Hellobee Boards

I would get a new doctor, honestly, if mine tried to push me to night wean that early. My children were never ready before a year, but that's a little on the late side. If your child is waking and eating large amounts, they need it. 4 months is way too young.

My guy is just 12 weeks so I'm not where you are and have less experience.... but could he be reverse cycling? http://kellymom.com/bf/normal/reverse-cycling/ That wouldn't solve your issues but it would explain them, rather than just figuring he's just distractible or whatever. KWIM?

I'd get a LC's (you know, the super certified kind...lots more letters) opinion. Seems like they would advocate for a slower, baby-led approach where he doesn't get his world rocked so much, especially if he's reverse cycling to get more time nursing with you.

Following... almost same situation but LO is 8 months. My pedi said the same thing about him learning to eat enough during the day, but suggested a more gentle weaning to cut him down to 1x/night. There is a method I need to look up in one of my books tomorrow about gradually cutting down his time on each boob in the MOTN but I'm not sure about bottle feeds? I'll report back. It's 2:30am and DH have been up for 30 min trying to get him back to sleep without a boob and I gave in (DH can soothe him but he won't let him leave the room without screaming bloody murder and at this point I really just need the sleep).

At the very least i can offer commiseration and hugs!

Let me know how this goes! Our ped gave the same advice. Except my girl (also big at 90th) is waking up 3-5x on average and has no ability to self soothe. She is clearly comfort nursing at night though. She eats 16 ounces at daycare and nurses another 4x so I estimate she is getting 30 ounces during the day. I can't live like this and it's negatively impacting her daycare routine. She doesn't nap well.

ETA: we have tried gentler approaches to cure sleep associations to no avail.

What about a gentler middle ground where younpick a time that you won't feed him before- like you know he doesn't NEED to eat at midnight, so you don't go in and feed him before, say, 2:30. If he really cries earlier than that have your husband try to sooth him (but letting him fuss first like tonight to see if he would fall asleep on his own). Then you could gradually move it back to actual wake up time.

I tried the thing where you cut back on the number of minutes you nurse during a session and it did not work with my stubborn first daughter at all. She just fussed and yelled and cried until I gave in an hour later (with or without me or dh comforting her). I eventually gave up and kept feeding her once a night until she dropped it on her own at 9 months but that is not for everyone. And she's still not a rest sleeper so not sure I should be offering advice anyway.

One key thing though was if I was planning to. Rise, I could not be the one to go in and sooth her. If I went in she wanted milk and nothing else. DH always had better luck soothing without nursing so once we did drop the feeding, he took over the one off wake ups for a while.

@Foodnerd81: That would be my suggestion as well, especially since he soothed himself back to sleep after a few minutes a couple of times. Decide that you're going to try to get him down to one meal in the night and it won't be before 2am.

@LCTBQE: that is really tough
I think at 4.5 months he would probably legit hungry, even if he did eat more during the day. Babies have such small tummies and breastmilk is digested so quickly!! I'm probably not a good person to give advice because neither of my kids STTN until they were 12 months and I felt they were actually hungry/needed to feed until then. They weren't developmentally ready to do so before then.

The 4m sleep regression is no joke!!

It's really interesting reading on here about pediatrician's advice to sleep train etc. It's SO different here (Canada) because at least in my province, only babies with health issues see a pediatrician (others just see a family doctor) but I've never heard of a pediatrician here give sleep advice. It's just not a thing they do here. They're not experts on sleep after all!

Anyways I hope you figure something out. Sleep deprivation is terrible!!

A few babies are able to sleep through without nursing at 4 months - most are not. And assuming that most are able to based on the few that are is really false. I think that sleep training to drop night feedings is mostly pointless before about 8 months, and even then, many babies won't be ready until closer to a year. Sometimes it will even work for a while, but then they'll go through a growth spurt and just need to eat more. Babies need to eat, they often get into reverse cycles, and there just isn't that much you can do about it.

I was able to night wean my second baby for about a month at 8 months, but it didn't stick. She wasn't ready until 13 months, which is the same as my first. 4.5 months is just way, way, WAY too early for almost every baby. A baby eating a ton of food overnight is just not, not, not ready to stop.

@mrswin: That was going to be my suggestion too! Try to feed during the day in a boring room!

I am not able to do CIO so if it were my babe I would try to feed as much as possible to see if that helps but wouldnt cut back at night! 12 weeks to me is tiny, and I wouldn't be able to hold out food, if he seemed hungry!

im having the EXACT same problem with DS #2 who is 7 months and his ped has actually been telling me to let him cio since he was 4 months too! I actually think the problem is getting worse too as he is finishing 3 8oz bottles during the night (bedtime, midnight and 4am) and eating less during the day. We'be been hesitant to CIO because we both work and don't want to deal with him waking up DS #1, but it seems like instead of learning to sleep at night he's learning to eat all his food instead! He's teething pretty bad and just got over the stomach flu so might have to wait a bit longer but cio is on our minds!

What about a dream feed? Stick to usual bedtime, feeding numbers, and CIO, but dream feed before you go to bed at like 10:30pm. It should extend the baby's sleep a bit longer. We did dream feeds with both of our kids to great success.

@LCTBQE: I'm late to the party and haven't read everything. But I'll go against the grain from the first string of responses and say it's totally 100% fine to get rid of night feedings at that age. Our ped recommended the same thing at our 4 month well visit. I took that advice and ran with it! Even though he was over 12 weeks I used "12 Hours by 12 Weeks" as my foundation. He is now 2years+ and has been sttn since 4.5-5 months. No. Regrets. At. All. He's well rested. He's happy. I'm well rested. I'm happy. The end.

Same as your doc said - it was 3 nights of some crying but it got significantly better each night and suddenly like a miracle he just did 7pm - 7am on the 4th or so night.

Most pediatricians and sleep consultants will say that it's a perfectly acceptable age to drop night feeding and sleep train (assuming all health checkboxes are checked). I've always taken my advice from professionals over strangers on the interweb. Your pediatrician isn't going to tell you to do anything that blatantly harms your child. What does he/she have to gain by lying and saying it's time to drop the feedings? Nothing! It sounds like they recognize that it's not necessary any longer and that MOMS NEED SLEEP TOO!

And fwiw, my son didn't hate me in the morning or hold a grudge. He was just as happy to see me after a couple hours of night time CIO as any other night when I had fed him.

Do what you feel is right for you. Yes, of course we all want to take care of our babies. But we gotsta take care of ourselves too, dammit. Sleep is a necessity, not luxury.

ETA: I wrote all of this before I even saw your shout out to me. Ha! I got you, girl

@LCTBQE: yeah it's breaking me slowly. 4-5x has become average. She goes down quickly after but it's miserable. And yes I've been back to work since mid Nov. I plan to do Ferber. I am reading his book this week. We are on vacation and we will start it when we get back. Until the week before Christmas she only woke once maybe twice on a rare occasion. Since she was born!!! The four month sleep regression hit us in a major way. And it hasn't passed.

We have tried the one arm out thing. She just wakes even more frequently.