Offering water to stop nightfeeds - pls help me with 7mo DD?

[titferbrains]

Have offered water for last 4 nights. She took it on 1st 2 nights, we were up with her for 2 hrs and then I gave calpol as I could see she was struggling to get to sleep and felt it was her teeth.

Last 2 nights she refused water. Woke at 4.30 on Sunday night, and 3.50 last night (but went to bed a bit earlier last night so roughly same time). Sunday night I sat with her on my lap and sh patted/stroked till 5.45am, then fed her as she was crying a lot rather than trying to go to sleep on me.

This morning very cross again when offered water and quite cross generally about not being fed. she almost fell asleep about 3 times but started crying. I could hear her little tummy rumbling and I think she really "hit the wall" so I fed her at 4.55am. She fed for about 15 min - 10 min one boob then 5 min other so a full feed - then went down without a peep and I woke to hear her playing at 8.22 this morning (should have set alarm DOH).

So what do I do now? reintroduce a dream feed in the hope of her going thru till 6/7, or offer a water FF at 4am if/when she wakes up, or keep trying to stretch her when she wakes and see how this goes? Or offer less and less of a full FF each night?

She has been up for at least an hour for over a week now and I'm very tired. Feeling better for having longer stretches of sleep but am desperate to get thru the night till 6/7. I know she's doing really well but...

I know Titfer, I just hate to see others encouraging you to keep plugging on with gruelling nights with a hungry baby...and measuring 'success' by how long a baby can bear to go without food.

I am crap in many ways as a mum, but with the feeding you need to stop trying to control her and stop worrying about creating 'bad habits' as that's so scary and worrying and ultimately just not true...let her cotrol you, she's random, yes, she's tiny and instinctual and you won't do her any harm if you just do what she wants.

The sleep thing is hard I know, but is part and parcel imo.

JodieO "6 MONTHS old and you want to give water instead of milk when a baby is hungry? Pray tell why?"

Why? Probably because this kid of damaging rubbish (and specifically the water "tip") has been made popular by certain books written by a self-appointed expert which we're not even allowed to mention on mnet in fear of being sued!

It makes my blood boil!

I can't understand what's wrong with just feeding them milk when they want milk. Bloody bonkers.

Oh boy. Poor titferbrains, you seem to have sparked a bit of high feelings. I think its a bit unnecessary to be quite so judgemental. Every baby is different and so is every mother. I have tried getting my LO to sleep through, I have tried water,breifly tried controlled crying, pick up put down.... and I have given in and fed her after realising she was actually hungry. But I did what I felt was right at the time. I would never let my LO starve over night but a little hunger is not going to harm them. Someone has posted earlier in this discussion that their 2 year old LO still feeds a few times a night and she is happy with this! I would certainly be more stressed about being in that situation than I am now at having a 6.5 month old feeding once during the night (although she wants it more). I dont have any useful advice but just hope you dont take any of it personally.
The faint memories of my pre mat leave work on a stroke ward makes me worry (just a tad) about these people who get all blood boily over an innocent debate rather than calmy giving their opinions!!!!

"Sorry this kind of thread REALLY upsets me and I can barely believe so many mothers are denying their tiny, hungry babies a proper feed when they are HUNGRY!!!!! "

However, you are assuming, flight, that the baby is actually hungry. Do you actually know that?? Or are you putting your own issues onto someone else's situation??

My DD went through a stage of waking up at night, I was breastfeeding her at the time, so knew that she wasn't hungry (she wasn't feeding, just sucking but not taking food and usually not actually eating is a good indication that the baby is not really hungry!). However, I was back at work and not coping very well with the lack of sleep. So someone suggested I tried the water, which I did and she took it the first night, but then didn't bother to wake after that. Turns out, she didn't want food at all, she wasn't hungry, but it was contact she wanted - We were able to rectify that easily enough (moving her cot to a position where she had more contact with me) she was happier, I got more sleep and we were all much happier.

But back to my point - your statement assumes that babies only wake at night because they are hungry. This is simply not true. Babies are humans and can wake for all sorts of reasons - they feel uncomfortable (nappy full), need a cuddle from mummy, whatever - You, as an outsider who is not there in the situation cannot make the judgement call as to why the baby is waking, so please don't imply that the mother is being a bad mum because she is not feeding the baby when it wakes - surely trying to find out what the baby really wants (and establishing whether the baby is really hungry or not) is just as valid an approach as just popping a boob in the baby's mouth regardless of whether the baby actually wants it or not.

Karam you're right that babies wake for all sorts of reasons.

But, the problem with the water thing is that IS given to hungry babies.

I expect flightoftheeasterbunyip may well be reacting to the insane advice popularised in certain baby books which fosters obsession with getting your baby to sleep through at an early age, and does result in hungry babies being ignored, or mums feeling they are bad for feeding their own DCs at the "wrong" time or in the "wrong" way.

(Just to be clear it's the books that get me not the OP who is obviously a good mum, just trying to find out what will work).

