7.5 month old breastfed baby up every 1-2 hours at night - DESPERATE!!!

MTS13

Oh joy, another post about sleep! I tried to looks through past posts but didn't see anything that quite helped. Here's what's going on at my house…

My DD (7.5 months old EBF & just added a third solid food meal per day) goes down for all naps and bedtime on her own with the routine I have in place. I foolishly thought that if she could fall asleep on her own, she could go BACK to sleep on her own after waking. So, so wrong. She goes down for the night at 7 and is usually up for the first time at 10, then 12… and so on like that every 1-2 hours. I generally nurse her every time out of pure exhaustion and hope that she might sleep a little longer. 

I am ok with crying it out, but I just want to make sure she's not really hungry! I'd be totally fine with feeding her once or twice a night, too, but how does that work with CIO? Ferber's book doesn't offer much help on this… Any input is so appreciated!! I want to give my daughter the gift of sleep (and me, too!)

LimaD

That can be tough, since the key with sleep training is consistency.  If you only feed her once or twice when she's waking up several times, it will probably confuse her and she won't know what to expect.
When you have been feeding her, is she eating like she is truly hungry? Or is she nursing just long enough to fall back to sleep?

Speshul

Page 141 Ferber's book(kindle edition) says if the feedings are necessary slowly increase the times between feedings.

Try www.troublesometots.com They have a lot of info on feeding and sleep training.

Speshul

Night weaning for breast fed babies
https://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/

pkaren

I did a form of CIO with my DD. I used the sleep easy solution. It says to not respond to crying with feeding, but you do verbal reassurances. I give DD a dream feed before I go to bed, then I would set my alarm for 3AM and do another dream feed. If she wakes up before her dream feed,  I wait for her to fall back asleep before I do, so she's not getting rewarded with feeding by crying.  And the dream feeds ensure me that she's not hungry. I set my timer for 15 min, during the 3AM feed then put her back down. To wean from the MOTN DF,  the book says to decrease the feeding by two min every night.  That's for BFing.  If you FF you decrease the amount of oz. 

MTS13

Thank you so much for the great advice, everyone. 

LimaD - that's why I was so confused as to what to do!! I know consistency is key so only feeding her a couple of the times she wakes must be confusing to her!

Spechul - Thank you for that amazing website! Wow. 

Pkaren - your approach is what I am going to try tonight. It really makes sense. Will totally eliminate the crying=milk reward (sometimes) system I had going on. 

Wish me luck!!