6 months - still waking 2/3 times a nigjt

[Themolehole]

Help please .. my gorgeous boy is still waking 2/3 times a night. He is bottle fed mainly breast milk with one bottle of formula on average a day and eats about 900ml during the day, 1050ml in total. He's also in the 86th percentile and has always liked a lot of milk. He naps brilliantly, 3 a day, and I always put him down awake for naps and bedtime. He has a great bedtime routine and I don't give him any milk within half an hour before bedtime or naps. HOWEVER he still wakes every 2-4 hours for a feed. He'll eat anywhere between 30ml-120ml and if I don't feed him he gets very upset. Any tips on how to start dropping these feeds? One wake up a night would be ideal as I need to pump at least once a night, but 3 is now becoming a bit draining. He used to wake only once a night but since 4 months and getting a cold that lasted for ages it can be as many as 4 times in a night.

Thank you

Can I ask why you 'need to pump at least once a night'?

Just to keep my milk supply up. I can pump more milk through the night than the day

Not what you want to hear but that doesn't sound too bad for a six month old. My dd woke up more than that. Some babies sleep through, others just won't. You could try swapping for water (for one feed), cry it out, retreat, controlled crying, shh and pat, rocking etc. There's so many options and you need to decide which works best for you and your baby. We tried a lot but eventually did controlled crying. Didn't want to go down the road but it's the only one that worked (eventually). Every baby is different.

I think what we did when we decided to encourage DS to wake fewer times overnight, was to make sure we feed him loads during the day and especially before bedtime, so that he feels full and sleeps longer stretches. It gradually worked but that said, he was still waking at least once till much later - around 8-9 months. And he only slept through properly once he started solids. Which actually was around 6 months... have you started on any solids yet?

Have you started on solids?

What are his 3 naps a day?

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your messages. It's actually nice to hear it's not too bad, it's made me relax! I'm going to start him on solids at the weekend so hopefully that'll help. I'll also try feeding him a bit more during the day, and more towards the end of the day. I was thinking about slowly cutting down the quantity of each night feed. Has anyone else had any luck with that approach?

Thanks for all your responses x

Oh sorry and his naps are roughly 9-1030, 1230-130 and 4-430 .. he wakes at 7 x

My LO woke two/three times in night for feeding at that age (BF). Breast milk digests quicker so that may be contributing to them waking up.
Mine stopped waking for milk at around 9 months but still doesn’t sleep through (nearly a year!)

Sounds normal to me. My ff baby had at least three feeds a night a lots of waking for cuddles etc.

It's normal still at that age, definitely. Also, are you sure it's necessary to be expressing milk in the night to keep your supply up, or is it just something that you started early on and have just gone with? By six months milk supply is usually very well established and pumping to keep up your supply isn't usually necessary, possible nutritional or medical reasons aside, I suppose.

Thanks everyone, you've made me feel much better. Still tired, but feeling like we're not off track any more so thank you. I will hope to see some improvement over the next few months but not rush into anything.

Re the pumping I've pumped since he was born to keep my supply up (lots of BF issues and he never could latch without a shield and could never drain a boob) and exclusively pumped from 3 months and from 3 months on even with 10 pumps a day I didn't have enough to feed him entirely. Sadly if I pump less than 8 times in 24 hours my supply drops quite quickly. I can get it back but have to cluster pump multiple times over a week or so. Hopefully once he's on solids this won't matter so much as I'll need less milk but for now I think if I drop the night pump I'd lose about 200ml from my total so it seems worth it to keep going. I currently get about 700-750ml from 8 pumps in 24 hours and I try and cluster pump a few times a week.

Don’t forget they don’t just wake for food.

Why do you wake in the night? Cold? Hot? Hungry? Thirsty? Bad dream? Odd noise? Just because?

Babies can wake for all these reasons too.