Time to night wean/sleep train?

[mowglik]

My 6 month old wakes up 2-4 times for a feed - 11pm, 1/2am, 4am and 6am. If I’m lucky it’s once at 11pm then again at 4am.

He generally goes right back to sleep after a 15-20min feed but I’m finding not getting a stretch of sleep really exhausting as we are all up at 6:30.

He is eating solids twice a day now. Should be be waking so frequently for feeds?

I have tried pick up put down with him in an effort to teach him to fall asleep by himself thinking this would help when night weaning, (picking him up when he starts to cry (30 seconds) and then put down on repeat) however he has not responded to it at all.

Any advice on how to teach him to fall asleep by himself and how to reduce night feeds?

It's really normal - solids should still be secondary in his diet to breast milk and his stomach is very tiny. There's also a massive growth spurt at 6 months. He will definitely be hungry still and sleep training and night weaning isn't recommended until at least a year old now. Where does he sleep? Is he next to your bed? If not it might be worth putting him there in a side car cot to get the extra rest. My 8mo still wakes every 2-3 hours in the night but it is all perfectly normal, I was always told the first year would be hard so I he the right expectations I think :)

I second that...don't think they really start to develop a regular night routine until at least 18 months...

My 6 month old wakes up 2-4 times for a feed

It's a chicken and egg situation. While having night feeds then daytime calorie intake with solids cannot increase to the amounts baby needs, but without the quantity of calories in the day, baby will be hungry at night. So which to tackle first?

Definitely be conscious about the types of food you give. Use higher calorie fruit and veg more often (avacardo and banana for example), include meat and protein in the diet as much as possible, also carbs for energy and yoghurts for easy dairy.

Milk intake is going to need to be maintained at this early weaning stage. I was giving 7 milk feeds per day at this age, plus 3 meals. But all 7 of those milk feeds were in the daytime. The milk feeds do not need to be at night. They often are, but they don't need to be.

Swapping to daytime calorie intake is tricky. It's not physically possible to make a baby eat more than they want, so if baby is full from having over half his milk intake at night, it's going to be hard to get him to take more in the day.

Do you have an alternate way to settle baby to sleep that is not milk? I'd start at bedtime with separating feeding and sleeping, so give the milk feed before bath time, for example, not after. Then settle baby to sleep in the cot (with your help, I am not suggesting keaving to cry) without a feed. Then continue your settling method through the night.

picking him up when he starts to cry (30 seconds) and then put down on repeat

You are time limiting how long hes picked up for? I'm not sure that is the PUPD method.

I would have a ladder of increasing in-cot settling methods that end with picking up. If baby needs to be picked up and cuddles, I would cuddle until baby is calm and no longer crying, then repeat.

mama and night I was going by the recommendation that babies don’t need night feeds by 6 months of age and also that sleep training at 6 months is a good age so they can learn good sleep habits easily without the resistance that comes with being older.

fate baby is in a cot next to us, I’ve tried to settle him without milk, my DH has settled him but he will then wake an hour and a half later and also it is relatively easier to give him a feed and back to sleep but it means I am still being woken 2-4 times a night.

I have tried giving more frequent feeds esp in the evening and I do a dream feed at 11 if he doesn’t wake for it to try and get him to go longer.

He was a brilliant sleeper at 3 months! But it all went to pot after that and he hasn’t done long stretches of 6/7 hours like he used to.

I am doing the ‘hold with love’ method so he is put down and when he cries for up to a max of 30 seconds he is picked up and held til he stops. He doesn’t seem to respond to it though unlike his brother who was sleeping through with this method by the 3/4th day.

Sometimes he falls asleep at bedtime on the boob other times he needs to be held (not jiggled or anything) til he drifts off. He is resistant to anything else so not sure what to do since ‘hold with love’ method isn’t working.

I will try and look at his diet, avocado and omelette is on the list for today already!

