Dropping night feeds - how on earth do you do it?

[Sideshowjen]

Hello all

Baby is 11.5 months now and on average will wake up once a night, usually around 3am, for a feed (although last night he woke up twice at 12 and 3 )

He dropped to one nap a day and this is usually around 11:30/12 for anywhere between 1.5hrs to 3hrs. I don’t feed him to sleep. I put him down awake and he is usually asleep within 5 minutes for both nap time and bed time at 7pm.

He has 3 meals a day with dinner between 5/5:30pm. He usually has a very short breast feed before bed but I find more and more he doesn’t seem to want it.

When he wakes up, we’ve been trying to pat and shush him at intervals of 2,4,8 mins for the past 4 nights but it just hasn’t worked and he has howled and screamed for over an hour. We have been so exhausted we have just relented at around the hour mark and fed him. When I’ve fed him, he’s still awake when I put him down (usually chatting) and he then falls asleep until 7am.

I’ve tried giving him water in a bottle but that hasn’t worked. Given that he can put himself to sleep, is it the case that he is just hungry or is he waking up and demanding a feed for comfort/habit?

When he wakes he stands and screams - he doesn’t flop down tired - so I just don’t know how to get him to sleep.

Should we continue with the pat and shush and just refuse to feed him until he gives up?? I genuinely don’t know how to resolve this and would appreciate some help.

Thank you!

Why not just feed him? One wake up sounds pretty good, and a quick feed and back to bed happy all round sounds far preferable to an hour of screaming. If he'll take a bottle you can take turns with your partner, so you each get a full night's sleep every other night.

Just feed him. My bottle fed son still had one until 18 months and both ebf babies were fed at night until 16 months. Then I offered them all water in a soppy cup if they woke.
There’s also no need to sleep train..kids all learn to sleep eventually. I have 3 and none have slept through before age 2. Until then it’s been a mixture of cuddling them back to sleep in their own beds or them coming into ours at some point.
I’ve taken the path of least resistance and have never left them to cry... a quick cuddle back to sleep means I get back to sleep too!

Ps there is nothing unusual about your son’s behaviour at this age. Young children want their parent when they wake up, it’s normal

I had the exact same issue until very recently.

I know the general guidance is that they don’t need to feed at night after 6 months but I don’t believe this to be fair advice for breastfed babies as you don't always know they are going to bed full and breastmilk isn’t as filling.

Im afraid I switched to formula so I knew he was getting enough milk during the day. I do miss cuddle-feeding my little boy already.

I also stopped night feeding and did disappearing chair sleep training to try break the feed to sleep association and night snacking. This was very hard and he cried for 3 hrs a time 2 nights in a row - i will get judged for admitting doing that but I can’t explain how desperate our sleep situation became and it was a last resort.

We still have sleep issues but he will happily wake up for the day and have his first bottle an hour later. He also wakes up a lot but settles at night quickly without a feed. This convinced me he does not need a feed at night so the feeds have now stopped!

I should say however that i have tried sleep training while breastfeeding and failed many times over several months and I feel guilty and horrible about it in hindsight as he was clearly hungry and the process was upsetting and tiring for everyone. I should have just accepted he needed a feed.

Try different things, trust your instincts and do what you are comfortable with. Good luck x

Hey OP, your LO sounds normal, as much as you hate it!
Sometimes it helps not feeling alone and that you’re not the only one going through this madness
If it helps, mine is 20 months old. Has usually woken every couple of hours. Tonight it was really bad as she’s been up from 3.45 and is only now dozing off. I’m exhausted and feeling like total shit.
Try and sleep as soon as he does. Honestly 1-2 wakes doesn’t seem so bad and hopefully it’ll only get better xxx

I can't offer any useful advice I'm afraid, but for comparison... I also have an 11.5 month old who's breastfed and still wakes every 1-1.5 hours at night from 6pm through to 6am when he's up for the day. We went through a phase of trying everything going, but have now accepted it's just the way he is and co-sleep so I can still function. I've also been back at work full time since he was 7.5 months. It could be worse!

I’m another one for just feed him ! I’ve had 3 and they all
Dropped night feeds at different times (9 , 12 & 18 months ) don’t force him into something he’s not ready for he’s still small and meant to wake in the night. All mine just did it in their own time , I know it’s tiring but once a night is very doable.

Hi OP
My DD is 12 months and waking at 4am for a bottle. I did some reading and last night decided to give her a bit of porridge before she went to bed.

Someone said if she still wakes its habit and if not then she was just hungry.

She had dinner at 5:30 then a little bit of porridge at 6:15 then we did bath, bottle and bed around 7.

To my surprise she slept until 6:45am this morning. It might be a one off but it's worth a shot!

As others have said, it all sounds completely normal.

Can I ask how many BFs he's having in the day? Is there anyway to get an extra one in during the day?

Sounds like he’s not ready yet. My ds dropped his night feed unilaterally at about 15 months. He just stopped waking up.

Thank you all for your responses. I just want to say you are all lovely for taking the time to respond and making not feel alone.

Also, you are all super humans for going to work/functioning/looking after small humans with so little sleep and still being kind enough to take the time to reach out to another mum. Thank you.

Funnily enough, the night after I posted this he slept through until 6:30am but then the following night woke up twice. The only thing I can think of that was different was that in the afternoon before he slept through he burned a lot of energy at soft play then had a massive bowl of pasta and a slightly longer breast feed before bed which leads me to think he must need a feed if he wakes up at night as he seems to know how to fall asleep by himself and slept through after a big bowl of pasta.

Unfortunately we can’t go to soft play to burn energy every day but I’ve been trying to give him big portions before dinner and to sneak in extra feeds here and there. He is quite a determined little chap who will stop feeding/eating once he’s had enough. I’ve been offering him extra breastfeeds and he’s just not interested in having anymore than he usually does (about 4 short feeds a day). He’s quite a good eater so I don’t want to start trying to coax him to eat more when he doesn’t want to. My MIL tried to force a spoon full of food into his mouth (I told her not to) and it didn’t end well...!

Wishing you all a restful night tonight xxx

I've found that either you accept the night waking (especially if it's only one night waking), you make the night shorter (eg. Last feed at 9pm, up again at 5am) or you give them a late night "dream feed" where you wake them just to Feed them. They all seem to go through phases of needing an extra feed at some point. One of mine slept beautifully 11 hours a night and then at about 9months started needing an extra feed (initially in the early hours but I managed to switch this to a 10pm extra feed). Dropped it again a few weeks later, just needed that bit extra for a while.