My daughter is nearly 6 months old and is currently waking up about every 3 hours. She reliably slept through the night 10-12 hours uninterrupted from about 2.5-4 months, and back then she would nurse for about 45-60 minutes and then be passed out for the night. Things are different now- no more swaddle, she sleeps in her crib rather than pack and play in our room, and now she turns over and sleeps on her belly. When she wakes up MOTN, she'll BF pretty hungrily and my guess is she takes about 3 oz each time. If I dream feed that does delay the first wakeup. Is there any hope of night weaning and getting her to once again sleep through the night? Can I convince her to eat more at bedtime in the hopes of eliminating nighttime wakeups? (maybe a bottle of BM rather than nursing?). Any thoughts or advice? Will the impending introduction of solid foods have any impact? I'd like to avoid CIO but if it will truly work and is the only/best option, we'll consider it...since she truly seems hungry though I have serious doubts about it.
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You can try reducing the amount of time that you allow her to nurse at each night wake up and is possible that she might jut stop waking for it (altho this never worked for us lol). We ended up pushing back the first feed by doing CIO with checks.
Is she a distracted nurser during the day? Can you top her off with a bedtime bottle of milk? Some night wakeup a are normal at that age tho unfortunately!
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I would start to cut down on the time that she nurses at night. So if it is 5 mins on each side, do 4 mins for 3-4 nights, then 3 mins, etc. Have you tried just giving a pacifier? If she was STTN, but not now, is it cause she is eating less during the day?
Solids didn't help my LO STTN.
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@danda: we had good luck with no cry sleep solution for him to put himself to sleep - is she nursing to sleep? that might be the first step to fewer wake ups.
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@scg00387: @Smurfette: She does nurse to sleep but I'm trying to stop it as a first step. I'm able to nurse her and then take her off once active swallowing has stopped but she'll start crying as soon as I lay her down. She'll also cry if I bounce/jiggle/rock her and then put her down. If I let her nurse to sleep she goes down without a problem 9 times out of 10.
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Is she still nursing for 45-60 minutes in the middle of the night? Do you nurse right before bed time? That sounds like a long time to be nursing at that age unless she's falling asleep on the boob. I think solids would help but she could also be used to waking up to nurse? What I did which I'm sure all moms would consider a no no is to wake my boys up to nurse at 4am b/c I didn't want to pump. Luckily neither of them had trouble falling back asleep afterwards. I would do it quick... wake up to do a quick diaper change and then nurse for 20 minutes and then back down into the crib. I use dim lighting so not to completely wake him up. There were crying maybe a couple of times with each boy but I just watched over the video monitor instead of going in and he would settle down within a minute.
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I'm in a similar boat. C used to reliably sleep for one 5-6 hour stretch, eat, then sleep until morning, but that first stretch is getting shorter and shorter. She really seems hungry so I feel like she needs to eat more during the day but I don't know how to make her.
I do think stopping nursing to sleep could help- for us we needed to because 1- she was waking up more than half the time when I transfered to the crib anyway, and 2- she would stir in the night and freak out waking not in my arms. I'd love to cut out te motn feedings but I think I just need to give it a little more time (she is under 5 months)
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@danda: I'd try to separate nursing and sleep first. I've never been able to get LO to eat more before bed or during the day so no advice there, just a warning that solids made sleep worse for us for a few weeks as his stomach adjusted.
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@erwoo: I nurse her around 5:30 and 6:30 pm maybe 10 min at 5:30 and 20 min at 6:30 before she passes out on the boob- she takes one side each time and isn't interested in more. She'll often wake when I put her down at bedtime (and I try to wake her a little so I don't put her down asleep) and she moves around a little, rolls over, and goes to sleep without tears within 5-10 min as long as I let her fall asleep while nursing first. For middle of the night, probably 10-20 min of nursing if I let her fall asleep on the boob, less if I don't (as I've been trying the past couple of nights). - but we're up much longer with a cycle of feed/put down/cry/pick up/rock/put down/ cry/pick up/feed....repeat until I give up and let her nurse until she falls asleep.
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@scg00387: So maybe I should keep up with current efforts (remove nursing/sleep association) but don't try for more than that until we've been on solids for a little bit?
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@danda: I would - but if your only issue is that she's waking to nurse. I personally don't see that as a problem at that age. Esp if she's nursing efficiently and falling back asleep on her own. My LO was busy busy during the day and nursed 1x a night 4m-7.5 m , 2x a night 7.5-8.5m when he started really cruising a lot and eating more solids, and then STTN on his own at 9 months. I like not having night weaned so I can nurse him when he is sick or teething miserably without feeling like I've messed anything up. But that's just me! I think the idea that a baby should STTN at a certain age or weight, or doesn't need to eat by a certain parameter, makes no logical sense. Adult people aren't that predictable so I dont think little people are either
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@danda: Sounds like she likes to be nursed to sleep. Maybe it's worth waiting two weeks to try sleep training again. Sometimes two weeks makes a huge difference. Now that I think back... I tried to sleep train my oldest at 5.5 months but he was just not having it so I waited either a week or two and then tried again and it took some time but within two weeks he was fully sleep trained. It took my youngest much less time. So less that I can't even remember much about his sleep training.
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@scg00387: Thanks, that makes perfect sense. I completely agree on the one hand - but then on the other hand I know I'm walking around with some level constant sleep deprivation that does affect my mood and how well I am able to do my job, among other things. So while things are so-so right now, I'm thinking - is it bad enough that I should be trying to fix anything, or just leave as-is?
Thanks everyone for the advice and the food for thought!
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@danda: yeah, I SAH which makes it easier to be sleep deprived. I actually think I got more sleep when he was nursing though because I wasn't tempted to stay up later myself
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