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Attachment Parenting
I'm probably going to get flamed for this...
Emmy's night time sleep is crap. I know a lot of people act completely incredulous when people advise giving a bottle of water at night to cut back on night time nursing... but I'm really close to trying it. I'm thinking that it might help me in a few ways- 1) she doesn't have to move to get the water, so she won't fully wake up 2) my H can do it so I can sleep and 3) since the bottle is less exciting than the boob, she'll (hopefully, eventually) start waking up less.
It honestly seems like a fairly gentle way of partial night weaning (I would still nurse her if she woke up before I went to bed, and starting at about 5am I would nurse her again). So really only 6ish hours of no nursing. Of course if she ever didn't go right back to sleep with the bottle, I would just nurse her. But normally she'll take 1-2 sucks and go right back to sleep (as opposed to nursing, when she will eat for 15 minutes and then be restless until I switch sides, and then when I roll over, etc etc).
I guess this would be sleep training her. Is this a totally crap idea? I've gotten the "This too shall pass" advice, and it hasn't passed- she's been a total crap sleeper since 3 weeks old. I'm more comfortable with this than I am with most other methods, I think. It wouldn't involve any tears...
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Re: I'm probably going to get flamed for this...
My pedi recommended this as part of night weaning, but Ben was not used to a bottle and it just got him all hyped and wanting to play.
I say it is worth a shot!
I already know she will go to sleep with a bottle of water... well, not during the day. But at night if she's barely awake she will go to sleep that way.
I guess I'm just not sure why that option always gets shunned? It wouldn't involve any crying and it seems gentle to me. For it to get such strong reactions I wondered if maybe there was some downside I missed that I wasn't thinking of.
I'd be more likely to offer formula rather than water. I would feel like, if she is waking because she's hungry, then the extra calories would still go to her, rather than her drinking water when she's hungry and getting full but not getting the nutrition.
Then again, they say babies over 6 months of age don't need to eat at night, so maybe I'm off base here, but that's something I worry about.
I think it's an okay method to try. If she's unsatisfied with the bottle, she'll let you know. I don't think it can really hurt.
I don't want to offer formula... we have a freezer stash I could use, I just don't want to use it
.
I KNOW she isn't waking because she's hungry. My H has given her bottles of EBM at night before. Once he left the little disc in the nipple (know what I'm talking about?) and didn't realize it. She went the entire night without getting any milk (on accident) and woke the same number of times. He's also (once, when I was desperate and exhausted) given her water once at night. She did fine. With a bottle she will take 1-2 sucks and go back to sleep, with nursing it's a huge ordeal and she won't unlatch. With a bottle, she has no problems unlatching. It's honestly not the number of wakings so much as the amount of time it takes me to get back to sleep.
ETA- and if I think she ever needs the extra milk at night for some reason, I would definitely just nurse her. On Fridays I have class so she doesn't nurse as much. I would just nurse her for any wakings that night, since she probably needs the extra milk. Or if she doesn't instantly settle with the bottle of water, whatever.
I just think maybe the bottle is boring, while I'm not...
I asked about doing this once & got some sh!tastic responses, so I'll try to be more helpful. I'm totally with you on "this too shall pass" doesn't always cut it. That works for a few weeks, not a months on end.
We never did the bottle of water thing b/c Ari was actually taking in a good bit of calories at night & I read that it's replacing one habit with another, blah blah. We had tried several Sears & Pantley rec'd techniques (moving him out of our bed, having DH comfort him for a specific block of time instead of nursing, etc) & it was all backfiring. I finally figured out that none of that sh!t would work w/ reverse cycling.
We ended up using a very modified version of Ferbers night weaning plan. Basically you try to bump each feed by 30 mins. Over the course of several nights (or weeks if they're feeding a lot or are very stubborn) you effectively consolidate nursings. We decided to stop at 2 or 3 since we guessed that would be tolerable for Ari & me. I tried keeping him from nursing for the 30 minutes but it was obvious by night 2 it was too much. The trick w/ Ari is to keep him from either crying or waking too much - either one & he's up for at least 2 hours. So I'd shush/pat/paci/whatever until he was not quite fully awake & then give in & nurse, & use the Pantely pull off to delatch once he stopped really nursing. Sometimes I could get him to last 10 mins, sometimes 30. Within about a week & a 1/2 - 2 weeks I had him down to 2-3 nursings per night.
I'd try the water bottle first. If it doesn't work or backfires or she just starts replacing one habit w/ another, maybe try something like the above. Who knows, she may give it up after a couple of nights.
I think as long as she isn't reverse cycling, you're fine to try it. From everything I've ever read from you, Em is a terrible sleeper who uses the boob as a sleep aid throughout the night - which leaves you sore, exhausted, and just drained. Obviously it isn't working for you guys anymore. I think trying something that DH can also do, plus it is something that might entice her to not wake as frequently. If she starts to think "OK, every time I wake up at night and fuss, Daddy brings me a bottle of water instead of milk from a warm boob" then maybe she'll sleep better.
