when to stop night feeds?

[BPrincess]

My little girl is now 6 months and we've been giving her solids three times a day for about a month now and she's doing well with it. So when can we stop night feeds, and how?

Right now she has 2 x 240ml bottles in the day, one more at bed time and another during the night - she usually wakes and feeds two or three times. We're not sure if she's feeding at night because she's hungry, or out of habit, or because this is the only way she knows of getting back to sleep (I'm afraid the only way she goes to sleep is on the bottle or in the buggy, with a dummy). It's all a bit of a mess really, and a tad confusing, I admit, but I'd be really grateful for your thoughts. And if we decided to do controlled crying do you think it would just kill all the birds with the one stone - ie cut night feeds and stop night waking at the same time, as well as teaching her to self settle?

Thanks!

Right I have this exact problem with DD2.

DD1 just stopped feeding at night around 16 weeks. DD2, 6 months and the same as you - feeding up to 3 times a night. She is having 3 pureed meals, she is ff, I can't fit any more food into her in the day. However, she is waking through hunger during the night.

She doesn't need milk to settle, often she doesn't wake properly, she just downs a bottle and stops crying.

If your dd is hungry I don't think cc would work, she will sleep only through exhaustion then. If she is waking and not really taking any milk then it may do.

As you can see I have no idea. I am just praying someone wise will answer your questions and give me some sleep back.

Btw, DD2 teased me by sleeping 11 to 7 for about 3 weeks at 4 months

I want to say the same thing. If you LO is hungry, CC will not help. She might cry to sleep but the wake up again an hour later feeling hungry. FWIW my 8mo needs a feed at night (two if I don't dream feed). I can tell when she's not waking due to hunger. A feed wouldn't put her back to sleep and she wouldn't feed hungrily. Can you tell if you LO feeds hungrily?

I don't know if its just me, but 3 bottles a day doesn't seem a lot for a 6mo? My dd is almost 7months and still on 5 with no signs of dropping one just yet, she also has 3 meals a day.

Maybe try to give her more milk during the day?

They need around 500-600ml of formula a day alongside solids from 6-12 months, so 3 bottles of 240ml would be fine.

I would sort the self-settling and night feeds separately. I would reduce the bottles gradually - maybe keep a dreamfeed at 10/11pm for now but with any other wakings reduce the milk by 50ml a night or something.

Personally I feel CC is quite a harsh way to teach a baby this young to self-settle. Could you try some other methods first? Baby Whisperer has some good tips - ssh-pat and pick-up/put-down worked for us when I stopped feeding ds to sleep.

I agree with Giggidy.

I have a similar experience with my DS2. While DS1 slept through from 3 months old (bliss!), DS2 used to wake up once per night until he was 5 months (ish) old. When I started weaning DS2 onto solids he started to wake up twice or even three times each night. I now upped the milk feeds during the day and again he's waking only once now. I think at that age, especially when starting solids, babies still need as much milk during the day as possible, otherwise they wake up hungry at night.

I haven't tried CC but I think if your baby is hungry it won't really help but make things worse.