10 1/2 month old waking every three hours at night - hunger or habit?

[Emma918]

Hi,

DS (10 1/2 months) eats three good-sized meals plus snacks during the day, plus breastfeeds at least fours times a day.

He's never been a great sleeper but during the last week has been going to sleep around 9pm, waking at midnight, 3am and 5am screaming and only way I can settle him is with a breastfeed.

My gut feeling is that he's got used to being breastfed to sleep and that's the only thing he'll settle for in the night. But is it possible he's genuinely hungry? He seems to feed well from the breast and I'm fairly sure there's enough milk there for him, plus the extra feeds in the night must be filing him up even more, but how do I tell if my breastmilk isn't enough?

Please help!

I used to give my DS a rusk with his usual milk for bed time, it filled nim enough to get him to sleep through and once he didnt need it he started just refusing it.

hard to tell, I'm in a similar situation. DD wakes very often at night and I'm so used to it that I just feed her. Recently I've noticed she's drinking less during the night (and the nappies are the evidence) so I'm wishful thinking that she'll grow out of it.

At this age they are getting so active that probably it's worth feeding them at every opportunity, otherwise they might lose weight.

I don't know the answer, and think each is individual, but just to let you know my experience with exactly the same question in my 7 month old who was waking once or twice and I was feeding. I did also feel it could just be habit although back of mind wondered if was hunger. I kept doing as it was very quick and easy to settle him back to sleep and couldn't face the effort to change it but I was getting worried it was getting to be the only way he went back sleep if awake in night.

So last Friday I decided to experiment and try stop overnight feeds. I gave dreamfeed still at around 10ish. I had 2 awful nights up for couple hours and I felt awful and questioned whether right thing to do- posted a question on here in sleep section on it-.

I had decided based on those replies to then just still feed but try and just shorten the time rather than cold turkey approach (but never left to cry, I was always there trying to help him settle). i then had 2 miraculous nights of good sleep to 5, one bad night again (with less fuss though) and last night a great night to 6 and he re-settled self at 2 before I was even up (so within about 5 mins). I'm happy to feed him at anything from 5am onwards.

So i now feel pretty convinced for my son that it was just his way of settling and not hunger and I'm going to try and keep it up. He does eat a much better breakfast now too.

Let us know what you do.

Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

I'm still feeding him lots in the night, despite him eating huge amount in day and bf'ing a lot too...

So tonight will try feeding for shorter time as you suggest - will let you know how it goes!

i think he is waking for comfort and has just got used to it

suggest cold turkey or offer watre, or get dh/dp if there is one to try and settle

as you are BF your child will smell and want your milk

normal teething? gums hardening?