Feeding a child twice in the night is completely unneccessary! Anything past 12 weeks where i come from is considered strange!!!!

My 11 week old wakes twice in the night, exactly the same times and i breastfeed him for 3 minutes and put him back to sleep and hes happy as larry! Its HABIT not HUNGER! If it really was hunger, they wouldnt sleep thru after a few nights of controlled crying to break the habit. You are letting the child control you and you are making a whip for your own back.

Every child is different and for premmies or particular cases it may be different, but my BABYWISE book, has the babies sleeping thru very early. I didnt have my ds on a routine because i thort they were not right, but tried it in desperation because he was feeding every hour during day, crying alot, waking 2 hourly during night, and i had no time to spend with my husband or toddler.

So i let him cry for a few times to get the routine started, now he feeds 3 hourly during the day and only twice at night,and he LOVES it! He barely ever cries, only when he wakes from a sleep and wants a feed, and is so much more content and relaxed and i have more time for myself and others.

OP i dont blame you for wanting a nights sleep for you and your baby, YANBU!!!!

Sorry, i ment feeding a 2 year old child in the night is uneccessary

Blimey why do you want to stop night feeds so badly? I didn't do this till my kids were two I don't think you need to worry about this until your baby is at least 12 months. How many times does she wake up normally in the night?

titferbrains... there is no crap mum, you are trying to do your best and unfortunately you are following a book instruction, and of course it doesn't work because your baby wasn't born with that book! I did the same mistake and by the time DD was about 9 months old, I was fed up of thinking I was a crap mum too! DH told me to put the book away and so I did...
I don't know many babies who sleep their full night at 7 months old or even 1 yr old!!!! They still need their comfort and cuddles... it is hard to have broken night and our DD at the age now of 3 1/2 is a great sleeper and has been for the last year!!! If she wakes up during the night and it still happens few times a month, we don't ignore her, we still go and give her a cuddle so she can goes back to sleep peacefully.
Don't put pressure on you or your baby, remember that she is still so so little... if she needs you or milk, give it to her...
ENJOY YOUR LITTLE ONE!

Lowrib,
"But, the problem with the water thing is that IS given to hungry babies."

I agree that is a problem, and I personally would not try giving water to a hungry baby as food. However, at the same time you do have to establish why the baby is waking and using water can be an effective way of achieving that.

As I said babies wake for all reasons - habit, hunger, wanting mummy, teething, lost dummy, wet nappy, pain, discomfort - whatever. But not all of these can be solved by just feeding. So using water to eliminate whether the baby is hungry or not can work (or at least it did for me!)

Further, babies want Bfeeding for all reasons too, not just for hunger. Again, we cannot assume that just because a baby wants bfeeding it is because they are hungry.

My DD1 bfed for 18 months, and for her the boob was very much a comfort thing - for example, if she fell over and hurt herself she wanted bfeeding to comfort her and make herself feel better. She wasn't suddenly, miraculously hungry just because she'd hurt her foot! I usually found a few minutes on the boob would sort her out and she'd be happy again. It wasn't about hunger, it was about comfort for her. Some babies do this at night too. Some babies want / need the boob to help them go to sleep because that is waht they know - it gives them comfort. I'm not judging any of these as right or wrong, I just think it is naive to assume that when a baby wakes at night it is automatically because that baby is hungry. I also think it naive to think that because an older baby wants feeding, it necessarily means that the baby is hungry (just like sometimes I eat chocolate not because I am hungry, but because I feel like it and it makes me feel good!).

That said, if I ever thought a baby was hungry - I would always feed it (and milk too). I personally wouldn't let a baby go hungry. But that is the point of the water thing - to test whether the baby is hungry or to see whether it is wanting milk for another reason.

titfer - I am going through similar with my ds of 8 months now and did debate trying the water thing. Never actually got round to trying it yet mainly because when it got to the middle of the night I usually remembered that his cup was downstairs and I couldn't be bothered to go down and get it!

We were doing a dream feed but it got to the stage where I was having to wake him for it most nights and he was hardly eating anything so now I just let him sleep until he wakes naturally which is usually about 12 or 1am. So I can have an early night if I want.

He has then been waking at 4am and not wanting to go back to sleep for an hour or more. Often when he BF it doesn't help and it puts him off his BF in the morning which suggests he is not really that hungry.
I did consider not offering the feed but have continued on the basis that sometimes it does get him back off and maybe he needs it. What he seems to want more is comfort. I don't want to get him in the habit of sleeping in our bed (dh not happy about it) so I take a blanket and snuggle down on the floor of his room with him stroking his head until he calms down and drifts off to sleep. Then I put him back in his cot.

Like you I have been struggling with the feed or not debate and trying to work out what ds is needing from me - but it is confusing sometimes. It's not just about me wanting my sleep but about worring about ds getting his sleep too and trying to work out the best way to help him get it whether it be food or comfort.