Night Weaning

namara5532

DS is EBF and wakes 3-4 times a night.  For the first 5 months, we bedshared and got to eat whenever he wanted to.  He nursed to sleep, but he got to the point where he was suckling in his sleep and would wake up if I unlatched him.  At 5 months old, we crib trained him.  To ease the transition, I fed him whenever he woke.  After a week when he was used to the crib, I stretched feedings to at least every 2 hours (he would often have 3-4 hour stretches anyway).  Now we're waiting at least 3 hours before feeding (although DH caves and brings him to me when DS wakes in the middle of the night and fusses for half an hour to be fed).  I did it this way because I wanted to get him used to the crib before trying to mess with his feeding demands.

I keep reading online that babies his age are capable of going through the night without a feeding.  But he's a very hungry baby and is already 17lbs.  He only gets one meal of solids a day, so I know that's mostly all breastmilk.  I don't know if I should completely cut out night feedings and encourage him to go back to sleep without feeding or if I should wait for him to self-wean at night.  Am I enabling him to need to feed by feeding him when he wakes at night?  Should I accept that for now he's going to feed a few times a night?  Should I try waiting a few minutes when he wakes before going in and feeding him?

I could use advice from those who have LOs who don't need to feed at night or even from those working on this same dillema.  I don't know how I should do this.  I'm not expecting him to STTN yet, but I want to make sure he isn't relying on nursing to get back to sleep.

mrs.larry

oh man i could have written this post. Except for the fact that we are still bed-sharing and he's still waking 4 times a night and 9 times out of 10, he nurses back to sleep. about half the time we both fall asleep with him still latched.

My DS is about 20 pounds at this point and I'm, like you, thinking that his calorie needs might not be met during the day by EBF. He's also getting one meal a day in the evening (in the vain attempt to see if it would help him sleep longer - nope.) added to that, he's super active during the day and starting to reverse cycle  https://kellymom.com/bf/normal/reverse-cycling/ . ugh.

From what I understand, the babies who are weightier are actually *more* capable of sleeping longer than babies who've not yet gained sufficient weight (from what I read, that's about 15 lbs or so). So our thinking might not be right on the subject, even if it's intuitive.

When my 3yo was a baby we used a Ferber/Sleep Easy Solution system to night wean where I nursed him for less and less time each feeding till I was just rocking him, and eventually he slept through (not saying you should or shouldn't sleep train, but the night weaning approach was really gentle and I liked it). 

Definitely give him a chance to settle himself before going in. with my first, there was always this threshold cry, when I heard it, I knew he wasn't going back to sleep on his own. I'd wait through the complaining, and go in at the distress call.

 I'm sorry I can't tell you what we've done that worked with this kid because we haven't yet. **yawn**

Huahine

Another EBF mom here with a baby who is waking several times a night to feed.  We bed shared up until 4.5 months and managed to get him out of our bed from 4.5 to 6.5 months. But for the past week and a half he has managed to get himself back into bed with us. 

He seems to sleep better with us than in his own bed (2-3 night wakings instead of 4-5) and I get a boob in his mouth before he hits full throttle on the scream. I think he is going through a phase of needing mom and dad close, including at night. 

I was so frustrated last week that we tried to let him CIO during naps and when laying him down for the night - that really didn't work for us.  We didn't get longer naps out of him.   Nor did he sleep through the night.  I'd rather spend 30 minutes rocking and soothing him than listening to him cry. 

So no advice here.  Just commiseration.  

Jessiree

Another in the same situation! 

I'm so glad you posted this, but I am feeling so so ALONE in all this. All my friends with babies have been sleeping through the night for a long time, and DH and I are very firm in not wanting to do CIO, but I feel like we are fighting a losing battle. 

We transitioned from co-sleeping to having her in her crib in her own room at 4 months, and she ranges from 1 wake up (those are the glorious nights!) to up to 5 wake ups, but typically she wakes 3 times. We try to soothe her down first before resorting to nursing her back down, but that usually only buys us an extra 30 minutes, so I feel like it's worth it just to nurse her and save myself another wake up. She also cut her first tooth last week, so I don't know if part of the increased wakefulness has to do with teeth? She is over 17 pounds, and we just started BLW, so I am also wondering if she simply cannot get all her calories in her waking hours and still needs the night feeds. I don't know, I am a walking zombie most days, and I miss the days of being able to have unlimited caffeine.

Just happy to know I'm not alone. 