I guess the night waking is affecting us the most, I’m hoping it’s just an age thing that he suddenly grows out of

Have you thought about putting him in his own room yet? By 6 months he will be more aware of noises and movement in the room which may be disturbing him. He can also smell you if he's BF.

I would recommend putting him in his own room and taking your time in the night about getting up to feed him. I wouldn't do controlled crying but I'd take my time to get up and get to his room so it's more of an effort for him. I don't think he needs feeding at night particularly personally, it will just be that you're there and so he wants it.

I agree that his stomach is large enough for him not to need to wake so frequently for feeds if he is eating enough in the day. Like Fate said, the biggest challenge is to switch all the calories to daytime.

Are you following traditional methods of weaning? I mainly followed BLW (with a little help for foods that she couldn't feed herself like yoghurt) so her initial uptake was quite slow. So in my case, in addition to making solid meals as high in calories as possible, I ensured she maintained the same number of milk feeds as prior to weaning. As she was ebf, I did allow for one feed in the night. In all honesty, I'm pretty confident that feed was much more for comfort than calories but I was happy to continue it so am letting night weaning happen in its own time.

There are a few methods for reducing night feeds. The one I used was to have a fixed timeframe during which I would not feed at night. So, for example, if she went to sleep at 7pm, I would resettle without feeding for every wake up within 5 hours. I would then let her have one feed and then no more for a further 5 hours. I would also have a fixed time for last feed at night and first one in the morning irrespective of the last night feed time (6.30pm and 7am in my case). This way, she learnt to anticipate the feed times and would then wait for them rather than expecting milk to flow all night. Another poster mentioned a method of gradually increasing the time between feeds upwards from 2h-3h-4h etc at night a little while ago on here and she said it was working well for her.

Hi

I have a six month old and his sleep is very variable. Some nights worse than you have put above and other nights better. In all honesty I think I its all developmental and I try not to get to stressed about it.

I go to bed at 9pm every night to counter the bad nights. We are always up by 6.30.

My DS will self settle with his dummy and teddy which I think is a good thing! My last baby would not self settle and slept through at 14 months on her own - non of my tactics worked! (I didn't do any cry tactics thou)

Just my take :) x

I moved my LO into his own room at 6 months as I'm sure we were waking each other up. I also found starting solids disrupted his sleep as he'd be windy. I had to make a point of Bfeeding him lots through the day to try to help him ease off on the night feeds but he didn't start to sleep through til he was a year. I found the 6 month mark hard, the adrenaline had worn off, my reserves were gone and the sleep deprivation really messed me up. You have my sympathies!

I think you have a while yet before he won't want Feds. My one year old still bf at least once a night. I think at one they are more likely to be able to go without. At six months they barely eating much and developing so rapidly.

mamabear I could put him in his own room but just feel he’s so little still, I waited til my first was a year and even that felt early. We do use white noise so he doesn’t get disturbed by us. I want to find a way to help him to sleep through without moving him tbh

It could be the solids as he’s just woken himself up doing a huge fart so that doesn’t help

I would be happy with just one feed (the 2am or 4am one) so that’s maybe something to work towards thanks for the suggestion riddles. He is blw and spoon fed (or spoon fed with finger foods!) so he should be getting a fair amount of nutrition from breakfast and lunch - he should be able to sleep longer in theory.

Tonight he’s woken at 8:30, 10:30 and again just now and took a feed at every time - think I will start tomorrow with trying to cut down to one feed.

Any suggestions on how to resettle without resorting to a feed? I try patting him but he’s persistent! DH can do resettling up to midnight but then he needs to be sleeping after that so it’s down to me - I’m not sure what to do

One idea would be to remove one side off the cot and wedge it up to your bed. That allow a you to cuddle close but without cosleeping (since baby stays on a seperate mattresses in the cot and you can extract yourself back to your bed once asleep).

The idea being that lots and lots of cuddle reassurance will be needed while you might wean, but once feeds are not expected in the night you can gradually reduce the amount of touch reassurance needed to settle her.