advice please..reducing night wakings!!

[BUDDI]

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!

Buddi, when ds was about 2 or 3 months old, we used to put him to bed around 7.30-ish and would then give him a feed at around 10.30pm-11pm, so that it would get him through until early morning. This would entail lifting him gently out of bed so as not to really wake him (keeping everything quiet & dim) and then putting him back into bed once he'd had a feed. He was never really 'awake' so he just used to go straight back to sleep. The only difference was that my ds was bottle-fed at that stage, so my dh was able to help me out with the feeds... I don't know if you're able to do anything like that. But it certainly helped, because it got us through that horrible 1.30-2.00am feed! I think he started waking around 5.30am instead, and I started getting a lot more sleep.

Just a thought, don't know if it will help you in any way. Best of luck.

Hi Buddi,

My ds is 7.5 months and still doing exactly the same thing (and has been since about 3 months)Actually a bit worse because he wakes at 9.30 or 10pm as well. I will be interested to hear other people's ideas as after over 4 months of this a change would be welcome.
As for the 10 minute feeds, I think that's just a sign he's got better at it. My ds is never very hungry between about 10am and 3pm, which I attribute to his nightime snacking. He also chooses 4.30 am to do a big poo which is probably also related and although he goes back to sleep, its pretty much buggered the night for me by that stage. I know this doesn't help you at all, but I feel better having typed it in.

thanks guys..i did experiment by giving him a bottle of milk (expressed) at his first night wake at about 1am the other night..it didnt make any difference...last night he woke at 2.30/fed and then he was asleep next to me, i put him in his cot about 4, but he woke up..grrrrr I wish I'd left him cause he was sound asleep and maybe would have carried on..instead it turned into a nightmare of half hour wakes and crying..am just going to leave him in my bed for now...oh this is SO tiring! The next experiment is to feed him at 11 as you said..thanks again and good luck!

i didn't find feeding at 11 helped me - just added a feed. btb i think the day feeds are the key - if i can force enough into my nosey 5 mnth old in the day she can do just one feed in the night but she's such a snacker - i'm lucky if i can get her to feed for 5 mins!

My DD is 6 months and wakes up at around 10.30 (on her own not me waking her) 2.30/3 and then on a good night 7 am - on a bad night 5.30 then 7 ! She feeds for MAX 15 mins during the day - every 3-4 hrs - and also likes to come off and look around (twists her little neck and body around to look at people behind her - most disconcerting when you have your boob out !) and also does the gooing and smiling thing. At night tho' seems to be able to concentrate on the feeding. SO not much help from me - other than to say you are not alone and if you discover the solution let us know !

geegeesmum - my dd does that as well. Strains her neck lloking for a smile from someone then diving back onto the nipple (so I can't even cover it up!) good thing we're not shy

'Fraid I don't have a magic answer here - I was told to try to pack in lots of feeds during the day to try to encourage the baby to get enough milk during daylight hours. From about 3 months I had a pattern of feeding my dd every 2-3 hours between 7am and 7pm, fitting in 5 good feeds. She would then wake twice in the night (1-2am ish and 3-4 am ish) on a good night and gradually she dropped the 1am waking and then at 51/2 months she dropped the second feed too and went through 12 hours. All this without solids - just on breastmilk.

Oh and length of feeding really doesn't matter - by 3 months they are bfeeding experts. My dd could be all done in 5-7 minutes, having previously been a very slow feeder.

Babies do wake in the night for reasons other than hunger / thirst and they have to learn to go back to sleep themselves. So if you are sure your baby is not waking for milk it is worth trying to persuade him back to sleep without it. Certainly at 4-5 months I have a couple of friends who managed to persuade their babies back to sleep without a feed, and then after a few nights the baby stopped waking up at that time.

Good luck ... 3 months is still pretty young ... you will get there on the sleep front!

A much better night for us last night. Having read the No Cry Sleep Solution when ds woke up at 2.30 he was just making noise but not crying, so we left him to it and after 40 mins he went back to sleep. Let's see if he can sleep through that one once he's done this a few times.

It is really nice to hear that other people have been going through sleeping hell too (well, nice for me, not them). I've a 7 month old who goes to sleep nicely at 6.30pm but then wakes usually at 10pm, 1, 3, 5 and 7. I keep thinking that it's going to get better but it hasn't. He wants to have a little feed at all these times. Quite often he'll wake in between these feeds for a bit of a cuddle and dummy replacement too. I've always been against leaving babies to cry convinced that it makes insecure children but what other options are there? Would love to hear from anyone who has had this problem and conquered it. Am exhausted with the whole thing especially since i have an active 2.5 year old too.

Buddi, I had the same experience. I have quickly looked at the advice here, and generally agree with Pidge. What we did was to essentially move up the cluster feed, so that I was feeding every hour or 1.5 hours between say, 6pm and 10pm. In other words, we kept the feedings spaced out during the day, but clustered them in the late evening. As far as how long your DS is feeding, I think it varies by baby. I always assume that the baby knows when he's had enough, so if he's popping off after 10 minutes, then maybe he's done and happy with it.

Have you tried using a dummy. It could be that he's just using you for comfort to sooth himself back to sleep.
You could try feeding him at 2am and then giving a dummy instead to suck when he wakes later. Hopefully he'll suck it for ten minutes, spit it out and drop off back to sleep - and after a couple of nights stop waking so frequently!?!
I used to be a dummy hater but I'm now a convert at least for nighttime. He's 4mo now and goes down at 7. He's just in the last week started going till 6am without a feed but unfortunately is still waking once during the night. I live in hope that tonight might be my first full night's sleep.

Hey Bridget - I am not alone! It feels good to know that other 7mo don't sleep for 12 hours straight.