11 month old awake a lot at night

[VivienScott]

DS is nearly 11 months and at night wakes up for milk at roughly 10pm, 12am, 2am and 5am when he may or may not go back to sleep until about 6.30ish. He goes to bed about 7pm quite happily, eats and drinks well during the day and doesn't sleep a ridiculous amount, 2 and half hours roughly depending what time he wakes in the morning.

He has been this way since he was about 3 months and I can't do anything to get him to sleep longer at night. He has plenty of milk during the day so it seems to be habit rather than need but I've tried just swapping the night milk feeds with water and he just wont go back to sleep until he's had his milk.

Can anyone offer any advice or hope that one night he might start to sleep for more than a few hours at a time PLEASE!!!

Oh heck, that sounds tough! Our DS was (and still is) a rotten sleeper, but we did manage to reduce his night feeds gradually.

The theory that made most sense to us was that DS was genuinely hungry when he fed in the night. So we gradually stretched the gaps between feeds, e.g. increasing gaps by 15mins the first night, another 15mins the next night, and so on. It helps if you have a DP to help with this one - DH would comfort DS any way he could if he woke "too early" for a feed.

DS is now 14mo and doesn't have nightfeeds any more. He dropped his feeds when we did controlled crying - not to drop feeds btw, but once he slept better, he just didn't wake up for them any more.

I'm afraid he still wakes a lot at night when he's ill. Which is most of the time.

Hope something in here helps!

I know it's not for everyone but would a dummy help if he's just needign to suck?

That sounds awful, makes my whinging about sleep deprivation sound pretty pathetic! I wish I had some good advice, my 11 month old also doesn't sleep through - I dream feed at 10-11ish, she often wakes at 1am and again about 3-4ish.

I have tried to stop feeding her at night as she will go back to sleep without milk, but it is hard work. I feed her to sleep at bedtime and rock her in pushchair for naps (rod for own back etc etc, but she is dc2 and I am lazy and knackered), so the only way to get her back to sleep in the night without feeding is to pace up and down the room with her. Works ok at 1am but she can be up for hours at 3-4am so I sometimes feed her in despair. Even that doesn't always work.

Anyway... I'm not helping am I?! Does he settle himself to sleep at bedtime? If not that is probably a good place to start. If that doesn't help, I agree with IsItMeOr. Pick a long weekend, accept you are going to be knackered, and do your utmost to get him back down without a feed, even if it takes hours or he ends up in bed with you. I think this is s l o w l y starting to work for us.

Clearly though I am rubbish at this, so will keep checking in for wiser people's advice!

LiegeandLief - sounds like you have it tough too!

I would definitely recommend giving the stretching gaps between feeds a try. It gives you a goal to aim for, without expecting your DC to actually fall asleep. With as many feeds as the OP is giving, it would only be a few nights before she had dropped a feed altogether.

hello!

no advice to offer, but another cry for help - sorry!!
our dd is 13 months now and we are struggling to drop the night feeds adn wean

previously she would go to sleep about 7.30, wake a couple of times but be easily comforted and go back to sleep until about 10.30 at which point we'd go to bed, i'd feed her and she would get in with us and sleep through until about 5, when she'd feed and then dropback to sleep until 7ish.

this was okay! i am working full time and we were all able to cope.

now trying to drop the bfing. slowly, starting with the 11pm feed.

dd is completely unconsolable, and when she eventually settles just wakes up again ten minutes later. for a couple of nights she ended up asleep on me or dh, last night i caved in around 2am and fed her.

we are all knackered and she is upset and unsettled even during the day. it is getting harder to put her to bed.

am happy to keep doing the 5am feed for the interim, but really need to start weaning as travel with work is looming and can't avoid it much longer. also want to stop bf while i'm still enjoying it, before it becomes too much of a chore. dh seems to think we should leave her to scream, i don't want to do that.

am very happy to continue cosleeping but need to drop the bfing, is this possible? will she calm down in a couple of days, should we persevere or give up, and if we give up how long will i end up bfing for??

sorry not a very positive story

pud