Sleep and feeding related?

[GingerBeverage]

I've also posted this in Infant Feeding to get more traffic.

I keep reading how 4 month old babies can sleep through and go without food for 8 hours at night. But surely that depends on how much they take in on their last feed?
My LO has never ever consumed more than 150ml for evening feed, and most of the time has breast and then sometimes a tiny formula top up around 30-60ml.
He has never woken less than 2 times, and these days wakes 5-6 times a night (but the record is 9).
I always offer him food at these times because he has dropped 2 centiles and only gained about 10g a week for the past 6 weeks (HV don't seem bothered by this as he is alert etc but on waiting list for paed).
I guess what I'm asking is if he never eats a large amount then is it likely he will never sleep long, or are they unrelated?

I think this is tricky because you're concerned about his weight gain. If his weight gain was good I'd say Maybe he in habit of feeding to sleep and try and break habit but when my baby was trying to put on the ounces we would actually wake her and slowly weaned down night feeds over several months just to get her intake up and to make sure she was getting enough without overloading her with massive feeds but spreading them out over the 24 hours. She still doesn't have any bigger feeds in evening but manages to sleep through semi often so I'm.not convinced on the feed them more to sleep better idea. It's so hard having to get up so often for feeds but if he's small and wants to eat id let him eat whenever he wanted and worry about routines when he's a little bit older and bigger. If your mixing with ff then hopefully you have someone who helps in night to make sure you're getting sleep too. It won't be long till you can start weaning too my friends baby was so small until the solids came along and now she's a chunk so maybe think food first sleep second for time being? Having siad that if someone had said that to me when I was in the chaos of sleep deprivation I'd have wanted to punch them in face cuz it's horrendous! Xxxx

I'm not sure there's a set answer to this ad there are so many variables involved. At 4 months I'd expect them to be feeding in the night.

Thanks that makes a lot of sense. I am resigned to getting very little sleep, at least until weaning/6mo. :/

Hey! I still offer a milk feed to my almost 1year old. I've just weaned her from breast to bottle and she will typically wake 1-2 times a night still . At both times I will offer milk , she doesn't always drink much and sometimes just a cuddle and a rock works to soothe her again, but this week she has been downing a whole other 150ml of milk in one go on top of her last feed- and then she is happy to go back to sleep for the rest of the night !

I keep reading about "breaking the habit of feeding to sleep" and I always stressed about this so much when my daughter was younger as this sounded like such a bad habit to get into , but I now wonder what the issue is supposed to be with this - if it works, it works?! It must mean the baby is hungry or at least just needing some comfort?! I get the teeth argument but when I speak to my parents and in laws who offered a milk feed through the night till quite late I can't help but think how good our teeth are (none of us have any fillings for example!)

On a side note , 4months was such a difficult age for us! My daughter was waking ten billion times a night it seemed ! I thought it would never end ...and I breastfed to sleep at every single waking...but it did end and I don't believe I created any bad habits by using milk/boob to get her back to sleep!

Do what works for you and what makes your life easiest :) xx

Thanks mamatoizzywizzy
I have been feeling a bit guilty about nursing to sleep every time, but he needs it, so I figured someone out there must've done the same and got through it.
Maybe I can do a year without going insane. Maybe...