My baby is almost 4 months old and typically gets up once (sometimes twice) to nurse in the MOTN. Since he doesn't have a habit of waking up often, I am pretty sure that when he does wake up, it's because he's hungry. Should I still be waiting 5-10 minutes to go in, once I hear him stirring, or should I just get up and go in right away? WWYD?
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I've been looking into this as well. Weissbluth's HSHHC says that you don't really need to do anything about the MOTN wake ups, they will gradually eliminate them on their own so just do what is easiest for you. So you aren't causing any long term bad habits if you just go right away, but if you suspect that after a few minutes he'll fall back asleep then it might best to wait and see if he'll just resettle. For the record, I've tried to wait up to a minute or two and he doesn't seem to calm down so I just go. I just don't have it in me to really time/evaluate at 2 am. But I used to jump up at the first peep and now I wait until he is affirmatively awake and yelling to go. Which I think has eliminated a number of times I would have gone, but didn't end up needing to.
All that is a long way to say, maybe try waiting 5 or 10 minutes a time or two and see if he settles. If he doesn't then don't bother and just go, but maybe he'll show you he falls back asleep at X interval.
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I think it's a bit of trial and error to see what your LO does/needs. My LO used to wake up quite a bit but go back to sleep on her own. If I heard her up I'd just roll over and go back to sleep and only get up if she cried because at that point I knew she needed me. Now (4 mo regression hell) if she is awake there is 0 chance she is going to sleep on her own and the longer I wait the more upset she is and the harder it is to get her back down, so I hop up immediately. As to feed or not, when I get up with her I rock her a minute and if she falls right back to sleep, great. If she doesn't I assume she is hungry.
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After we made it through 4 month sleep regression and terrible jet lag, we're back down to 1 wakeup a night at 6 months. I usually go to him when I hear him stir because at that point he's usually gone about 8 or 10 hours without food, and he's a bit underweight. Plus, if I get to him before he cries he will usually do more of a dream feed and be much easier to put back down when I'm done. He does a full feed of both boobs as well every night, so I'm pretty sure he's hungry. I think it comes down to what you are comfortable with. If my son started to do lazy feeds or pushed his wake ups later and later i'd probably wait it out instead of running to him.
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I used to wait for real cries vs. just talking, rolling over. Any real cries and it was eating time
my ped told me around 6 months that he didn't need to eat at night any more, but I'm fairly positive that until close to 12 months he still actually needed one mon feeding. Shortly after his birthday we night weaned and he was ready, but i had tried decreasing amounts before and he always wanted more.
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I always waited until I was 100% sure DD was awake and wanted food before getting her up to eat.
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@Little Misters Mom: I am the same way; I get restless waiting around for 5 minutes, let alone 10 (I read somewhere that 10 minutes is how long you "should" wait, but it didn't say under what circumstance...)! So I end up waiting about 3-4 minutes usually, and at that point I'm just wanting to get it done so I can go back to sleep!
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What? 10 minutes holy cow. That is a low number of wakes for that age IMO and if he seems genuinely hungry he probably is. I always kept the monitor low so I only heard him if he was crying not chattering, and went in immediately. He dropped night feed on his own at 9 months.
my ped told me around 6 months that he didn't need to eat at night any more, but I'm fairly positive that until close to 12 months he still actually needed one mon feeding. Shortly after his birthday we night weaned and he was ready, but i had tried decreasing amounts before and he always wanted more.
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