Hello.
DS has just turned 9 months. Apart from a few blissful weeks some months ago, he wakes regularly in the night at any old time.
He still BFs a number of times during the day & at about 11pm, and eats other food like a gannet so I'm pretty sure he's not hungry if he wakes at, say, 2am. On the rare occasion that I don't hear a peep between about 11pm and 4am, I know he's probably hungry when he wakes up so I'll BF him straightaway and he'll drop right off again for another couple of hours.
Recently I've been trying to hold off BFing him if he wakes before about 4am, to try to get him out of any feeding-back-to-sleep habits we've got into. Sometimes he will fall back asleep with a little patting and stroking and shushing. Quite a lot of the time though he'll seem to settle again ok fairly quickly, but will wake again about ten minutes later. We'll go through the comforting and calming again, he'll drop off again, & then the same thing will happen after ten minutes or so.
This will go on until I get a bit desperate to go back to sleep properly myself (usually after an hour or two) - at which point I end up feeding him to sleep, as it's the only thing that seems to help him settle soundly.
Does anyone have any idea what might be going on? He doesn't seem to be cold, I don't think he's teething (no sign of any teeth yet), and I'm pretty sure he's not really hungry - but could he be, even at 2am? I've presumed that because he does sometimes go for 5 or even 6 hours at night without feeding that he wouldn't be - maybe not?
All help much appreciated, as usual