My 10 month old has been down to one night feed for a while now, after going back and forth with one to two for a few months.
I recently have had the feeling it is more habit than hunger. She will often drink most of it but some nights barely 3oz and I still do suspect I am feeding her to sleep - mainly because I've never actually tried to get her back to sleep any other way. As she's had about 7 hours without anything, I always assumed she needed a little top up so we've just gone straight to make a bottle up. But she's having plenty + solids during the day. I don't have any issue feeding her in the night if she needs it, but recently her sleep AFTER the bottle has suffered.
It used to be a very quick feed- sleep and wouldn't hear a peep again til morning. Now she will have the usual good stretch from 6.30pm til anywhere between 1am and 3am but is then unsettled and unpredictable with how much she will sleep after this, either having to put her dummy back in multiple times or just picking her up eventually, then she's up for the day by 5am.
(She has 2 naps a day, no more than 2 hours in total.)
I feel like we've come to a point where waking and then me feeding is actually disturbing her more than settling. I also change her nappy before the bottle during the night because it's always very full by then and as she's having more milk I doubt the same one from bedtime would hold.
This morning for her nap, I put her down in her cot awake for the first time. She took less than 10 mins to settle herself to sleep. I'd been avoiding this because...well I don't even know why!! She'd just always been rocked to sleep in some way (pushchair/car /arms). At bedtime she falls asleep in my arms before I transfer her to the cot, recently she hasn't needed much rocking to settle though, it's more of a "cuddle to sleep". And then I've also noticed that she is very fidgety while I'm holding her. Her eyes are firmly shut but it's like shes not completely comfortable. Her arms will slowly move about and she will arch her back etc. So maybe she's been trying to tell me for a while that she just wanted to be put down and have her own space to settle!
I envisioned having awful nights with sleep training which I know is normal before it improves, but her older sister is in the bedroom next to her and I'm very aware of how much we'd be disturbing her through the night too so It's just been one of those things that I know I wanted to try to see if it helps her nighttime sleep, but I've put it off. But now she seems to have settled so easily for her nap I think I'll try the same tonight.
My question is, does anyone have experience of sleep training stopping them waking in the night at times when they had been before? (Obviously she will still wake if she's genuinely hungry) As I'm wondering how likely it is that we'll have a more settled night just because she's put herself to sleep in the cot. It doesn't seem like a big enough factor to make that much difference? but I've read many posts where it's been a complete game changer in sleeping through the night etc. there's been a few times during the night where it really looks like she's trying to settle herself, tossing and turning, and maybe if I'd left her to it she eventually would have, but again with worrying about my oldest in the next room, I've gone in and tried settled her myself by picking her up every time. She's never really crying at any point, at most a few grizzles.