Argh... Baby Whisperer is doing my head in! Long, sorry

[oysterpots]

DS is 16 weeks and has always fed every 3-4 hours. The longest he's ever done at night is around 5 hours. We dream feed him around 10 or 10.30 but he still wakes at some point, normally between 2-4am for a feed (not usually the same time, so BW would say this was hunger rather than habit), and if he's woken nearer 2 than 4 then he'll wake again around 5. We then have a game of dummy in dummy out for the next hour or two before we give him his next feed around 7am.

Thing is, according to BW we should be working out how much he takes in the night and splitting that across his day feeds, but he is a really sicky reflux-y baby and when he's full there is no way of getting more food in him.

So what should we do? Feed more frequently during the day to hope he gets enough calories to sustain him at night? Go back to cluster feeding in the evening? Or accept that we will need to be doing night feeds for the foreseeable future??

Help!

Hi oysterpots,
My guess is that you will have to accept the night feeds for a while. 16 weeks is still quite young. My dd only stopped the night feeds at 9 months when I weaned her off the breast and started giving her a bottle of formula milk in the evening...
If you are not breastfeeding things might be different.

Good luck!

16 weeks is still very young and totally normal to be feeding at night. Your baby hasn't read the book! Would go with the flow, I'm sure he will sleep longer stretches soon.

5 hours at 16 weeks sounds great! I can't remember when DS did that (freaked me out first time it happened tho!). Took a lot longer than I expected.

As the others said, why not ditch the book if it's doing your head in? I found BW helpful for understanding sleep cues, and thinking about separating sleep and feeding, but she didn't really help with details of feeding. Pick and mix...

I agree, bin the book. The minute you stop worrying about trying to do what the book says you'll feel liberated. After all, your baby hasn't read the book and each baby is different so how can someone write a routine that suits everyone.

I get quite annoyed with this suggestion by BW and GF etc that feeding them extra in the day means they won't need to feed at night. It just doesn't figure. If I drink gallon or eat loads in the day it doesn't mean that I won't wake needing a drink of water during the wee hours. If he's refluxy i'd imagine little and often is probably better anyway.

oysterpots just posting sympathetic thoughts as dd2 (13 weeks) sounds very similar and we had an easier ride with dd1 so it's a bit of a shock. I'll think of you around 5 a.m. tomorrow knowing that you also are having a long round of "dummy in dummy out". I dread it if mini lolly wakes much before 2 am for a feed as it means another wake up call for food before the real morning arrives.

The sickiness doesn't help either because even if I manage to get her to take extra (in my case persuade her to take the 2nd breast) she sicks it up as she didn't really need/want it.

A good timely reminder from little lapin and gingerninja about not sticking closely to the book imo.

GN I'm so glad you said that re feeding them extra during the day. IME it doesn't work. But just how do you get them to drop the night feeds???

Hamishsmummy good question.

We still haven't been able to stop the evening cluster feeding and they are only little for a short time so I gladly let her have it! I don't mind evening feeding but it's disheartening when it doesn't stop the night feeds. (in our house one night feed is an event to be celebrated as it is rare)

well done oyster, some books would say that a baby is sleeping through the night if they can do 5-hours in one stretch, so you're doing really well!

babies do have their growth spurts at night and that's when your milk is at it's best to meet their needs, so as long as you're both getting to sleep after it, try not to worry, you're doing the best thing.

And a baby's belly is about the size of their fist after all, so they can't take too much in and BM digests quicker, so some babies genuinely do need to feed in the night for longer than others (she says nearly 9mo later still going strong feeding through the night that AF still not back!), but as long as you feed when needed and you're both happy, hopefully it'll reduce naturally.

Oyster, try to go with the flow. Pick the best bits out of the book. (I used it myself when dd1 was little).

If you need any advice, ask MNetters! (not me though, I'm useless.

How old is your LO Hamish? Are you bf or ff? My DD was bf until 10 months and we stopped night feeds about 9.5. It was all done easily with no tears because she was ready. I co-sleep and would just cuddle before offering a feed and she'd go back to sleep before I needed to. I have a very low tollerance for tears so wouldn't have resited for too long but I didn't really need to anyway. For others it's been sooner and others later but I wasn't happy trying until about 9 months when weaning was more fully established. Having said that, at 14 months she still has sips of water in the night when she wakes.