Dropping night feeds, improved sleep?

[Ritualunion]

Hi, FTM here to a 10.5 month old boy. He’s never been a good sleeper, he wakes every 2-3 hours and will usually only go back down after a BF. I now want to start to drop a feed before I return to work in a few weeks’ time in the hope that he will get the message that he won’t get milk every time he wakes up. Ideally I’d only feed once, maybe twice in a night.

I usually feed and sometimes rock to sleep in the rocking chair in his nursery, then place in cot asleep. I’ve tried putting him down drowsy but awake but this has only been successful maybe three times in his life!

For the past few nights I decided to try not feeding between midnight and 4am (to cut out his 1.30am feed) and to cuddle and rock instead. He was OUTRAGED by this! He’s really putting up a fight - for the first two days he drifted off and woke screaming off and on for 2 hours while I comforted him; last night he held out for 4 hours, by which time it was 4am and so I fed him!

He will not usually accept DH for comfort, he gets even madder in his arms; at least for me he will drift off.

I was feeling quite confident with seeing through my plan but now I wonder whether my wilful boy will just stay awake until he gets what he wants?! I suspect I should work on settling him in his cot first but I suspect that might be even more challenging than dropping a feed.

I’m not sure if I stick with my plan or abort mission and try a different approach? Any advice? (I’d rather not do CC).

I would drop all night feeds at this age. Baby will not be able to understand why sometimes when he wakes he can have a feed, and sometimes he can't. Baby can get tell the time. In fact has no concept if time, especially if at some point baby is asleep, so the passage of time is way beyond baby's comprehension.

This is the main reason I wouldn't do time-limited night feeds. The other reason is prolonging the agony. Going through all this for 1 feed and just as things calm going through it again for the next feed, rather than doing it all at the same time.

As to how you stop night feeds, depends on your parenting style. It's fine to rock/cuddle to sleep (with consistancy) instead of feeding if that us more your style. Equally it's fine to just Go For It and move straight to cot settling all in one go.

Thanks Fate, that’s given me food for thought. BFing has been such a big thing it feels strange to not offer night feeds but I guess that’s a case of shifting my mindset. Do you think going cold turkey with the night feeds is likely to promote better sleep in the long run, even if I don’t do this in a cot setting?

Something to consider is that if you are returning your work in only a few weeks time, this could well result in reverse cycling - both because of baby's increased need for maternal comfort and also hunger from reduced daytime breastfeeding.

This will make everything very much harder.

I would personally persevere until at least 12 months. So much developmental stuff happening at that age (my daughter is the same age) and night feeds are for more than just nourishment, they’re also for comfort. But I believe there’s still definitely a need for the extra night calories personally - but that’s me

Thanks for your reply too, Crazycat. Does your LO wake regularly for night feeds too? Mine currently wakes for a feed at something like: 10.30pm, 1.30am, 3.30am, 5am. I’d love to be able to drop the middle two as I feel they’re out of habit rather than hunger.

She does yep, pretty frequently - it is exhausting but I cosleep so not that bad for me. Is that an option for you at the moment?

Yeah, I’ve done spells of co-sleeping, I enjoy having him close but he really ups his feeds when we do this so I’m not sure it helps me get more sleep...I’ve never been able to get comfy feeding lying down so I can’t just roll over and feed.