Breastfeeding
Banana_Pancakes09
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At what age do BF babies stop needing night feedings?
Banana_Pancakes09
member
LO used to be a great sleeper until about 3 1/2 months. Before then LO would get up once a night to eat. Now at almost 5 months LO wakes up every 1-2 hours, not necessarily needing to eat every time. At what age is it common for BF babies to not need night feedings? We are thinking about starting some sleep training (Ferber, not CIO) this weekend and will still keep 1-2 night time feedings to start with. I am not sure at what age they stop needing to eat at night. LO has STTN one time....I am looking forward to that happening again!
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Re: At what age do BF babies stop needing night feedings?
DS was the same way and everything went downhill at 4 months when he got a cold. We got back on track by month 5, then he hit the 6 month growth spurt and was back to every 2 hours again for a bit.
Not sure if this is helpful or not but LO still has at least 1 night feeding (around 2:30 am). Sometimes he wakes at 10:30 too but not always. But he is in our bed so I don't know if that makes a difference. And then he likes to snack from 4 on until it is time to get up.
Good luck, isn't it just the pitts when you aren't all hopped up on those post birth hormones anymore? When LO was a newborn it wasn't so bad being up as much and he was sleeping great.
Hopefully your LO starts to sleep longer!
RESULTS: The tryptophan in the breast milk presented a circadian rhythm with acrophase at around 03:00. This affected the 6-sulfatoxymelatonin circadian rhythm with acrophase at 06:00 in the breast-fed infants, and also promoted nocturnal sleep. Assumed sleep, actual sleep, and sleep efficiency were significantly increased in the breast fed infants with respect the formula fed infants.Most sleep literature seems to assume children don't want to sleep - that they will manipulate (not that they're capable) vomit, "tantrum", anything to avoid sleeping. What's this assumption based on? What if actually human infants, just like that Ape really do want to sleep, but find it is disturbed by everything from developmental bursts to teething to being separated from mum? What if instead of "waking for the breast", they actually just wake and the breast is the perfect soothing tool they turn to?
The best kept parenting secret you won't find in any guru's book (because it doesn't make any money - people buy into sleep solving solutions) is that all infants will outgrow this need in their own time, without any "training"! Ultimately early security and responsiveness result in - guess what? Healthy sleep habits! Not for a week or a few months, but for a lifetime...
Little Rose is 2 1/2.
Good info, thanks!
OP, my 14.5 month old still doesn't STTN. She is usually up 2-3 times, sometimes more. I won't do CIO, it just doesn't feel right to me. Even something like Ferber just doesn't feel right. I still nurse her to sleep and if she really needs it to go back to sleep at night. I just try to remember that these years go by so quickly and that a little sleep deprivation won't kill me
*gulp* I may be totally jinxing myself BUT
DD has been sttn from 7pm to 4-6am (depending on teething, etc) since 6 weeks. We regressed a little over the 4mo wakeful and she just got her bottom teeth.
If she wakes up at night, I evaluate through the monitor. If she's talking/cooing, I leave her be. If she's fussing and its before 4, I send the husband in for a diaper change. If its after 4, its me. This seems to work. If he changes her and puts her back in the crib, she will fuss for another minute and then is out like a light. But all of this is dependent on her getting enough BM during the day. We have one long nursing in the morning, 3 4.5 to 5.5 oz bottles of BM at DC and then a long nursing at 6pm, bed by 7pm unless its bath night, then we might run late.
So far, so good. Only one supply issue lately but I'm getting over a bad cold and I'm pretty rundown.
This is absolutely perfect