s/o ferber - at what age...

cookiemonster03 · November 2011

We're still feeding usually twice a night (generally around 11/12 and somewhere in the 2-4 range). We don't wake to feed anymore, and sometimes one will sleep through one of the feedings, so I think they physically CAN. I'd love to ditch the middle of the night one...I'm going to run it by the pedi next week as they're pretty small/thin for their age, but just for reference...

how old were your babies when you did sleep training/ended middle of the night feeds. I don't mind the late evening feeding so much and am not opposed to keeping that up for a few more months if it means they'll sleep from 11-6 or so! (They go to bed at 7, so last bottle before that is about 6:30).

kafunder · November 2011

We stopped feeding at night around 3 months. At that point, it didn't cut out night wakings. Ours both didn't STTN (i.e. 10-12 hours without waking) consistently until 8 months. Before that, DS had frequent night wakings (when it was really bad around 7 months, he was waking 10-15x per night), and DD had some when she was hitting a milestone (and they both still wake when hitting milestones).

We tried Ferbering several times, but it wasn't until about 7 months that I felt they were ready for it and ready to cry for any length of time. Or, maybe I should say, I don't think DH and I were ready to let them cry before that point. They just seemed so helpless before that, and DH and I had trouble hearing them cry and sticking to a plan at night.

PolarBerry · November 2011

Pedi told us we shouldn't do it until 6 months. We did it at 6 1/2 months.

cookiemonster03 · November 2011

How'd you cut out feeding when they woke up? Give them less each time? We usually let them fuss for 5 minutes or so (and sometimes they do fall back asleep), but they still seem hungry overnight. I'm guess the pedi will tell us we have to keep it up for a while seeing as they're only about 10th percentile for weight (and 25th and 75th for height!)

kafunder · November 2011

We were cosleeping at the time (with a PnP and a Arms Reach Cosleeper sidecar'd t the bed). They naturally dropped the midnight feeding, but for the 2-3am feeding, we just would give them their paci (repeatedly) when they woke and try to hold them off for a few minutes. We increased the time we'd give the paci each night and eventually, they started sleeping longer and pushed that 2-3am feeding back to 5am, when we were already feeding them anyway. (Starting around a month old, we had a 5am feeding everyday, and then they'd go back to sleep until at least 7am. After we fed them at 5am, DH and I would get ready for work, exercise, etc.)

leslie13510 · November 2011

4 months (adjusted age for preemies) is the absolute youngest that "professionals" will say it's ok, and 6 months is preferred. We did a very modified version (much shorter intervals) a couple weeks before they hit 6 months, but it was a last ditch effort for us to get them to bed without 2-3+ hours of screaming every single night.

It looks like they're preemies, and you said they're on the lower end of the growth charts, yes? In that case, I wouldn't try to drop night feedings yet, especially since you said they still seem hungry. They'll drop them when they're ready, and if they are those rare babies that keep wanting to eat out of habit instead of necessity, it will be obvious when they go from actually being hungry to just waking up "on schedule."

togagirl · November 2011

Sounds like they are just little and might just still need the food. Mine were still waking up every 3 hours at 4-5 months. and they were only 3 weeks early.

cookiemonster03 · November 2011

leslie13510:
It looks like they're preemies, and you said they're on the lower end of the growth charts, yes? In that case, I wouldn't try to drop night feedings yet, especially since you said they still seem hungry. They'll drop them when they're ready, and if they are those rare babies that keep wanting to eat out of habit instead of necessity, it will be obvious when they go from actually being hungry to just waking up "on schedule."

Yeah, they were 5 weeks early. One is pretty much on track, but our IUGR baby is definitely on a more adjusted schedule for milestones (she was the size of a 31/32 weeker, and is hitting milestones on track for that so far).

I'm mostly hoping to get a plan in mind to look forward to at this point It is already soooo much better sleeping for 4 hours in a row. Interesting point about a "rare" baby to wake out of habit though - this is what I'm afraid of/hoping to prevent! I guess the fact they don't seem to wake at a precise time is a good sign!

MrsLnt · November 2011

We dropped the 2-3am feeding around 11w (which was 8w adjusted - I fully believe in adjusting age for sleep issues). We didn't sleep train at that age but we did start giving them a paci to see how long they'd go. We kept our 11pm dreamfeed until 7 or 7.5 months old. I was more than willing to keep that to drop the 2am feeding.

MADforever2009 · November 2011

When we noticed between 5-6 months they stopped drinking full bottles in the middle of the night. We would paci first, see if that took, then gave into bottles if they actually seemed hungry. Their cries got very distinct around that age.

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