Breaking feeding habits

[EllieJane24]

My little boy is 6 months old. He is having 2 meals in the day- breakfast around 11 am and dinner around 5/6pm. He is breastfed throughout the day and night.
For a few months now he has been waking multiple times in the night for feeds. I was advised it may be due to him not having enough calories in the day which is why I introduced breakfast for him.

Normal evening/night routine is-
5pm- dinner
Around 30 minutes later- boob
7pm- nap
7:30- wake and boob
9- boob then bed
12- boob
1:30ish- boob
4ish- boob
7ish- boob
9ish- boob

Looking online, it looks like the overnight feeding feeding is more of a habit than anything but the amount of feeds has increased only since he went into his own room less than a week ago so surely he can't develop a habit this quickly.

How do I break this habit? He won't go back to sleep unless I feed him. It's draining me. He should be going 6-8 hours overnight

There is no rule when it comes to babies as they are all different. But sleep does get messed up as you start weaning. Could he be going through a growth spurt? I've 3 kids (two breastfed until over 2 years and third breastfeeding at 21 months) and their sleep patterns are so different. They never slept 6-8 hrs at that age (maybe the third inconsistently).

Make sure he feeds well during the day and isn't distracted and just snacking as he will be hungry if he hasn't had enough calories. Also at this age the introduction of solids does mess up their digestive systems so expect a disruption. He was used to digesting breastmilk that is easier to digest and now he has to digest more complex foods.

As mine got older I found proteins kept them fuller for longer. Once no allergies then Scrambled eggs with avocado, porridge with banana and natural/Greek yogurt, toast with peanut butter, pasta with avocado or fish etc. Also weetabix with fruit is great as well.
At the moment he's at the introduction phase so give him time to explore s he's still very young.

If he misses you he's bound to wake up. My third went in her room a day before 6 months and she's the best sleeper of all three. I would persevere and sometimes if you feel he doesn't need the boob, send another adult to comfort him. 90 minutes feeds is a lot. Do you have expressed milk in fridge? That way someone else can feed him while you get 3-4 hours sleep before midnight.

You're doing a great job and it will get easier (well until the next blip). If this is your first make sure you rest when he's asleep. Forget tidying up and nap or sit with a cup of tea. Rest so you can deal with later and also get people around you to help with tidying up and settling the baby.
Best of luck and congratulations 👏

Don't have a great solution, but this also happened to us - moved DS to his own room and started solids at around the same time. Sleep went to pot.

In hindsight, I think it was a mixture of 2 things:

• he was genuinely hungry - having huge feeds night and day and not yet getting enough calories in from solids, so needed the night feeds.
• being in the new room was weird for him and he didn't bring his sleep skills with him. Because he was waking up to feed a lot, he learnt that being fed to sleep was how it worked in the new bed. So he expected that all the time.

Unfortunately for us, realising what was happening coincided with being away for 3 weeks over Christmas and everyone getting ill multiple times, which just added to the mess. He's now 8 months and sleep is still bad. Not as bad as it was but bad.

What is helping is:

• mocking up his old sleep layout in the new room with a sofabed next to the cot so that it feels as close as possible to how he used to sleep in our room
• being consistent with a bedtime routine without feeding to sleep and gradually reducing the amount of contact he needs to fall asleep
• encouraging a similar way to sleep at night but still feeding if 'needed'

He can now resettle himself without intervention about once a night and settled with just a cuddle/repositioning in the cot another few times. And then get a feed about 3* a night. That might sound horrendous but he's progressing towards independent settling in his own room, which is the long term goal, he's clearly feeling calmer and more at home in his big bed, and he doesn't need to be held in my arms and fed to sleep 6 times a night, which is where we were at in January!

Good luck with getting it sorted! And sorry I don't have answers for a quick/straightforward solution!