8month old Ds

[confusedlilly]

After some advice not sure what to do.

Ds is our 2nd child, dd4 was a great sleeper, slept through the night from young and is still a great sleeper. Ds on the other hand is not.

At 8months old he is still waking for 2 night feeds. Is this normal? Does he need this milk?

A normal day goes like below

6/7am 7oz milk
7.30/8am breakfast
12 lunch
2pm 7oz milk
5pm dinner
7pm 8oz milk and bed

Then night time like clockwork he wakes between 10pm & 11pm he has just taken 3oz milk. I tried to settle him with the dummy first but he just screams. Back to sleep. He then will wake again around 1/2am again taking around 3/4oz milk. I offer more but he won't take it. He will then wake up anywhere from 5am onwards. Me &I dh are so tired we just bicker through the night at a loss as what to do. Do we just continue to feed him and hope that he will drop these feeds or do we need to cut them out and try and settle him another way.

He is so happy in the day and self settles for naps and bedtime in his cot, we don't rock him to sleep etc. I spoke to the health visitor and she offers me no advice as we are doing everything they have suggested re self settling etc.

So not to drip feed he was poorly recently with a tummy bug, around 11days ago, we all had it and he slept great then! No night feeds etc now we are back to where we were before the tummy bug hit our house. I'm not sure whether it's habit he wakes or he is hungry.

Any advice?

At 8months old he is still waking for 2 night feeds. Is this normal?

It's in the spectrum of normal. I wouldnt say all babies were having night feeds at 8m but neither would I say none are.

I found 6-12m post weaning a tricky time for milk intake. Especially 6-9m.

We know milk should be baby's primary source of nutrients and calories for the first 12 months. So they go from 100% milk at 6m and that gradually reduced over 6 months until by 1y milk is secondary to good.

So it's a sluding gradual change. It's all to easy to think 'baby is on 3 meals a day now, I can reduce milk down to the pint a day a toddler needs'. But actually for a variety of reasons (good group variety, portion size etc) much more milk is needed because more calories and nutrients are needed from milk.

Up to 9m I was trying to maintain the milk levels dd was having pre-weaning. For us that was 35-40oz in 24h. We did this over 5 bottles - four through the day and a dreamfeed when I went to bed.

Bottles were gradually dropped until by 12m dd was having just 3 beakers of milk a day (morning, before nap, bedtime) - which is sort of where you are now.

Thanks for the reply I cut his mid morning bottle out as he actually tAking less in the day then he does now. It was kind of little and often before. Will just see how he goes through the night for the next few nights.

Last night he woke at 1.30 but only took 2oz and then woke at 4.30 but I got him to sleep with me in the bed and then he had 7oz at 7am

It's normal but not necessary. If you cut them out but offer more milk in the day he'll work it out.

I'd start by cutting out that first feed. Just offer water and comfort. He'll protest but should adjust in a couple of days. It's a habit not a need, like having a biscuit every day at teatime. Your stomach would grumble if you skipped it at first but you'd forget after a few days.

We are going to try tonight and offer water and then general comfort for the first wake up and see how he goes. We know he can go through the night as he has done it before, slept a whole week through when we were on holiday in butlins and we did nothing different In the day, first night back home and he woke up twice again

Good luck!

Not going well. He has been crying since 9.45. I got him to sleep in my arms and he was fast asleep and I put him back down and he instantly woke up and is crying again. It makes me think it's not hunger as he wouldn't fall asleep on me.

We have had this with both of ours. My youngest is 13 months and still wakes half the time and won't settle without a little milk. The eldest did it til 18 months. We give him the milk as it settles him faster and otherwise he will scream the house down. Hopefully he will grow out of it but I can't be doing with the crying.

I gave in at 11.15 and gave him some milk and put his sleepyhead in my bed and he slept through until 6.30, quickly had to put his dummy in a couple of times but I hardly had to wake up. I don't know whether just to put him back in our room so we get some sleep lol

I don't know whether just to put him back in our room so we get some sleep

Yes, definately! I didn't realise he was in his own room

I thought it was a given that babies don't go into their own room until reliably sleeping through?

Seems madness to me. Why bother trapping all the way into another room and sitting in the cold to do all the settling. When instead you could do it without getting out of your bed or your duvet.

I'd have the sleepyhead in the cot, the cot next to my bed, if it was me.

Well we moved him to is own room as I wasn't sure he was starting to wake because we were disturbing him. 3 months later it's obv it wasn't.

Think we will be moving the cot into our room and having him next to us x