So ll still wakes every night to eat. I dont think it is habitual, because it is a different time every night. He is almost 8 months old....is this normal? When does this end? I would be ok with sleep training if i thought it would help...but he doesnt need to be trained i dont think. He goes to sleep on his own, and only wakes when hungry. Dream feeds are disasterous for us...once we wake him up his sleep is disrupted for the rest of the night and he doesnt sleep more than 2-3 hours at a time. Thoughts? Ideas? Am i ever going to sleep again?
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I JUST weaned Xander (8 months) of his 9:00 p.m. dreamfeed this weekend, so now he's sleeping 7:30 to 5:30 without eating.
But if you're nursing, it's totally normal for them to wake up in the middle of the night to eat. I think it probably depends on how much your boobs can store and how much your baby eats at a time. Do you have any idea how much he eats usually? If he normally only eats a few ounces at a time, he may continue to need those night feedings to get his daily quota for the day. Unfortunately.
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We stopped feeding LO at night around 11.5 months...! I was pretty in favor of letting him drop the feed when he was ready, and at that time he started sleeping from 730 to 5, and then from 5-630. So I started letting him fuss a bit at 5, and he went back to sleep. Now, he might wake up at fuss at 2 or 3 or 5, but he'll go back to sleep, and I try really really hard not to feed him/go get him for the day until 6.
I could have sleep trained to get rid of the feed, since I think he was ready to drop it earlier, but honestly I was too chicken to sleep train again after doing it at 6.5 months. I think around 9 months most babies no longer NEED to eat at night.
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Both of my kids woke to eat until they started STTN at 12 months - so no answers, just sympathy =(
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It was around 8 weeks when they stopped waking up to eat.
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@Adira: i am pumping and giving bottles, with a little formula as needed...he has always eaten 24-26 oz per day, but he is now refusing food during the day and making up for it at night.
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She started at 4 month going till 5. Then it moved earlier and earlier, and she was back to eating 2-3 times a night. We sleep trained again at 6 months, and she now goes 645:7-6/630.
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@Mrs. Lion: is he very distracted while he eats? Around that age my LO would only eat in a dark, quiet room, otherwise he was looking around everywhere.
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@autumnlove: do you have a time-specific schedule?
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@Mrs. Lion: Okay, that's good to know. So my comment about how much your boobs can store at a time doesn't matter. How much does he usually eat in a bottle? I'm not really sure what to do about the fact he's eating more at night instead of during the day... how his day sleep looking??
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I agree with @hilsy85: about being distracted. I can only feed Xander in his nursery with nothing to distract him! Otherwise he'll just not eat!!
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@hilsy85: I'm not sure if it is distraction...we used to be able to feed him on a schedule when i knew he would be getting hungry (about every 4hours) but now at the 4 hour mark he pushes the bottle away and wont even start. I will usually give it another 30 minutes and then try again. When he does eat, he is usually fine, although he is only eating 4.5-5 oz instead of his typical 6-7oz. He used to take 8.5 at bedtime, but now wont take more than 5.5.
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We are doing blw, so i know solids can affect intake eventually...but i wouldn't think he would be getting enough to drop that much bm all of a sudden. I have tried the dark quiet room and it doesn't help
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Night feeds were dropped intermittently just shy of 5 months....and she's now almost 7 months old and we haven't fed her since she was a week shy of 6 months old. We tank her up bigtime before bed, though.
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@Mrs. Lion: he dropped it on his own right around 9 months. I still feed him if he wakes randomly. He was like your LO, the time was never the same and e went right back down after genuinely eating. He has never been a big day nurser, too much to do and see!
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@Mrs. Lion: When are you feeding him solids? Is it after the bottle or before? Maybe the timing of the solids is affecting his intake?
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@Mrs. Lion: I started a night routine around that time....bath around 6:30, PJs & lotion and then I would nurse to sleep in my bed before I moved her into the PNP in my room. She wasn't (still isn't) a good napper...even when she was a little baby.
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@Adira: he has his bottle first thing when waking (if he will take it) and then solids after. He has solids again around 5pm, and his last bottle at 7ish.
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@Mrs. Lion: Hmm... I'm not sure!!! It sounds like you're doing everything right and your baby just refuses to cooperate!! Maybe nap during the day when he naps since he refuses to let you get some decent night sleep???
