Opinions re: sleep training and night feedings
I'm planning to do nighttime CIO this weekend. I had hoped Liam would start sleeping better during the night after he mastered putting himself down at bedtime (raceyrae I am so jealous!) but he is still up 2-4 times a night. So, we are planning to do CIO with Ferber's increasing intervals for checking him. Promises to be a couple of looong nights for me 
But, I can't decide for sure what to do about night feedings. Liam's been nursed an average of 2 times a night since birth. He has never STTN. I don't want to cut him off cold turkey (even Ferber says this is harsh on a baby) but I'm afraid if I pick him up to nurse sometimes and not others, it will be confusing and inconsistent for him.
Thought? Suggestions?
One thing I am debating is going in before his usual wake time and do a "dream feed", then do Ferber intervals every time he wakes crying. Then once he is STTN, I could drop the dream feed, and feed him once a night if he needed it and hope he would drop that on his own.
Help! I really want this to go as quickly and painlessly for as possible for all of us.
Re: Opinions re: sleep training and night feedings
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When does he usually wake up to eat?
I would think at his age that he should be able to go all night without eating or at least only eat once.
Do you think you can just try to cut out the one feeding and then only do the other one?
Do you think he is just waking up out of habit to eat and then is using nursing as a sleep association to get back to sleep and maybe he doesn't need to eat at all?
My Sweet Girls
About 5 times a day plus his nighttime bottle. He nurses about 5-8 minutes but he's a quick nurser. He usually always goes right back to sleep, but in the past few weeks sometimes he will wake after I put him down and cry.
He's all over the board with it but lately about 12:30 he wakes for the first time. I can tell by the 2nd and 3rd time he wakes that he's not really hungry but just thinks he needs me to get back to sleep.
Two methods I considered before Natalie dropped her night wakings (sorry?
):
1. ?You can try night weening. ?If he typically gets up at 12:30 p.m., get him up at 12 or 11:30 to nurse say for 8 min (if that's his normal amount of time). ?Then the next night, you get him up at the same time again, but only nurse him for 6 min. etc. until he's down to 0 min. ?I believe Sleep Easy Solutions says to then do CIO intervals after your 6 ,8 min, etc. if he starts crying when you put him back in the crib. ?Once you reach 0 min, he shouldn't be waking up at that time.
2. ?Set a minimum time at which he should be able to go without nursing -- say he can go 5 hr. ?If he goes to bed at 8 p.m. and wakes before 1 a.m. (5 hour window), then you do CIO intervals. ?He either falls asleep or you reach 1 a.m. and nurse him. ?The next night you move the minimum nursing time to 1:30 a.m. and so forth until he either stops getting up or you reach a morning feeding time that you think makes sense for him (say you think he still needs to nurse once a night at 4 a.m.).?
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