HI! i'm new to this board and i just wanted to hear from other moms on their experience with their babies and sleeping through the night.
I'm exclusively breastfeeding my 4 month old (he does bottles during the day when i work) and he tends to wake up every 3 hours during the night to eat.
i don't mind nursing him in the middle of the night but i'm just wondering if he'll eventually sleep though the night? 
nectarine / 2834 posts
DD is 6 months old and she still wakes once between 4-5am to nurse. She did this most of the time from when she was about 8 weeks old. But I think I was fairly lucky for that. We're starting to wean off of the 4am feed now that she's getting solids.
coconut / 8498 posts
He will. It could be that he's waking more for bonding than hunger. LO has gone back and forth on STTN her entire life. When she was a lot younger (not eating solids yet) we tried to make sure she got most of her calories during the day, and I do think it helped with her sleep. It also meant I was nursing every 1.5-2 hours for at least 6 months.
coconut / 8861 posts
It took us until 6 months or so to get good sleep when he was EBF. We did CIO as a last ditch desperate attempt that worked. Before that, we attended to all of his wakeups. Once we did CIO and dreamfeeds, things normalized dramatically. I would suggest a dreamfeed when you go to bed or at 10-11pm, it could buy you more hours of uninterrupted sleep.
apricot / 349 posts
@tidybee: how do/are you weaning off the 4am feed?
@weagle: i thought maybe it was more for bonding rather than being hungry. we'll give him a few seconds hoping maybe he'll self soothe (he's found his thumb!) but then he'll start to cry and as soon as i put him to the boob, he'll start feeding. how do you ensure she gets most of her calories during the day? right now, DS gets anywhere from 3-4 4oz bottles in a 9 hour period (when i'm away at work). do you think i should increase the amount in his bottles?
@cascademom: do you wake up your baby to dreamfeed? i'm torn about CIO 
nectarine / 2834 posts
Giving DD more during the day (by 1 oz each feeding) like @Weagle: suggested seemed to help. We also don't tend to every wakeup before 3 minutes as she was always a loud sleeper and would cry out in her sleep but wake if we went to her. As far as weaning now...does crossing your fingers and hoping work as a method? I'm trying to give only 1 side but she has always wanted the second side. We only started really trying this week...
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts
I'm going to go against the grain and say that while DS might be an anomaly, he's an EBF baby that night-weaned and sttn on his own at 12 weeks.
We had a hiccup during 4 month regression/teething for a few days, but he went back to sleepin 7-6.
The last week or so, he's been waking up earlier around 5am...so we're trying to stretch it back to 6 right now.
FWIW, DS takes in 5 oz each session feeding 5-6x a day
coconut / 8498 posts
@butterbean: You could add an ounce to each bottle. At 4 months, LO was drinking 5+ oz in her nighttime bottle.
squash / 13764 posts
Is he finishing his daytime bottles? 4 months is a bit point for distractibility during the day, so if he's not eating enough during the day, it could be causing him to be hungrier at night....
Other than that, I have no advice. LO is 6.5 months and EBF and not STTN at all.
pineapple / 12793 posts
LO self night weaned at around 10/11 weeks. Her night session just got shorter and shorter until one night I popped in a paci to see what she'd do. She took it and fell back asleep. The next night at about the same time I checked on her and she was happily sucking her thumb while sleeping.
Have you tried not offering the boob at one of his wakings to see what he does?
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