My theory with sleep after 6-7 months is to try what you gotta to get some sleep. Most ppl cannot go that long without full nights of good sleep. So as long as she's gaining weight and happy give it a whirl. You could try to ease in with DH giving her some pumped BM overnight but it might jumpstart a new sleep aid for her. I'd stay away from formula just because if you've never used it you have no idea how her little tummy is going to react.
I realized around 7 months that I had started to martyr myself. J was still sleeping in our room even though it was obvious to DH and I that we were all getting crap sleep because of it. But because I was "AP all the way" I didn't want to move him yet. Once we moved him he dropped overnight feeds to 1, and slept better in general. Then I had DH start giving him bottles of pumped milk overnight (he works a lot of overnights, so the nights that he was home he took the night feeds). It helped break the boob to sleep association for us.
My point to the last paragraph is that I sometimes feel like AP moms get so caught up in the AP way to do things that we completely neglect ourselves. I stopped looking at how things were working for our family and just continued with the original plan bc that's the way we had agreed on. So, anyway, I think if you feel it's time to reevaluate and try something new, you should try it. And who cares if it's technically sleep training? Em might just need to be taught how to sleep better. Good luck!
NO! I wish. I don't know why it's different, since she drinks next to nothing from the bottle. But somehow she knows. We've tried EVERY binky on the market, she won't have it. I have- no joke- 30 binkys scattered around the house.
I've been where you are. If DD took a bottle and I thought for a second it would have worked for us, I would've tried it. Easily. No questions asked.
Good luck! And if it doesn't work, I'll tell you about how my once awful sleeper now sleeps 11 to 12 hours at night.
she's definitely not reverse cycling. I am only apart from her 15ish hours a week, and during the day she has unrestricted boob access
I definitely would make sure that she is getting plenty of good daytime nursing sessions if we are giving her a bottle of water at night.
She has been a crappy sleeper pretty much from day one (actually day 21- the day she turned 3 weeks!). I just need a few hours of consecutive sleep... and honestly, I'm too tired to try a lot of the sleep methods! This one seems to be fairly easy on all of us (and especially me, if DH is giving the bottle, hehe)
We tried it and it failed miserably. He just got pissed off that there was water in the bottle instead of milk. We gave up and tried night-weaning again a couple months later and it worked beautifully. Our plan was based off of the Sleep Lady Shuffly, but we really only had to do it for 2 nights. DH went in when DS woke up and soothed him without picking him up. The first night waking of the first night, DH had to pick him up twice because he was crying too hard, but after that he fell asleep with just reassuring words. It was harsher than I was initially okay with, but he was nursing every hour and the lack of sleep hurt my daytime parenting. I should also note that we used the PPO first for a couple weeks, so he was no longer nursing to sleep. He would unlatch, roll over, and fall asleep.
GL, I know how hard it is.
then I should already have a leg up, because I know she will fall asleep with water
It's not really falling asleep, it's just being soothed back to sleep, if that makes sense.
I think we're going to try it tomorrow night. We're going to put a bottle of water on a heating pad on the night stand (so it's warm) and I'll nurse her to sleep in the crib (it's side carred to the bed). Then my H will take my place and when she wakes up he'll offer the bottle of water. If it works, great. If it doesn't, I'm right there and can nurse her back to sleep without her getting too worked up. Hopefully no tears, and more sleep for everybody. Even if it doesn't decrease her wakings, if it just decreases the time we (I, so far) have to soothe her back to sleep it would be great.
I read your post last night, but didn't get a chance to respond. I hope that you tried the water last night and that it worked for your guys! I don't think that there is anything wrong with offering a bottle of water at her age. You know that this works to get her back to sleep after a couple of sucks.
I would have your DH offer the bottle. I wish this would have been an option for us. I used the Ferber extended time between feedings. I set a goal of 2 hours between each feeding. We would have problems around 3 or 4 am...every 45 minutes. So- I extended it slowly (by 15 minutes every 2 nights). I was very tired for a few days. Instead of just giving her the boob, I would shush, pat, hold her until it had been 1 hr since the previous "feed". Once she was able to wait an hour, I pushed it to 1 hr 15 minutes. Once we got to the 2 hr mark, I would sometimes have to leave our room with DD and go to her room. She was able to sleep 2 hrs in the earlier parts of the night, it was just the 3-4 am until morning block that was awful. It improved drastically. Once we got to the 2 hour mark, she extended the time between wakings in the earlier part of the night all on her own...2.5 hrs, then 3. Now she will wake as I'm coming to bed around 11 and sometimes 1 other time at 2 or 3.
I don't know how long Em is going in between wakings right now. Would it be possible for your DH to offer the bottle every other waking, 2 wakings in a row or the first block of the night? At least until you can extend her time asleep to something more manageable for you. I hope that this works quickly for you!