night weaning question (encouragement needed - long)

giraffe54

Hi ladies, 

I'm posting here because I could use some encouragement and advice. Breastfeeding has been pretty great for LO and me, aside from some slow gain in her first few weeks. She's now a happy, healthy EBF 5mo chunker. It took her a long time to space out her feeds and get efficient, but when she did, whoa boy! is she ever efficient. Every 2 1/2 to 3 hours, for only about 6 minutes per feed now. Fantastic. 

Sleep, however, has been an extreme challenge. She's never been a consistent STTN-er, even in the most traditional sense of 5+ hours. During 4 month hell, she was up ever 10-30 minutes all night long (no exaggeration). I would give her the paci and she would go back to sleep. I never really knew when to feed her because she would always fall back asleep with the paci. I just started feeding her around 2am and 5am to make sure she was eating. I finally weaned her from the paci, but she still wakes up 4-5 times a night. And for feeding times, she wakes up to the exact same minute every night. I've noticed she isn't feeding at 5am as well as before. In fact, she doesn't always trigger a let down and often (like this morning), I'm a leaking mess. 

I'm considering nightweaning her of the 5am feed, but I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do. Would it be better to wean her from the 2am feed? Do I feed her more in the day? I'm also worried that her 6mo growth spurt will be coming up and I'm thinking maybe I should just wait until that is past and we've started solids? I know some moms gradually shorten a night feed, but with such an efficient eater, it might be hard to do. By the time the let down comes, she's only eating for about 4 minutes actively. Plus, she'll probably keep waking any. Do I let her fuss back to sleep?

The reason I want to wean is that I'm really struggling with lack of sleep. I think I'm getting to be at risk for a depression, sleeping only 2-3 broken hours a night for the last 2 months now. I feel miserable and exhausted all the time, even though I love LO more than words can say.

My gut says wait until 6 months after the growth spurt and solids are started. Do you mamas agree this is the right thing to do?  

TIA 

jlsimon56

My motto is, it's only a problem when it's a problem.  My 16mo LO still wakes 1x per night.  I do not mind it, so I don't do anything about it.  I get in bed by 11pm, and I am up at 4:30 so I can leave for work at 5am.  LO is not as efficient as yours, it takes her 30 minutes to eat.  She has always been pokey.  This schedule doesn't bother me, and I find I can function on ~5 hours, so I am ok with it.

We did talk to our pedi about it, who told us not to night wean her until she was able to fall asleep on her own.  I had been nursing her to sleep.  The pedi said it wasn't fair to her, for us to expect her to be able to put herself back to sleep in the night, when we hadn't worked with her to learn how to put herself to sleep in the first place.  That made a lot of sense to me.  So around a month ago, I stopped nursing her to sleep.  We rearranged her nighttime routine to separate nursing and going into the crib.  She's doing great with it, and daycare even noticed that she was easier to put down.  

I haven't pulled the trigger on not feeding her at night though.

Sorry if this isn't much help.  Good luck! 

giraffe54

Thanks for the advice. I should probably add that LO does fall asleep on her own. I put her down awake. I had been terrified of trying it because I was anti-CIO, but one time I tried it and she fussed a little, then fell asleep. So there was no real training or crying involved, luckily. On a couple of her night wakings, she's usually up for an hour at a time, hanging out. She might fuss a bit but puts herself back to sleep. If she cries I feed her but she rarely does. She wakes during her 2am feed so effective puts herself back to sleep. I've noticed that with the 5am feed, she's asleep at the boob, basically using me as a pacifier. I'm not really functioning well on so little sleep so I'm trying to maximize it where I can. She takes really short naps lately (~20 minutes), so I can't nap during the day to catch up. Dropping that second feed might give me an uninterrupted 2 hour stretch, which would be heavenly! My plan would be to try moving her morning feed earlier since she eats an hour after she wakes.

jlsimon56

Ok, this is good info.  Napping is important, it might have something to do with her night waking.  I would consider feeding her as soon as she wakes in the AM.  I would not feed her in the night anymore.  At 5ish months, she should be able to do 3 hours of awake time in a stretch, so her 1st nap would be 3 hours after waking.  I am crazy into The Sleep Lady (ironic, since my LO wakes at night to eat haha....but she is a great napper).  

giraffe54

She often wakes earlier than 2am - she's just eating at that point. Last night she was up for about an hour at 11pm but didn't eat (I've tried in the past to feed her but she doesn't eat). By the time that energetic hour of fussing and playing is over, I'm wired and it takes me a while to fall asleep, so I sleep 1am-2am usually... same for her 4am wake up.

alliecat1234

Have you tried doing dream feeds instead of feeding when she wakes?  We started that this week with our baby and it has worked really well (knock on wood).  I do a 10:30 PM and 4:00 AM dream feed where he is totally asleep.  All other times he wakes up we shhh him and help him get back to sleep but don't feed.  I was worried that he would starve (he used to eat every 1.5-3 hours through the night when we co-slept) but even on the first night his crying did not go on for long, so I know he wasn't hungry. 

ncbelle

If you are doing 4+ feeds a night and feeling wiped out then I think it's fine to try dropping one of those; I wouldn't night wean completely though.

I would definitely try the dream feed - babies this age tend to nurse better when asleep as they are so busy during the day (thus the night nursing!).  Try her an hour or two after she goes down - and then GO TO SLEEP YOURSELF  Have DH take the first night waking - soothe her back to sleep without you being involved - if you are around, she's going to want to nurse.

And if you aren't already, make sure you get some daily exercise even if it's just a walk.  Exercise will help with both your trouble getting back to sleep, your low energy, and your feelings of depression.

I'd also take a look at the No Cry Sleep Solution - it sounds like the problem isn't so much the needing to nurse as it is the fact that she's staying awake.  Any chance she is teething?