Attachment Parenting

Really dumb question...

I'm hoping you lovely ladies can give me some advice and understanding for what is sure to be a very dumb question. How do I really know if my LO (5 months) needs to eat at night?

My LO was waking upwards of 10-15 times a night, though we're down to 4 or 5 times these last couple of nights. I was feeding her every time before but she wouldn't always trigger a let down so I gradually reduced the number of times I offered the boob, and gave her the paci instead (conks her right out). Sometimes I would experiment with just replacing the paci and not feeding her at all, and every time she would go all night without any crying or feeding. I eventually want to wean her from the paci, but in the mean time, how do I know if I need to feed her or not? I don't want to wean her and cause tears because I don't realize she's hungry, or just make the boob a replacement for the paci by feeding her too much.

I realize this is a dumb question, but LO doesn't really cry for food in the day - or at least, I've never really let her so I don't know her hunger cry. She mostly fusses for a while, and then I feed her. She is EBF on demand and usually goes 2 1/2 to 3 hours). When I don't feed her at night, she usually cluster feeds in the morning, but wakes up happy and not begging for food. I've been logging for the last two weeks, and she usually feeds 7 times in a 24 hour period, cluster feeding before bed.

I don't necessarily want to give up all night feeds - I kind of enjoy it. But I don't want to be feeding her if she's not actually hungry and discouraging her from getting back to sleep on her own. She's a healthy weight, and a very happy kid.

Thanks! 

Re: Really dumb question...

  • If you do try to nurse, how long does she nurse for? I have heard that if they eat for less than 3 minutes, they are not really hungry, they just might be thirsty or want comfort.
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  • imageCurbsideProphet:
    If you do try to nurse, how long does she nurse for? I have heard that if they eat for less than 3 minutes, they are not really hungry, they just might be thirsty or want comfort.

    LO is a super efficient eater - only 5 minutes a side usually, so it's hard to say. She doesn't always trigger a letdown at night, though, but when she does eat, she tends to want to comfort nurse until she's in a deep sleep. Though, if she is thirsty, I would rather feed her than not. 

    Thanks! 

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  • My basic rule was that if the paci will satisfy LO then they just want to suckle and are not thirsty/hungry. If the paci doesn't soothe them for more than a couple of minutes then I give them a drink.

    I can generally tell the difference between LO really drinking and just kind of having a slurp and a nuzzle. But basically if the paci doesn't cut it, I'm happy to give her the boob.

    FWIW we didn't wean the dummy with DD1 until she was 2 1/2yrs, and it was really easy. 

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  • imageKateLouise:

    My basic rule was that if the paci will satisfy LO then they just want to suckle and are not thirsty/hungry. If the paci doesn't soothe them for more than a couple of minutes then I give them a drink.

    I can generally tell the difference between LO really drinking and just kind of having a slurp and a nuzzle. But basically if the paci doesn't cut it, I'm happy to give her the boob.

    FWIW we didn't wean the dummy with DD1 until she was 2 1/2yrs, and it was really easy. 

    Thanks, this reassures me to go with my instinct that she's probably not really hungry if the paci works. The reason I need to wean her is that, even though she naps like a dream with it, she can only do so if swaddled. With her hands free, she pulls it out and screams. She can no longer fit her swaddle sacks (kid is loooong for her age) and she's rolling both ways. At night it sometimes works to get her back to sleep with her arms free (we put her down without it) but often not. I have to stand there for 15 minutes gently holding her arms down and holding the pacifier in. Rinse and repeat a million times. I have not slept longer than 20 minute stretches in almost two months, and only a couple nights have I had more than 2-3 hours of total sleep. Never more than 4 hours since she was born. We're at a huge breaking point where I am starting to doubt the safety of being so tired when I have to drive her to Dr's appointments, get groceries, etc. My husband has a long commute, too, and I worry about his safety. LO and I don't leave the house anymore. I eat toast for every meal. We've given up all social and developmental activities with we had signed up for. I haven't showered in god knows when... I love her to pieces but it's miserable. I've tried everything and weaning from the paci is the only thing left to try.

  • I think you're over-thinking it. If you're okay with her having a pacifier, then use that method - if she's hungry, she'll let you know. 5 months is fine to not nurse overnight if she's gaining weight and not asking for it.

