What actually happens when you try to stop a 6mo nightfeeding?

[titferbrains]

DD is 6 months (just) and is still waking for feeds at night - I've always fed her back to sleep when she wakes - occasionally when it's seemed like it was only a short time since last feed I've shh-patted back to sleep but if ever in any doubt eg. she starts hunting for a nipple on my shoulder, then I always feed. She is getting over a snotty cold and woke every 2 and a half hrs last night and then woke for the day at 5.30am. I am dreadful in the morning and just cannot face her continuing to wake often AND getting up thru the night.

So can you tell me what exactly happened when you tried to stop doing night feeds? Just not sure how I would settle her as she gets very cross if made to wait when hungry and am concerned about her getting worked up and then being even harder to settle, making herself sick etc. How long did yrs cry for and how did you get them to sleep??

does anyone have any feedback on this??

Hi titferbrains. Do you feed her to sleep at the beginning of the night? We have had some success with DS when we stopped doing this - he suddenly went for much longer in the night without waking - and even right through to nearly six once or twice. I think it was breaking the assoc between suckling and sleeping. Might be worth trying this first to see if she then wakes less of her own accord (ie self settles better).

I feed her on boob for 30 min and she is generally very sleepy/asleep at the end of that - and then when I take her off she wakes and looks for bottle, then I give her that and she is out like a light at the end of bottle. A bit difficult/scary to break this - I think I'd find it impossible to keep her awake on the boob. Did you find waking after falling asleep on boob worked at all?

i used a dummy

that said i did it with dd at about 6/7/8 months and with ds1 i let him grow out of nightfeeds naturally and suffice to say i plan on doing the same with ds2.

SO irritating, DD won't take a dummy. I've offered diff kinds and she's just not interested and will actually pause during crying in order to make a face of total disgust. THis is why I'm quite anxious about trying to just "soothe" (hah!) her back to sleep.

She has a cold at the mo and we were in the states for 10 days a while back so I know I have to cut her some slack, but I'm just so F*ing tired and I know I can't cope with any extended crying jags but also know I need to sleep a proper stretch. Am rubbish at going to bed early and when I do I find myself just waiting for her to wake up and cannot relax.

I take him off the boob when he is very sleepy, sometimes I think he might even be asleep. Then I sit him up, wind him and we look at a picture book for a couple of minutes. Then into his cot, draw curtains, give him little toys, kiss. He's usually asleep ten mins later. In saying that, he's always settled wide awake for naps so it probably wasn't too big a stretch for him.

I wouldn't do anything until she's over her cold. And try looking at your routine so that you can go to bed earlier. I had to cut out tea and chocolate () to help me relax. I sympathise with you about the tiredness - many a tear is shed in this house between 1 and 6.

hi

this might not be what you want to do at all, but to answer your original question about how did we do it...i was in a similar position to you about 4 weeks ago, also convinved that my ds would get very angry if i ddin't feed him, but desparate to get some sleep.

so one night i just decided i would not feed, just shh-pat for a while. in the end, i ended up going in and out of the room every 5 mins or so to shh-pat, as just staying there seemed to be making it worse.

after 25 mins, he went to sleep and ever since (touch lots of wood) has not woken in the night...

i was (and am) still feeding him to sleep at night btw, but like artifarti, he was going down wide awake for naps.

just my experience. hth.

waytoomuch how bad was the crying, exactly? did he really go for it and kick/wriggle a lot? Thanks for sharing yr experience. I did have a bit of success with pupd a while back but got nervous about how much she was feeding and decided I wanted to feed her as much as poss, so returned to feeding to sleep - bad idea in retrospect but at the time it made me feel much more positive and relaxed about breastfeeding so not beating self up about it. REally helpful to hear about yr experience.

will go back to excluding caffeine - I've been enjoying the odd of cup of proper tea recently, and will have to make the effort to go to bed earlier. Generally we are done wiht supper tidying and telly by about 9.30/10ish and I like to read before sleep, and that's when I reach that last 45 min before 11pm when I will give feed - and I lie there listening for any noise wondering if she'll wake up hungry before then, or whether she'll go thru till 1am which she was doing before we went on holiday... vicious circle I know.

yes, he really did go for it. very loud crying, very angry sounding, and quite a bit of thrashing around. BUT, what made me keep going, was that he had his eyes shut and was burrowing his head into the mattress, which i knew was him trying to go to sleep because i'd watched him do it at nap times when i knew he was tired.

this came after about 6 weeks of trying pupd on and off (stopping for colds and teething etc), so i felt that i knew the signs that he was trying to sleep having been observing him trying to get off to sleep at nap times for a while! i really felt as though he was 'learning' how to get back to sleep on his own without me feeding him.

pupd didn't work for us, because me being there and picking him gave him the wrong message iyswim. he just thought, 'great, i'm going to get fed', and then when i put him down we started at square 1 everytime. but if it's working for you, then great, i know a few people who used it and it worked well.

i really sympathise with the going to bed and 'listening' thing - it's what i did for months! i was going to bed at 8.30pm every night by the time i reached this point! and don't beat yourself up about vicious circles and feeding to sleep etc - we do what we need to do, and things are always easier when you don't add on top feeling bad about it

bloody hell. DD can really scream when she wants to, am frankly scared of what will happen when denied food. She's inherited my bad temper, it seems! - think I'll have to try to catch up on a bit more sleep and try this at the weekend when hubby can be supportive. have observed her going to sleep a lot tho like you so will hopefully spot similar signs of going to sleep... will post on progress when we get there!