Breastfeeding all night

[Purpleburple123]

Hi,
My 8 month old has never been a good sleeper at night but has managed 6,7,8 hour stretches in the past. His daytime napping is variable (sometimes cries for a while) but usually goes down by self soothing for 3/4 naps quite easily in his cot or car seat. One long nap of 1.5 hours a day. He Sleeps about 3 hours a day for naps in total. Bedtime is 8/8.30pm.
He is EBF and having 3 small meals a day but often refuses solids so a battle to get him to eat anything. He only manages 4/5 breast feeds a day but they are short about 2-3 mins as he gets distracted.

Just in last 2 weeks he is waking every 3 hours at night and I breast feed him back to sleep. He eats loads at each sitting (15mins) more than in the daytime and it's exhausting!

Should I be doing something differently to wean him at night? A lot of people talk about giving water at night but how can you do that if he's used to breastfeeding.

Should I offer more calorific meals in the day?
Could he be teething but he has 4 teeth already!
Could he be going through growth spurt?
Sleep regression at 8 months?

Another thing to mention is we have just returned from a 10 day holiday staying with family and in a holiday home so new environents for him. Could that have unsettled him?

I suppose I'm looking for some reassurance that I'm doing the right thing and carrying on feeding him on demand and it will pass.
I'm not interested in controlled crying etc but I'm not sure how much longer I can cope with these night wakings!?

The family are also going through a bereavement so there has been a fair amount of stress for the last few months but I hope he hasn't picked up on that.

Thanks so much

I'm no help but my almost 8 month old is also waking a lot during the night for long breastfeeds. She has short ones in the day too as she gets distracted.

I'm going to watch this thread to see if anyone can help, if not, hopefully it'll At least reassure you that you are not alone!

Hi,
Thanks for your message it's good to know someone else is in the same boat!
I rang the health visitor this morning and she has said it's not normal for a baby if 8 months to still be waking at night to feed. Suggests that we try sleep training (soft approach) with the nursery nurse supporting. Can take anywhere up to two weeks to work.
She says that at this stage baby should be getting much more calories from solid food and not breast milk at night. Also not good for his development if he is not sleeping well.
We will see how the next few weeks pan out and keep you posted if that's helpful.

Rest assured, it is perfectly normal for babies to need and want a night feed beyond 8 months of age. I'm not sure why your health visitor told you this. I have never heard this before. Every baby is different. I don't have advice on how to solve it, but I can tell you from experience that I've been in exactly the same situation and it resolved on it's own. My DD would not touch solid food until she was 10 months. No idea why. I tried everything. She breastfed constantly, day and night. It was exhausting. In the end, we coslept and she spent most of the night snuggled up to my boob!! Not the solution for everyone but it meant that we both got the sleep we needed and it helped me survive it. Then by age 1, it had resolved itself. She's now 4, happy, healthy, sleeps great, eats brilliantly.

It sound like you've has some ups and downs with a bereavement and a holiday so this could have unsettled him. They go through so many developmental changes in their first year that it's difficult to know what causes these night wakings.

Sleep training is a personal decision, some swear by it, others hate it. I've never tried it so cannot comment. All I would say is do what feels right to you. If it feels right, it probably is right.

And you're doing a fab job!

I have a 7 month old like this, down to the letter.

I'm in a Facebook group with lots of mums of 7&8 month old babies too. Very normal.

There is actually an 8 month sleep regression, yes: www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/sleep/8-month-sleep-regression/

I bet your baby is having a growth spurt or about to master a new skill...

Also sorry for your loss with the bereavement.

It’s not that it’s abnormal in any way OP in fact lots of babies are similar. I think what the HV should be saying is that if you want to change/reduce the night feeds that is reasonable especially if you aren’t coping with lack of sleep. I also agree that consolidated sleep is so important for small children. My DD needed some gentle sleep training at 7 months to settle into one night feed and that continued until she naturally dropped it at 15 months. It met her needs and meant I got enough sleep and could function. They can reverse cycle where they feed at night to make up for lack of feeds in the day. I would reduce the feed lengths (offer 5 mins instead at night) in the hope that she would be hungrier in the day instead and therefore move towards more calories in the day time. Most of my friends who were struggling ended up sleep training in some capacity and were all happier after.

Completely normal. There is also a regression around 8-10months, often worse than the 4month one.

I would just go with it. My now 2.5yr old has only just started sleeping through, and not reliably. I knocked feeding at night on the head around 20months I think as I was over it, got really touched out.
There is no hard and fast rule about when I child shouldn’t wake to feed, your LO is very young still. You can sleep train them, ie not to feed at night but they will likely still wake and just not go back to sleep

Thank you for your useful advice
What's the Facebook group hellolittlebaby?

Last night was not as awful as I had anticipated e.g crying for hours (me!) I think as my husband helped too it just took a weight off.
He woke at 11 as usual but my husband went in first, picked him up and comforted him then tried to put him down but he was continued to cry so I then offered him some formula from a beaker. He only took a couple of gulps and then refused. I laid him down, left the room and we checked the monitor. He was restless and looking very confused but he fell back to sleep after a few minutes. He then woke at 3.30 which was a different story as he was very agitated/crying so I breast fed him as usual. It had been 8 hours since he'd last breast fed so I figured he was genuinely hungry. He then slept till 6 when my husband got up to look after him before work. He still refused to be breast fed on waking though but did have some porridge.
Tonight we will do the same but I'll try water in the beaker instead. If it is reverse cycling then that will hopefully mean he starts to eat more in the day.
I think it's definitely the 8 month sleep regression/leap 6 and probably being unsettled when we travelled away from home recently. Also dropping a nap in the day as he's gone from 4-3 naps this week?

Im definitely happy to keep feeding him once at night (more if he's Ill/ teething etc) but I don't want him to get into bad habits that are not right for him longer term.

It was such a huge step for me to ring the health visitor as I felt like I'd failed somehow. Stupid I know but it felt (feels like) everything is riding on my shoulders and the sleep deprivation is torture. I can feel myself sliding into depression but I think now I have the support from the Health visitor who is calling again today and hopefully my husband will do more at night now.
I think it's about having the support to make those little changes as changing anything when you think it could get worse it really difficult.
Fingers crossed for tonight