Night feeds impacting morning feeds

[mrsXsweet]

My ds is 12 weeks old (today) and ff. He loosely follows a routine of bottles at 6, 9, 12, 4, 7. At these times he is offered a 7oz bottle and will take between 4 and 6oz.

When he wakes at night ( normally around 11 and 2, sometimes also 4) I have been offering him a bottle. He will only ever take 1 or 2 oz and then will only drink 4oz of his morning bottle, so I don't think he is waking from hunger.

Would it be ok to try and settle him without a bottle or is he too young? Last night I settled him at 12 without a bottle so when he woke at 2, I thought he will definitely be hungry so have him a bottle, he took an ounce, so then he woke at 4, again I offered him a bottle, he took an ounce and then he only took 3 ounces of his 6.30 bottle and 5 ounces of his 9.30 bottle.

Anybody?

Try to settle him without a bottle when he wakes in the night. If you are going to be a lucky mum whose lo sleeps through now might be about the right time he will. Dont rush to him straight away when he wakes (unless he is screaming). Give him chance to decide what he needs and for him to settle himself (very important that they can self settle as it makes your lives much easier). If you need to help him settle though try soothe him to sleep by rubbing his belly and shushing gently to him. Try not to take him out of his basket/cot for a cuddle unless he is really crying and dont talk to him either. You will get to know their different cries and what they mean. So you will soon learn a hunger cry.

It is all very daunting at first especially when they are so young but its all a learning curve. My ds is 7 months and am always looking on the net for info/advice/tips etc etc. good luck. keep us posted.

Hi. My LO now 15 weeks was exactly the same. Woke 2 or 3 times but was never interested in a feed. I stopped offering him a bottle and just popped his dummy in and he settles straight back off. Sometimes he will still wake 2 time before a feed and we do the same, just give him his dummy and he goes back off. Normally around 5am he will have his first feed and he's ready for it. He goes from 8.30-5 (times vary) without a bottle then feeds every 2.5-3 hours in the day, he only takes 4oz bottles so i feed him as often as he wants it in the day. I've been told a baby taking 30oz of milk in the day shouldn't need a night feed so we try and get as near that as possible. He's starting to take the odd 5oz bottle now so that's better. Basically filling them up in the day and they don't want it at night.
I hope this help. We've been doing this for about 3 weeks now. X

Agree with the others: my DS is 15 weeks tomorrow and hasn't been feeding in the night for about 4 weeks now. However, he does sometimes wake up a few times in the night, having a little cry, but goes straight back off to sleep if we nip into his room, pop his dummy back in, rub his tummy a couple of times and say shhhhh shhhhh. I think he just needs a bit of reassurance that we're still there. We are currently trying to leave him for 5 min when he wakes up to see if he can self settle.

I notice you say you feed him at 7pm and then just wait and see when he wakes up in the night for a feed....have you considered doing a dreamfeed at 10pm just before you go to bed? I was skeptical and resisted doing this for a couple of weeks cos I was terrified of waking him up, but we tried it and it really works! (some people call it 'the magic bottle')....basically, we creep into his room at 10pm, don't turn the lights on, gently get him out of his grobag, and sit in our nursing chair, and offer him an 8oz bottle. Quite often he will take the whole lot without even opening his eyes, except for a few mins when we burp him (although he is a big boy and takes 7oz bottles in the day, so maybe just offer your DS 5oz?). Then after a quick 2 minute cuddle to let the milk go down a bit, we put him back into bed and he is then totally zonked out for a good few hours :)

He rarely wakes now at all before 4am, and when he does it's just for his dummy/a quick tummy rub - never for food. He normally gets up for the day at around 6.30am and has his breakfast bottle at 7.30am (is he is not even really hungry in the morning, and wakes up cooing/chattering/smiling rather than crying for a feed).

The dreamfeed means DH and I can tumble into bed at 10.30pm and pretty much always get a good 6 hours sleep before he stirs. Might be worth a try??

Thanks for the suggestions. danger we tried a dream feed and find that he won't take more than 2oz again. I might try this again though.
Last night he woke at 11.30 and 1.30, both times he settled without food. He then woke at 3 and I offered him a bottle, he took 3oz and was then up at 6, with a bottle at half past (he drank 6oz) so this feels like progress.
It would be better if he would have a dream feed as I would feel more confident that he wasn't hungry at 3!

i tried the dream feed with my lo and found it didnt work. He still woke at the same time regardless of whether he had a dreamfeed or not.

But its definitley worth trying it again. Perhaps try it at midnight if u can last that long or set your alarm

Does he have a dummy? Have you tried offering that instead?