How to tell if baby NEEDS a night feed?

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

DS is coming up to 10 months. I'm happy with his sleep overall but 3 nights in a row this week he slept 12 hours straight so I know he can do it. Then last night he woke at about 4, and tonight it's been 1 AND 5! So back to our usual routine of 6:30-1:00-4:00-6:30. And now he's given me those 3 full nights' sleep, I am in a mood with him for waking up tonight.

I was fast asleep at 1, so didn't realise DH had got up and fed him then. At 5 I offered him just water but it didn't cut the mustard so I gave him a bottle. Changed him as he was v wet. So now I don't know if he was hungry or if he woke cos he's wet. DH said maybe he's growing so needs night feeds.

But all the pros say a 10mo shouldn't need feeding in the night and I tend to agree on logic. He eats tons in the day, 3 big meals and 3 or 4 7oz bottles on average. Snacks as well sometimes.

So do I just grit my teeth and only offer water? Was speaking to the leader of a baby group and she said if someone woke you up in the night to give you a biscuit you'd probably start waking up expecting it

He's gone to sleep again now which is not what I expected so yay :) but now I'm wide awake!

Anyway sorry for rambling. Basically does he need feeing or not??

My first baby didn't need feeding through the night from 5 months, my second from 11. I just thought once they had started sleeping through then on the odd occasions they do wake up it's generally not for a feed. So I wouldn't feed now, just go in , offer water and re-settle. I just didn't want to get back into the habit of night feeds once I had stopped.

No longer needing a night feed is a Esperanto thing to not waking up in the night.

It is only in the minority of babies that the two happen at the same time. More usual is that baby will continue to wake in the night - either by habit or discomfort or just light sleeping - and will need resettling back to sleep.

More of a problem is when milk is the only means you have to get baby back to sleep, because this doesn't teach either of you resettling techniques.

The amount of food, milk and hydrating water you describe should be enough for the daytime. So if I was dealing with your child I would stop night feeds (and I wouldn't replace with water, that should also not be needed assuming child is well hydrated in the daytime). But I would not expect that to signal the end of night wake ups. You may have several months of them, at least every now and again.

Esperanto nice auto correct.

I meant different

Ok thanks both, I'll take your advice! Of course he might wake for reasons other than hunger, didn't think of that

Tonight we are going to just try and comfort him back to sleep without food. Thing is he wakes up very happy and energetic and the longer we leave him (to see if he settles himself back to sleep/plays by himself until he's tired again) he just gets sadder and sadder until we feed him, so at that point I will doubt myself and think he's hungry.

Have stopped bringing him in to our bed in the early hours too as he just crawls around and also likes to sleep on his front which I don't like him doing when he's in with us.

So preparing myself to be up for a couple of hours tonight!

Thanks for replying :)

So last night was ok, he was asleep by 6 as he didn't nap pm, then was up 12:30-1:30 then slept til 7!! So that was ok. I held him to sleep and it took 2 attempts to get him into his cot, but I count it as progress as he didn't have any night feeds.

I now have another question... NAPS. He's currently majorly resisting an afternoon nap as I speak. We've been doing the 2,3,4 routine for a couple of months which has been ace, he'll usually take one 1-1.5hr nap and one 2hr nap. Yesterday and today he has totally resisted his afternoon nap. It was supposed to be at 2:45 today and he's still awake in his cot. Yesterday we just gave up after an hour and he was emotional on and off until bedtime. So should we be looking to move his am nap (today 9:45-11:45) later and move to one nap? He feels young to only have one nap (almost 10 months).

Hello! No advice I'm afraid as I sound in a very similar position as you so I'm going to be watching this thread.

Can I ask what the 2,3,4 system is you mentioned?

Hey Channel.

DS automatically sort of fit this routine as he is always way more up for sleep in the morning vs the afternoon, and then I discovered it's an actual schedule so we adopted it and it works really well for us (well, worked ).

2 hrs after waking up for the day = nap 1
3 hrs after getting up from nap 1 = nap 2
4 hrs after getting up from nap 2 = bedtime

So for us he's generally awake 6:30-8:30, 10:30-1:30, 2:30-6:30. Makes for a neat 12 hr day.

It was a relief to get into this schedule once he was out of the sleeping every 90 mins kind of stage and when getting him down for a 3rd catnap was a fight. I try to be pretty baby-led and he was ready for a routine like this.

Also prior to this schedule he would only sleep for maybe half an hour each nap which was soooooo frustrating. Now I get a couple of hours to get stuff done!

Oooh my baby is pretty much in this exact schedule as well - it has been my mission for weeks to try and get a last cat nap in before bed. She is having none of it!

Today she woke at 6:30, nap 8:30-10, nap 1:15-2:30 and now I'm not sure as DH has taken her out in the pushchair. I doubt very much she will have slept though.

I've read that if babies don't have that last cat nap it can stop them sleeping through the night though (which baby Channel has done twice I think). Was your baby sleeping ok on this schedule until recently? I hope you manage to sort his night waking out soon.

Up until this week he usually woke twice (rarely more) every night, with naps in the day as above.

This week he's generally gone 12 hrs at night but not napped pm.

So I dunno what is going on Ahhhh why do they always have to mix things up as soon as you settle in to a routine . Illness, teething etc doesn't help either haha.

Oh god I know! Teething is an actual nightmare! Poor little things.

I'll stop hijacking your thread now - thanks for the advice

Oh that's ok! I know I'm so glad we don't remember he first year of our lives, pretty traumatic time really!