    It sounds like you guys are doing great!

    DS1 - Feb 2008

    DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)

  • imagegiraffe54:
    imageKateLouise:

    My basic rule was that if the paci will satisfy LO then they just want to suckle and are not thirsty/hungry. If the paci doesn't soothe them for more than a couple of minutes then I give them a drink.

    I can generally tell the difference between LO really drinking and just kind of having a slurp and a nuzzle. But basically if the paci doesn't cut it, I'm happy to give her the boob.

    FWIW we didn't wean the dummy with DD1 until she was 2 1/2yrs, and it was really easy. 

    Thanks, this reassures me to go with my instinct that she's probably not really hungry if the paci works. The reason I need to wean her is that, even though she naps like a dream with it, she can only do so if swaddled. With her hands free, she pulls it out and screams. She can no longer fit her swaddle sacks (kid is loooong for her age) and she's rolling both ways. At night it sometimes works to get her back to sleep with her arms free (we put her down without it) but often not. I have to stand there for 15 minutes gently holding her arms down and holding the pacifier in. Rinse and repeat a million times. I have not slept longer than 20 minute stretches in almost two months, and only a couple nights have I had more than 2-3 hours of total sleep. Never more than 4 hours since she was born. We're at a huge breaking point where I am starting to doubt the safety of being so tired when I have to drive her to Dr's appointments, get groceries, etc. My husband has a long commute, too, and I worry about his safety. LO and I don't leave the house anymore. I eat toast for every meal. We've given up all social and developmental activities with we had signed up for. I haven't showered in god knows when... I love her to pieces but it's miserable. I've tried everything and weaning from the paci is the only thing left to try.

     

    We use the same method as KateLouise - if the pacifier cures it, he's not hungry, just wants to suck.

    But the pacifier doesn't sound like it's really the problem here.  There's a lot going on in that last paragraph about your own sleep issues and life difficulties.  

    We had some sleep issues when we broke the swaddle, but nothing like what you're experiencing.  While swaddled he would go down drowsy but awake.  Without we had to rock him to sleep. (However when we stopped swaddling it didn't seem to affect how long he slept/he didn't wake up more often.  We waited a lot longer than you did.  I think we stopped around 7 months?)

    I don't know if that's the issue with you (trying to put her down awake) but you may need to resort to a different method if it is.   And look into other things that may be causing such frequent wakeups (temperature, teething, etc. - sometimes it feels like such a game trying to figure out all the "whys", and not a good/fun game.)

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  • Thanks. It's good for me to get reassurances from other moms that I'm not starving my kid by way of paci :) 

    We're sorting through all the sleep issues we can think of. LO actually goes down better without us. It would take well over an hour to rock her, and she would fight me the whole time. The few times I broke down and put her in the crib awake while I took a break, she cried for 5 minutes and then was out. It sucks that she still fusses and cries a bit, but I've figured it's a whole lot less crying than she was doing before in my arms. She used to go down so easily (awake, not even drowsy) with the paci and swaddle, but she's breaking the swaddle and rolling too much, so onto something new. I suspect we've just hit the fun period of growth spurt, sleep regression, Wonder Week, and possibly now teething and my LO is just sensitive to all these things.

    Can't last forever, right?  

  • No it won't last forever but you sound like you are really suffering. I agree with PP's that she doesn't need to eat if the paci works. Believe it or not, if your LO can sleep unswaddled she might be able to start finding it on her own. I forget how old my dd was when that happened but it was great when it did.

    Is your LO in your room? Maybe in your situation she should move to her crib the monitor should be off or really low so you only hear loud cries? Just a thought...
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  • My DD also switched from nursing at night to the old  "sucking a pacifier/pulling it out/screaming for it/mom putting it back in/repeat" thing at about 5 months.  

    At my wits end, I took to nursing her instead of giving up all my sleep to become her pacifier retriever/slave.  This was also not good.  She wound up going from STTN at 4 months to an eleven-month-old who was waking to nurse at 10:30, 12:30, 2:30, 4:30, and (if she didn't decide that 4:30 was morning) 6:30.  I did eventually get her STTN again, but it was a gigantic drag.  She was a paci addict until the ripe old age of FOUR!

