with monitor either. He needs to learn to wake and then settle himself back down.

Our DS2 is still in our bedroom as not ready to inflict him on DS1 yet - am convinced that is the reason that he is not sleeping through yet.

Your baby is following a similar pattern to my ds(4.5 months). He is a GF baby in the day but only stopped night feeds a couple of weeks ago. He now (on the whole) sleeps 7 - 6.30 without a feed. I just waited until he was ready and slept through by himself. until that point I nightfed him even though he woke erratically. Maybe this was the wrong thing to do but at least I got back to bed quickly and never had to leave him to cry.

Thanks all - kaz and motherinferior, when you say you just didn't do nightfeeds, what was the alternative - how did you settle instead (other than the dryer, or in our case the hairdryer!)(DS is in his own room BTW).

Motherinferior , why do you think you'll start doing 5am feeds?

Mimm, you have given me faith that he will sleep once he is ready - as you say, he has been waking erratically and does seem to go back to sleep if he isn't really hungry with the CD on -to my amazement!

Dryer for me - DP was away for two weeks and I was looking after both the boys so I couldn't handle feeding in teh middle of the night. Putting him infront on the dryer was teh easiest way to deal with him.

Sorry, pumpkin, phrased that wrong - meant 'think I'll stop COUNTING 5am feeds. She wakes up quite often at 5am! And of course, the clocks go back soon...

I settled dd2 with the dummy, I have to admit (the problem with this, of course, being that the damn thing does fall out sometimes). If she went on crying, I figured she was hungry. She is now getting better at settling herself, anyway.

Her big sister, on the other hand...

Thanks Kaz and Motherinferior. Yes MInf, have read your posts on the other thread ! Hope its getting better !

My bubba is just 3months..he goes down between 7.30 -8.15 sleeps til 1 - 2.30 am. Alls well until he wakes for the first night feed. He is now in his cot, but I end up taking him back to our bed after the first night feed because he doesnt settle again for longer than an hour, and is easier to have him next to me. Its a blur after that, but it feels like he is waking and looking for boob every couple of hours..4 / 5.30 and 7am. Does anyone have any tips as to how i can reduce this cluster feeding in the early hours. Also the latest thing during the day..he feeds for about 10mins every2-3hrs, but starts googling up at me (very cute) and coming on and off the breast as tho its a game! I'm concerned he's not getting enough during the daytime, is 10 mins enough at this age, he used to be a gourmet 40 minute suckler at first? The aim is to reduce it to one waking in the night..that would be manageable.. is this unrealistic? H E L P!