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@Adira: sigh...if only....daytime naps make me feel 1000 times worse. Ah well, someday we shall sleep again! Thanks for the help!
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@blackbird: How do you tank up your LO?? I tried doing this and DS just seems uninterested. If we nurse, he's a super lazy eater and falls asleep while nursing, but if I unlatch, he's wide awake. *face palm*
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@Mrs. Lion: How often do you offer him a bottle? Maybe you could just try offering it more often during the day and even if he doesn't drink a lot, if he drinks a little more often, maybe he'll get more in during the day? How much total do you think he's getting during the day?
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@Alivoo01: FWIW my baby would never "tank up" no matter how hard I tried. He ate when he was hungry and not a minute sooner
a dream feed worked for a little while then I got tired of pumping.
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@scg00387: I always hear about dream feeding. What is that??
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@Alivoo01: Giving them a bottle or nursing when they're still asleep. So, LO would go do for bed at 7 & we'd sneak in and give him a bottle around 10 so he'd sleep through until 5 or 6. It worked for a while, then it didn't and I was sick of pumping. Every baby is different, so it's worth a try!
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@ali--well she's bottle fed so we just keep offering it to her. Sometimes she flat out refuses to drink more, but sometimes we can hide it for a half hour, then re-offer it, and she'll take a few sips. I figure every little bit counts. We just offer it often from 5pm-7:30pm
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@scg00387: Interesting!!! They open their mouths and swallow while dream feeding???? I'll have to look into this!
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11 weeks, he night weaned himself, he was around 12 lbs! and he was a champ nurser taking in six oz+ during the 6 or so feedings throughout the day~
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6 weeks. She started sleeping longer and longer stretches, and once we started up a bedtime routine (bath, swaddle, nurse to drowsy) she slept 9+ hours. Once we moved her into her own room it stretched out to 10-11.
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I night weaned at 9 months so she would go from 7pm-5:30am. But then at around 12 months she wouldn't go back down after the morning nursing session so it was a good struggle to extend her wake up time to 6-6:30am.
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My LO stopped needing a middle of the night feed at 6 weeks. Now, we just give him a bottle right before bed and he sleeps from about 7 or 8ish to about 7ish.
Like @Bookish: having the routine really helped as did moving him to his own room. -
LO is 6 weeks and hasn't had a MOTN feeding since 3 weeks when she started doing 7 hour stretches. She now does 9 hours, so we start her routine at 10pm, put her down for 11pm and she's up at 8am. We bottle feed though, and when we moved her to her own room is when sleep really got better for everyone !
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@Adira: i will try that! Cant hurt to try
how did you night wean? CIO or gradually decreasing or another way?
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@Mrs. Lion: When we were weaning his MOTN wakeups, I'd actually pop a pacifier in his mouth as soon as he started to stir and he'd usually settle back to sleep.
But to drop the 9:00 dreamfeed (which usually woke him up and wasn't a dreamfeed), I just stopped doing it! He woke up a few times, and one night I had to just hold him until he settled back down, and then last night he was able to settle himself back to sleep on his own.
Does your LO take a pacifier? You could try giving him that instead of a bottle and if he gets used to not eating, maybe he'll just start not waking up for it.
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I still do a dream feed at 10ish and he's 9 1/2 months. He STTN from 7:30 to about 7:30. I think I'm waiting until he doesn't seem to want this feeding but he still takes a good 4 ounces which is a full bottle for him.
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@adria, yes to the pacifier. When he wakes between 2 and 3 i can give him the paci and he will usually go back to sleep, but then he continues waking up every 30 minutes until i feed him
another reason i think he still needs the feeding...if i feed him right away at least i get to sleep until 6 -
@Mrs. Lion: Well... unless you can get him to get those ounces in during the day, you might be stuck having to feed him! I think I'm out of ideas!
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My lo still has one or two night feeds at twelve months old but she's also cutting eight teeth at the moment!
Fwiw there's a tonne of developmental stuff going on between six and twelve months (language, teeth, crawling, walking etc) so it's not abnormal that LO needs the extra calories to keep up with all the development.
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Around 6-8 weeks. Very lucky that he made that decision on his own!
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My 18-month old still gets a MOTN feeding. I'm a sucker.
a dream feed worked for a little while then I got tired of pumping.
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