    DS also went through a sleep disturbance at 5 months, but I was a more experienced and wiser mom.  Like the replies above, we could tell that he wasn't really hungry when he was nursing.  So instead of feeding him, DH or I would get him out of the crib and bring him to the living room for 2 minutes.  Then we'd go through the bedtime routine (rocking and shushing), then put him down drowsy, which he was used to.  Then we'd go back to bed ourselves.  If he just fussed or chattered to himself, we'd leave him to sort himself out.  Sometimes he'd lay in there fidgeting around and making noise for as much as an hour.  If he ramped it up to crying again, we'd do the bedtime routine again.  In this way, he learned to STTN in about a week without nursing, pacifier, or CIO.  

    High School English teacher and mom of 2 kids:

    DD, born 9/06/00 -- 12th grade
    DS, born 8/25/04 -- 7th grade
  • imageneverblushed:

    I had a similar situation with my DS when he was about 5 months.  He wasn't really waking and nursing greedily/hungrily at night anymore, but he would always wake and nurse for about 5 minutes 2x/night.

    I asked the same question you are asking to my pediatrician, a very wise old doctor.  His answer, "Well, we are all prone to waking up hungry at night, but that doesn't mean we have to go to the fridge and have a snack every time we wake up, does it?  Eventually, everyone has to learn to go back to sleep and wait until breakfast.  Your baby is a big, healthy baby, and it will be fine for him to go 6 or 7 hours at night without eating."  

    I gently weaned my son and got him to sleep through the night at 5 months.  We'd been putting him down drowsy for a while, so he was used to falling asleep without sucking.  Either DH or I would get him out of the crib, walk around the living room for a minute or two, then repeat the bedtime routine, and DS would put himself back to sleep with minimal fussing.  After about a week of this, he was STTN.  Now, I realize that this sounds too easy, but I will say that he was baby #2, and DH and I knew what we were doing this time around.*  I was also willing to let him fuss a bit to get himself back to sleep.  If he ramped it up to actual crying, DH or I would go get him and repeat the bedtime routine again.  If he was just making noise, I'd leave him to sort himself out.

    The only drawback to this was that when you're no longer night nursing, your supply can go way down.  My DS wasn't really ready for table food at that age, so he needed to get all his calories from daytime nursing!  I had to work hard during the day and use all the home remedies I could get my hands on to get the supply back up for the next few months until he was eating finger foods.

    *This is not how things went the first time around!  I kept nursing baby#1 more and more, and by 11 months, she was waking and nursing at 10:30, 12:30, 2:30, 4:30 and 6:30 to nurse, which just seemed ridiculous, since she had been STTN at 4 months!!  She clearly did not need to eat that much at night, since she was nursing, eating normal food, and drinking from a cup during the day!  I found it much harder to cut out night nursing at this age than I did with DS when he was 5 months.  It was really quite an ordeal, and I vowed I'd never put another child through that again.

    Thank you for sharing! I hadn't really thought about the fact my supply would go down. Maybe I'll wait until she starts solids before night weaning her fully. If I'm gently sleep training her, I suppose it can't hurt to nurse her once or twice at night still. I just worry that I'll confuse her if she's not really hungry - sometimes I'll feed, sometimes I won't. And I think you're right that it will be easier at 5 months than when she's much older. 

  • When I wrote my original reply (sorry it's so long) I had not read the whole thread.  When I saw the whole thing about the pacifier, I edited my post because I realized it was more like my DD's situation than my DS's.

    Anyway, I think you are right that it's easier to deal with sleep-training a baby at this age than a toddler.

    If I had it all to do over again, I'd definitely do the following:

    --get baby used to going down drowsy right from the start

    --not hesitate to cut down on night feedings once baby was demonstrating that night nursing was more about sucking than eating

    --distinguish between fussing and crying, and only go to the baby in the case of the latter, not the former 

    --understand that it's okay to push the baby to STTN; not wait for the baby to take the initiative

    High School English teacher and mom of 2 kids:

    DD, born 9/06/00 -- 12th grade
    DS, born 8/25/04 -- 7th grade
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