 

wychets

Do you use a pacifier? DD has been sleeping through the night since she was 10wks and not once have we had to feed her over night. However if she ever woke up hungry I would feed her. Sometimes she whines a little and I give her a pacifier and she falls back asleep. We FF I'm not sure if that matters or not. HTH!!

NiniJ55

I'm not going to give much advice... but rather encouragement.

Yes, babies at this age [can] STTN.  But - it is not out of the ordinary for babies up until 1 (or even 2) yrs old to still wake up a couple of times a night.  DS continued to wake up for milk up until he got Roseola at 19 months old (he was waking up about 1 time per night most nights)  He continued to wake up once a night even after not needing the milk (i presume for comfort).  At 2yrs old after bringing DD home he started STTN.  He very seldom wakes at night for anything. 

DD on the other hand wakes several times a night.  Partly due to her eczema.  Sometimes she wants a bottle - othertimes she needs benadryl or caladryl to help her stop scratching to get back to sleep.  I have not had a full night of sleep in I have no idea how long!  It's hard but I'm not an advocate of CIO (to each their own - it does work for some). 

Anyway - my point is.. it's not uncommon - you are not alone.  I found "No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantly helpful with DS's night wakings.  After using her reccomendations he was waking up less - but still waking up.

 

namara5532

Thanks for the comments.  Makes me feel better about his night wakings being normal.  We'll need to work on soothing rather than feeding to see if I can start getting him back to sleep without feeding every time.

julievernarsky

How interesting that you posted this.  I've been working on this as well since my daughter's waking at night was getting ridiculous (one night it was 8 times, another it was 4).  So I decided to ask her doctor and she said to use the Ferber method.  

In turn, I read the book and he says to lengthen the time between feedings (and if formula fed to reduce the amount).  However, he also says that if you let them cry and then give them what they want they just cry harder.  So if your child is like mine and wakes at the 'same' time every night to be fed, how do you keep them from not crying for the recommended 30 minutes before you feed them?  It didn't make sense to me.

 So I started reducing the time I allowed at the breast.  If my child was eating for say 5 minutes to 'top off' then I reduced it by say 30 seconds or a minute.  Eventually it'll be nothing.  In actuality, I started at 2 minutes and then the next night she only ate for a minute on her own.  Last night was only 30 seconds, tonight will be 15 seconds and hopefully the following will be nothing.  

I've been lucky she hasn't tried to eat any more than usual so I haven't had to deal with that.  It's a start and I'm letting it take it's course hoping it works.  By the way, my daughter is only 16 1/2 pounds so it may be possible. 

To make you feel any better about the eating in the middle of the night.....  While they feel hungry it may be because that's when they ate the day before.  It's not any different than if we ate a meal early, we'd likely be hungry early the next day too. 

aboynamedbarry

I know quite a few moms who have LO's this age and are still waking at night to feed... even older. In fact, two of them have told me that theirs are still waking at 18 and 21 months! to eat! So while it may be normal, I have to encourage you that it is not necessarily necessary.

 

Your little guy is totally used to nursing to go to sleep and once you find something to replace that association, he will make up during the day what he is not getting at night. I worked VERY HARD to night wean my baby without letting her cio. We have since done sleep training and let her cry it out (in order to get her actually sttn and it worked, but it was almost a solid 3 months after night weaning)

 

Basically what I did to night wean her was I decided one day that when she woke that night i was going to go in and give her the paci and see what happened. lo and behold, she went back to sleep after a few minutes. and that's how it happened. she began going approx 10 hours at night without eating around 14 weeks and she was 19 lbs at her 4 month appt. She currently gets 5 full nursings a day and we really haven't started solids quite yet. I am absolutely confident that she is getting enough to eat and that is why I can say that at night she is not hungry.

 

as a discaimer however, there have been a couple nights in there i have fed her... growth spurt or whathaveyou, but generally speaking I know that if she wakes at night it's not because she's hungry. anyways, replacing the nursing with a paci worked for me, maybe you can try that? or just soothing him in his crib when he wakes? there were some nights I would sit in there for 20 minutes replacing the paci or patting her until she went to sleep...

namara5532

DS never took to the paci.  I could try what I do to get him to bed initially and soothe him in the crib.

julievernarsky

My attempt at night weaning was a success!!!  Last night she went all night without eating.  So my reducing time allowed at the breast worked.  Just thought I'd let you know.

namara5532

That's great.  I think I'm going to give that method a try.  I didn't read Ferber's book, so I only knew about the part to get DS sleeping by himself and didn't know about his approach to night weaning.  Thanks.