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Sleep

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Flip

Original poster

Waking the baby at 11pm - doesn't this start a bad habit?

24 replies

Gem13 · 30/05/2004 11:24

DS (now nearly 2) has always been a great sleeper - through the night at 9 weeks, still has long naps, etc.

DD (15 weeks) on the other hand is not - waking at 1 or 2 then 4 or 5. Last night though she woke at 11 when we were going to bed and I fed her and then she slept through until 7!!!

I realise this may be a one off but as someone who believed you shouldn't wake a sleeping baby (and as it turned out there wouldn't have been any point with DS) I was wondering, if I do go down this road, how you phase out the 11pm waking? I don't want to start something if it's better to slog on trying to get her to go through the night in a few weeks time (she says optimistically!).

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prufrock · 30/05/2004 14:38

The last feed just gradually goes IME. Once dd was only taking 1oz and falling back to sleep we stopped it and she still went through until the morning. She did however continue to wake at 10pm every night, but would grumble for a few seconds then settle herself back to sleep

Aero · 30/05/2004 14:49

I have been waking ds2 around 11-12 for a feed (he's 19wks) in the hope that we'll get a longer sleep, but after a few nights of sleeping 'til 5ish, he's now waking earlier (4.15 last night) and isn't satisfied until he's had a feed. He's still exclusively bf as his tummy isn't tolerating solids yet (we live in hope). At least we get a few hours solid sleep this way and he goes straight back to sleep once fed. It is knackering but hopefully once on solids things will improve and this will be a distant memory! Roll on six months!!! Good luck anyway.

Flip · 30/05/2004 15:36

From ds2 being born, I never woke him for a feed. I just let him wake when he wanted one. From about six weeks he was going from 7.30 pm until 2am. Then that got longer and longer. He's now six months old and normally sleep 12 hours. Last night he slept from 8 until 9.20am this morning.

On the other hand, ds1 who's five years has to be woken every morning for school and on the weekends it can be 11am before he surfaces.

cords · 31/05/2004 03:03

Hi Gem13 ... i had awful problems with DD sleepping at night for months. I re-in troduced the 11pm feed, gradually taking it back to 10pm then all in the space of a few weeks dropped it and found that it did not make any difference . However I must admit that I was worried it would too. ood luck

bloss · 31/05/2004 03:14

Message withdrawn

Original poster

Gem13 · 31/05/2004 15:56

Thanks all for the feedback.

She only woke up once last night (at 2 - long day out with her sleeping until 7pm so she went to bed at 10...) and then woke up at 8.

Tonight should be more normal so I'm going to see what she does naturally and then decide about waking her at 11 later in the week. Good to hear that it was relatively easy to phase out.

OP posts:

jane313 · 01/06/2004 20:58

When I did a late night feed I never woke him but did that baby whisperer dreamfeeding thing. Just picked him fed him, did bf and a few times bottles. He never really woke up at all so didn't get into any habits.

JeniN · 01/06/2004 21:14

We used to. Then we stopped. Didn't make a blind bit of difference to her sleep. Now i'll never know whether it was worth doing or not...

NomDePlume · 01/06/2004 21:34

We used to wake DD for an 11pm ish feed before we went to bed, it made the nights easier as we would only have to do the middle of the night thing once a night ! Bliss !!

I think we finally dropped it at around 5.5 months. She was absolutely fine and it caused no disturbances to her normal sleep pattern. I t really worked for us.

muddaofsuburbia · 01/06/2004 21:42

Totally echo NdeP on this one - it made life soooo much easier because we anticipated ds' feed. He had a feed at 10/11pm until solids were introduced (5.5mths) and then it disappeared. By that time, it had been getting more and more difficult ot wake him and he'd been taking less and less (EBM) until he was down to a coupl of ounces. sO basically he phased out the waking himself. The night we stopped he went through til 7:30am as usual. We did the GF routine btw.

aloha · 01/06/2004 22:09

My son just added 11pm to his extensive repertoire of night wakings. Nightmare! Mind you, just two wakings at 15 weeks would have been a dream for me. My ds used to spend most of the night awake. And once awake would stay awake for anything up to three or four hours. Oh, the horror of it all. If my ds went back to sleep after a feed I wouldn't have cared how often he woke.

wilbur · 01/06/2004 22:30

An 11ish wake up worked for us too, with both sprogs, although like you gem13, my ds is a champion sleeper and dd is much more sensitive and we're much more likely to hear from her in the night, even though she's one now. I do think it depends on the baby. A friend of mine did it with her dd1 and it was great, she fed, settled back and went through the night relatively easily. With her dd2 she tried the same, assuming it would all go swimmingly, but this baby was so furious at being woken, she would yell her head off, refuse to feed and refuse to go back to sleep. Sounds like yours is not like this though, so I'm sure you will have no trouble once she no longer needs that night feed.

