6 month still need night feed?

[cathncait]

I wonder if you all can offer me some advice. My 6 month dd has been sleeping quite unpredictibly at night of late. She used to sleep 7 hours and wake for a feed like clockwork at 3am go straight back to sleep and wake at 7am. After weeks of minor illnesses (colds, gastro, immunsiation etc) she was all over the place..several night feeds and unsettled. Now we seem to be back to one night feed but could be at anything from 1.30am to 5 am (10 hours!). So it seems she is capable of going 10 hours but just wakes up earlier and thinks 'while I'm awake I might as well have a feed!'
I wonder if she really is hungry? We have tried settling her back but after over 1 hour at 2am gave up, fed her..straight back to sleep til morning. Has anyone got any ideas? I would hate to simply cut out the feed and let her go in case she really is hungry?

How much milk does she have when she wakes up in the morning? When DS was that age he would have a night / early morning feed but then have only a tiny amount when he woke up in the morning. When we managed to cut out the night feed he started to have a full bottle in the morning, i.e. was getting the same amount of milk but at a more social time. He also started to sleep through (hurrah). What worked for us in cutting out the night feed was gradually diluting his milk, i.e. increasingly less powder to water. After a while he obviously thought it wasn't worth the bother. Doesn't help if you're bf, though!

Thats exactly what she does Azure. Really small feed first thing in the morning. I am still bf so you're right it is a bit difficult. That obviously suggests she isn't so hungry..just wanting a top up. Maybe I'll try and give her a smaller feed at night.? Makes sense I guess.

HI Cathncait, Had exactly the same problem with ds2 (now 20 wks) who is breast fed. He would go to sleep at 7 pm no problem and then feed fine at 11pm and then wake at anything from 2am to 6am, apparently ravenous. Of course with all that milk inside him he wasn't hungry in the morning and would go untill 11am without another feed. What worked with me was mainly weaning once he was on two meals a day he started to wake later and later and is now waking about 7 most mornings. At the same time, I put him in another room and put the baby monitor on LOW so he has to yell quite loud for me to hear him. I also tried giving water when he woke in the night I think it was of some help, but the results weren't obvious straight away -- just a few nights later. HTH

Thanks Lorien. I have just recently started her on solids which does actually seem to have made her wake later..but still not straight through. I have to say though that she is not really all that interested in food yet..she really just plays with it..she does still eat some though. So maybe as she learns how to eat more it will improve. Have other people found that sarting solids has improved night sleeping? A child health 'professional' told me that it wouldn't help and that it was just an old wives tale!

I didn't find that starting solids helped with night feeds - for my DS, the night feed was simply a habit, not hunger. I think I would have been waiting for ever for him to give it up by himself - I was amazed how soon he slept through after we broke the habit. Cathncait, I think your suggestion of reducing the night feed is a good idea - it does sound as if your dd doesn't really need the feed.

You have to remember that at this stage solids are not much of a replacement for milk - in fact breastmilk has a lot more calories in it than any solids you give to your child. My ds woke for 2 night feeds until 7 months and then within a week dropped both. i think we are led to beleive that our babies should sleep through the night much earlier than is really possible and I found that when I stopped stressing about it he was more relaxed, went back to sleep easier and eventually dropped the feeds. Its not easy, esp if you have another (when I was doing all this with ds, dd was 2.5). But some children need night feeding for a lot lomger than others and I think you have to go with what your individual baby needs.

Thanks for your post Susanmt. Everytime I think I'm going to go crazy if this baby does't start sleeping through, I read your post and try and relax (seem to be reading it a lot ). Sometimes she sleeps right through to 5am for a couple of nights in a row and them we have 2am nights with lots of griseling after - seems like hours! I know it could be teething - but my brain feels set to explode with all this trying to figure out the problem. Why is it you only seem to hear about the babies who sleep 12 hours at night at 3 months old and not the others like mine??

Becuase it's only the lucky people who have bavies who sleep for 12 hours a night who have the energy to talk.
It does sound as if it could be teething as it is irregular, and she grisles after a feed. If dd wakes up in the night and doesn't zonk out after a 5min bf, I always presume it's teething and get some calpol down her just in case. I figure on an irregular basis it's not the end of the world if she is having it unnecessarily.
If you do feel that she is waking through hunger, could you re-instate a bf at 10/11pm? If you do it very quietly in the dark she'll probably just top up and go back to sleep, and it might buy you some extra hours in the morning.

My ds has been quite erratic in his sleep patterns, from sleeping 7pm to 5am to waking twice in the night. I have tried everything from crying it out to writing down exactly how much milk he is getting to waking him for a bottle in the early evening and no two nights are ever the same. I have given up worrying about it now and just do what he wants (which is give him a bottle at about 3:30am and again at 7am) - afterall, surely we should feed babies while they are SO little and growing SO much??? They wouldnt wake from a deep sleep if they werent actually hungry! My ds doesnt snack but has 5oz of formula when he wakes in the night. Also, all parents will "have their time" of broken sleep.... even if they have a baby who "sleeps through" from early. 2 friends of mine had very good babies (so to speak) but one has ended up with a NIGHTMARE of a toddler who wakes in the night now that she's 3yrs and the other has her ds waking from ear and chest infections. I guess its just part of being a parent!