As we all get closer to the 6 month mark, I'm curious... How often are you guys having to nurse at night? My DS slept through the night for several weeks before hitting the 4 month mark, and at this point he stopped STTN and hasn't looked back. His sleep situation has gotten worse more recently. Putting him down at night used to take about 20 minutes, and now he is waking multiple times early on and needing to be soothed back to sleep, all within the first 1.5 hours he's in his crib. He usually nurses to sleep.
If your LO is still waking up to nurse, have you given any thought to sleep training of any sort? I'm overwhelmed by all the info and advice out there.
Re: Nursing at night
It varies very greatly from 0 times to 5 times depending on what's going on with him. I have always nursed him to sleep and he spontaneously started STTN without me doing anything different. He's about 50/50 STTN and up for one MOTN feeding at this point with the occasional rough night up every 1-2 hours.
DS goes to sleep at bedtime pretty easily and falls asleep after nursing at night with no problems. I read on one of the boards here today (I think the 6-9 month) that sleep training is about teaching babies self soothing techniques so they can fall asleep easily, not about STAYING asleep all night every night. I agree with that... with so much growing and development it's silly to expect them to STTN every night so soon.
I've never had trouble putting him to sleep. If I was I would probably read up on a sleep training method, but as it is I just do what works for us. A lot of people swear by the various methods, I just think some people unrealistically expect them to be some STTN magic cure.
"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." - Eleanor Roosevelt
We started sleep training. I only offer once at her 1230-130 wakeup, the timing is a little different every day but that's about the halfway point of the night. The rest of the times I give her a pacifier and let her cry a bit - we're sort of doing Ferber so I check in on her occasionally.
Nursing her woud be easier but I really can't keep waking up every 2 hours so we started training her to go back to bed on her own.
I am still nursing to slep. Some nights it works and she STTN. However, it seems that her new thing is waking up less than and hour after fallin asleep. When she does this, I sit next to her crib and pat her tummy if she cries. I also have the white music on. If she screams, I pick her up until she calms down then I put her down again.
It is kinda of like the. Sleep Lady Shuffle idea but for now if she falls asleep while nursing I just put her in the crib because some nights she does stay asleep.
I tried putting less in her bottles to try and wean her from this feeding. She just ended up getting up sooner to eat again.
I'm so glad you posted about this, I've been wondering the same thing!
DS was sleeping through the night until about 4.5 or 5 months, and now he wakes up once a night to feed (sometimes twice, but usually just once around 3:00). At his 6 month appointment, his pediatrician said that as we introduce solids we can start phasing out the nighttime feeding.
He goes to bed really easily now (after about a week of some modified Ferber), so now I guess we'll just work on that nighttime feeding! He usually goes to sleep around 8:00, so I try to feed him at 7:30, then jammies and diaper (I don't let him nurse to sleep, otherwise it's a challnege for us). Everything I've read seems to say that babies at this age can and should sleep 10-12 hours wihtout a feeding.
Good luck, hope you find some good advice that works for you -- I'm curious to read everyone else's answers too! :-)
My guy has never sttn... He mostly nurses to sleep, but not always... and there is no pattern change on the nights he does or doesn't...
He is up 2-4 times, eats and goes right back to sleep... I have tried pacifier, walking, back patting, etc and none will do- he wants to eat !! I agree with pedi/others that he has the ABILITY to go longer without eating, however he does not have the DESIRE ... shockingly, he's a chunker ... lol
We still are getting up at least once on a good night, usually 2-3 times. I will try a pacifier and letting him fuss a bit to see if he's actually hungry. If he is hungry I'll just nurse him right back asleep.
We don't plan on sleep training. He goes down really well for his naps, they are no trouble at all. I don't know what it is about bed time but he fights it so hard, so I 9 times out of 10 just end up nursing him to sleep.
This sounds like us... If I could get our bedtime routine smoother and a little less lengthy, I'd be fine with waking up to nurse 1 time. But the 2 times (or more) is just really rough. I feel like a zombie at work. I don't know what the right answer is but it's really nice to hear others' experiences.
Thanks everyone for all the responses.
This is exactly what I do! I try to wait before I even offer the paci. If that doesn't work then I breastfeed.