does my 7 month old NEED 3 feeds in the night?

[ginnypotter]

she's breastfed, about 6 times during the day and 3 times at night. she has 3 solid meals a day (she's a big baby lol!), and basically i'd really love a full nights sleep
what i'm wondering is if she NEEDS the night feeds or if it's just a habit. i really don't want to leave her to cry if she is genuinely hungry, but on the other hand i'd really like some sleep and she eats so much during the day!
she usually wakes for milk at around 1am, 3am and 5am, anyone got any suggestions? i would be very grateful

My LO is almost 6 months and waking hideously frequently. He's been like this since about 16 weeks, before that he slept quite well - did a 7 hour stretch a few times and i couldn't believe my luck! However I now look like one of the cast of Zombie Flesheaters (no blood around my mouth though). Trouble is, I'm also now so pooped that I cave in and bf him to sleep rather than trying to soothe him. He's enormous and eats well in the day and I suspect that he's not that peckish when he wakes - often only suckles for a few minutes.
Sorry Ginnypotter, didn't mean to hijack - it's reassuring to know that other babies are rubbish sleepers too! Logically you know it's very common but in the small hours you can feel very alone (and desperate!)

My rubbish sleeper has just turned one and is gradually improving, usually one waking for a feed. And he usually goes down awake at bedtime and STILL wakes up, so don't think it's your fault for bf to sleep

my ds is almost 6 months and is a bad sleeper too. He had a great week last week (only one waking a night) but this week its been every 2 hrs or even 90mins! And hes started wakign bewfore 11pm which he hasn't done since he was 8 weeks old! Hes not on solids yet and he sometimes falls asleep by himself at 7-7.30 so he doesn't expect to be bf to sleep.

so you are not alone. I don't know if solids will help or being in his own room. My older son started sleeping thorugh regulalrly at 6 months and I put it down to him having protein and carbs and fats.

A Mum at school told me that she started offering a bottle of plain water instead of boob... and her little girl never woke her again for a night time feed. Sounds a bit too good to be true, but worth trying?

Hi ginnypotter, I am trying to stop night feeds too with my 8mo ds. Argggghhh!!! Its hard at the mo. (see will this work? gw/gr thread if interested) Your thread is helpful for me so I thought I'd join it. How is it going for you? I think I'm just going to keep trying to settle him without feeding - at least between 11pm and 3pm or 4pm. He won't let dh do it unfortunately. Have been holding to sleep, but am wondering if shush/pat and keeping him in the cot would work better in the end. Oh help! Also not sure if using feeding to sleepy or asleep as main method at beginning of night is making the problem or not.
Good luck!

Oh, and does anyone think pu/pd for 3 nights would work better? (and magically stop him waking up the rest of the night so much) (he is a 1 or 2hour waker) Trouble is I would have to do it cos of dh not being able to settle him at all at mo. Would it be harder cos of my milk or is it still possible? Other thing is, do you think its an okay method? Okay for them I mean. Not sure whether I can do it really cos it would kill my back. Could get dh to do it but it might be so horrible with lots of crying cos he won't even settle in dh's arms...

...also, sorry for hijacking!

Bluetop, just a suggestion (and please don't take this the wrong way), but maybe you should let your husband take a bit more responsibility. Reading between the lines, that your baby won't settle for your husband... I'm sure he would if you didn't give him the choice! Believe me, I know how tempting it is to sweep DH out of the way with a "oh for G's sake let me do it!" - my baby is 2 months old! But even if the baby is more used to you than to him, that is not necessarily a good thing for you or for the baby, not to mention your husband who is made to feel incompetent all the time. He's just as capable of cuddling as you are.

When the baby smells you, of course he goes straight for the boobs. My advice is put your pillow over your head to block out the complaints and let your husband have a go at settling him. At 8 months, the baby can make it through the night without a feed.

Good luck!

BTW what's pu/pd?

it's pick up/put down, fatslag - a Baby Whisperer method. Basically, you pick the baby up when she cries, but don't rock her or jiggle her or anything, and you put her back down the second she's calm - and still fully awake. Obviously, she's likely to start crying again, so then you pick her up and repeat x a willion. The theory is that she knows you're there if she's upset, but she also learns to settle herself.

It seems counter-intuitive, and it's not for everyone but it's working for my daughter, who I used to always rock to sleep. It's emotionally demanding but not nearly so much, I imagine, as leaving your baby to cry. So worth a try, bluetop, although you might have to do it for longer than 3 nights to see a real difference.

not taken the wrong way, fatslag, maybe you're right, and my husband does feel incompetent which isn't good - i'm sure they could learn and ds could settle with him, as he was able to a couple of months ago. dh has said he will give it a go.
lazyemma how long have you had to do pu/pd and how old is your lo? also do you have a routine for the day because I never have had a recommended one where you feed them after they wake instead of to sleep etc, and am thinking maybe I need to do that before the nights will improve?

Hi. Can I join in?

I have a 7 mo old ds. He are trying to cut down / out his night feeds. he was having 2 night feeds totalling 14 oz, but his daytime feeds total 24 oz + 3 solid meals, so we were told that he was having almost DOUBLE his reccommended daily amount! So we dropped the 11pm feed, and were advised to drop the other night feed too....

So, what I am wondering is....
Is is too much to expect him to go from 14oz ff to nothing at night in 1 go, or should I gradually drop the feeds? He woke at 3.30 last night - 8 hours since his last feed - and he settled after 3 oz. He woke at 7am and took a full feed. Was he REALLY hungry, or was it just habit?

Rabster, I'm not sure there is a "right" answer. My gut instinct is that he probably woke at 3.30 out of habit and more for a cuddle and reassurance than real hunger. But I could be wrong and maybe the little guy WAS hungry. I remember with DS1 that the pediatrician told us to stop getting up for him at night at around 6 months. We'd already stopped feeding him at night - he had an 11 p.m. feed and then woke up at 5 a.m. for a feed which, believe it or not, counts as "sleeping through the night" as far as doctors are concerned. But he'd wake up and grumble in his bed and one of us would get up, give him his dummy and pat him back down. The babydoc told us to stop doing even this so that DS could get into the habit of getting himself back to sleep. So we let him complain (he didn't really cry, just made lots of noise) for 20 minutes or so and he went back to sleep. After that, we never got up again except for illness and nightmares and stuff when he got bigger.

I'm not suggesting a hard line "let them cry it out" sort of approach, but playing deaf for a few minutes and lengthening the deafness progressively really helps. I'm sure you'll find that the baby will go back to sleep while he's waiting for you to get up. It may take a little while at first but it is all worth it. I got to the stage where I was willing to sacrifice a few principles ("never let him cry") in exchange for 6 hours uninterrupted sleep!

Hope this helps! Sweet dreams!

Yes, I kind of thought it was a habit feed really - 3oz isnt enough to fill a hunger gap is it?

I was going to do some cc last night with him - pu/pd and shh=pat dont work in the night time = but he started really screaming after I went in so I only did it twice, then fed him!
Maybe I should have let him grizzle longer, as he wasnt really crying much (moaning, whinging interspersed with crying) until I went it..

Is this just what happens with cc?

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