Ghosty · 01/06/2004 22:47

I did it with DS and it worked a treat. I introduced it at 9 weeks and after a few nights (it is not a miracle cure - it WON'T happen the first time you do it) he stopped waking every 2 hours and would wake for a feed around 3-4am then go to 6 or 7am. At 12 weeks he started going from 11pm to 7am. At 16 weeks he was only taking about 2oz of milk at 11pm so we dropped it and never fed him in the night again. He was then a wonderful sleeper until he was 2 but then that is another story.
With DD I woke her at 10.30pm from 3 weeks. (I don't believe in this 'Never wake a sleeping baby' business - I always woke her for feeds every 3 hours from day 1 to establish my milk ... and then I let her go as long as she wanted after 10.30pm in the night)
So from 3 weeks she went from 11.30 till 4am ... then till 7.30am (when I have always woken her up - shock, horror!)
At 10 weeks she dropped the 4am and slept through till 7.30 ...
She is now 17 weeks and I will drop the 10.30pm feed when she is established on solids ... She doesn't take that much at 10.30 anyway - just a 5/10 minute feed, then a nappy change and a bit of a play and then a 5 minute feed and back to bed.
Works for me ...
I think that people make the mistake of thinking that the first time you do it and it doesn't work it is a waste of time ... it doesn't work like that ... the whole idea is to get as much milk into the baby between 7am and 11pm so that he/she will go longer at night ...
HTH

aloha · 03/06/2004 15:19

Ghosty - it was my DREAM to have to wake a sleeping baby! Oh my, the idea of having a baby who slept more than three hours, day or night...what an extraordinary luxury. And one that slept past 7.30am....sigh!

Chandra · 03/06/2004 15:34

I used to wake mine at 11 for a feed, and eventually he just droped it, curiously I really missed that last quiet feed at night when it finally happened. So, he was happily sleeping in the other room while I was feeling miserable because I couldn't hug him and hold him before I went to bed

AussieSim · 03/06/2004 16:01

I did GF from 2 weeks, but I never woke DS at 11pm, mind you he always went to sleep at about 9pm not 7pm. He still only ever woke up once in the evening at about 3:30am till he slept thru at about 4.5months.

tassis · 03/06/2004 18:33

We woke ds for a feed before going to bed and, like Chandra, we really enjoyed a sleepy, cuddly feed. It was the one time in the day my husband would sit with us so felt like special "family time"!

Not sure to what extent it helped though, because when I dropped it at about 7 months he still wasn't sleeping until morning and didn't consistently until about 10 months.

I'd do it again though, because anything's better than being woken from sleep more than once!

workout · 03/06/2004 20:29

With DD wouldn't dare wake her!! With DS, woke him but try as I might I couldn't force feed him at all - whether or not this was down to breast feeding or not I don't know!! I think that we need to accept that all babies are so very different but sooner or later they develop their own sleeping patterns on their own and when THEY are ready!!

inkstigmata · 04/06/2004 10:52

I've always woken dd2 at 10.30. She has steadily reduced the amount she drinks then whilst still lasting until 7am and now it's just about 2oz and she's back in bed in 20 minutes. With dd1 we just stopped doing it after it was down to 2oz for a couple of weeks and she slept 12 hours straight. Probably going to drop it for dd2 soon - this will give dh a rather easy life since he only does this feed (tho to be fair he always did the middle of the night one too, but that disappeared a few weeks ago)

Original poster

Gem13 · 10/06/2004 13:13

Thought I should add an update to this in case anyone has the same question and does a search...

Well... DD is sleeping through! I didn't get round to waking her at llpm in the end. The same week that I started the thread she went to bed a couple of times at 9 and slept through, then was really tired and went to bed at 7 and has been waking up at about 6.30 all smiles ever since.

Can't take any credit for it though. The breakthrough has been the discovery of her thumb! She's also much happier during the day now and can be put in her cot/pram for a nap, puts her thumb in and is asleep! She's also in a grobag if she's in her cot.

Apologies for those non-sleepers out there. I'm not being boastful (truly) just thankful I've rediscovered my evenings and nights.

OP posts:

cuppy · 16/06/2004 15:59

I've been following this thread with interest.

My dd (17weeks) usually sleeps from 7pm till 4/5am then wakes for a feed and goes back down till 8/9ish. But Im due to go back to work in 3 weeks and so her waking at 4/5am for a feed is really no good as I will have to get up at 6am to get ready and so by the time shes just dropped back off to sleep I will have to get her up again. And we need to leave the house by 7.45am so she can no longer sleep till 9am.

It would be better if she could wake at 6am for her feed, then she could have breakfast a bit later and off we go. So after reading this thread I thought waking her at 11pm sounded like a great idea - hoping that she would then sleep till 6am. It seemed lots oif other MN's have had great success.

OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I started on Monday night - she took all her milk at 11pm but still woke at 5am as usual for another. Like Ghosty said it doesnt happen over night so last night I did the same. She took all her milk again at 11pm, but then woke at 3.15, 5am, 6.45, and then got up at 9am!!! Each time she screamed until she got a bottle (dh gave in each time even though she only took a few ounces).

Have I gone and messed everything up? Should I perserve (?) or knock it on the head. Is this miking her unable to go back to sleep with out sucking? As I said I'm going back to work soon and I'll be really tired , and waiting up till 11pm is wearing me out too!!!

Any advise gratefully received

cuppy · 16/06/2004 18:54

Anyone ??

cuppy · 16/06/2004 20:32

bump

Original poster

Gem13 · 16/06/2004 20:46

Sorry cuppy, no advice (just luck for us) but lots of sympathy.

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