Hanging on to the 5am feed

[mooki]

My DD is 11.5 months.

Her sleep has gots loads better since about 10 months and she (generally) just wakes once in the night now, somewhere between 4am and 6am. I give her a breastfeed and then she goes back to sleep in the cot for maybe another 2 hours.

I don't mind this too much as it's pretty much the only breastfeed I do these days and as long as I go to bed at a sensible time I get a good chunk of sleep.

I am just wondering though if anyone else has had a dawn feeder and if they eventually dropped the feed of their own accord?

thanks

I'm bumping this as a few weeks later we are still feeding at 5am and I am wondering whether I will want to continue when I go back to work next week.

Anyone managed to drop an early morning feed without ending up with an inhumane wake up time?

Would you be able to try and settle her without feeding her when she wakes to see if she will go back to sleep? Or gradually feeding her a minute less each day? Don't know if those work but I read them in a book!

She didn't feed for very long this morning as she's got a cold. She did eventually settle back to sleep but then woke up again after 30 mins so I think I will try settlig without feeding but might wait until she feels a bit better.

I have 2 friends who still do a 5am bf and their children are nearly 2.

Assuming you do last feed around 6/7pm, have you tried a dreamfeed at 10/11pm? That should be enough for her to get through to 6:30/7am (although habit might keep her waking up at 5, so that would take some patience/perseverence to overcome!)

Just reread your post and realised your DD's age - in which case ignore my suggestion re dreamfeed as she should be able to get through till 7 at that age (my experience anyway)

Does she eat well during the day?

friend just advised me that i feed dd only water from a bottle and reassure at night even tho I usually bf and dd nearly 1. is this cruel? haven't tried it yet as afraid of dds angry response (she shares a room with ds who has to be up for school!)

Hi Eviz and others - I'd say she does eat well but not huge portions. She drinks between 50 - 150 mls of milk 3 times a day including bedtime.

She stayed over at my mum's last night - first time I've ever been away from her. She did wake at about 5am and my mum gave her some milk in a cup which she drank and then went back to sleep - so maybe it is genuinely hunger? I had kind of thought she was maybe just hanging on to the last breastfeed for comfort.

hmmm

I've posted a similar problem in the development section this morning (I couldn't find a sleep section when I looked) so I can sympathise with you, I'm going to watch both to see if anyone can come up with anything. My DS (6mths) has a bf at 7am and 7pm and three ffs inbetween (about 6/7oz each) and he has cereal for breakfast and then fruit/veg for lunch and tea, I added some chicken for the first time yesterday so I don't think he can be hungry at 5am but like your DD he just keeps waking up.

I should have said that one of the ffs is 5oz at 11pm which I've tried to drop but he wakes up at about 12.30 so I think he still needs it and he then sleeps through until 5am and he's always been on the 50th centile (he's 8kg now)