Weaning Night Feeds?

patchen30 · May 2012

First of all, I think I missed something and some SAIFers transitioned to another board? Where did everyone go?!

We did cold turkey CIO at 4 months via Weissbluth's method BUT with the condition that we still did night feeds (~ every 4 hours, crying in between was ignored). It worked really well, and DS stopped waking up just to be held/rocked and only to eat.

Now he's 7 months and I think it's time to stop feeding him at night (this isn't too young right?). We gradually weaned him off via Ferber's method (spacing out feedings by 1/2 hour longer each night and putting 1 oz less in a bottle each night), and were able to weed out the second night feed and get down to one.

However, the problem is that one night feed at 5am is turning into waking up earlier and earlier to feed and I could potentially end up w/ 2 night feeds again (night before last it was 3am, last night it was 12:45am...). I think I need to cut it out altogether.

How do I do this? Can I just cold turkey stop the last feed and let him CIO until "morning" (I'm dubbing it 6am)? Or, should I wean this feed as well - i.e. ignore crying before say 4am, then gradually reduce the amount offered and push the feeding back by 1/2 hour each night until we get to 0 oz and 6am?

LALASEPT05 · May 2012

At 7 months I think he's definitely ready to be done with the night feeds - and I'm sure you are too! At this point I would probably just do a cold turkey and try to leave him in the crib for a bit. I used to use the aquarium to keep DS entertained for a bit as he was an early riser too. Maybe start by leaving him in there until 5:30 for a few mornings and then 5:45am and then 6am and then hopefully at some point he'll sleep beyond 6am! Good luck!

pandabearlover · May 2012

We didn't CIO but when we were ready to give up night feeds, I took a sippy cup of water in when she was supposed to eat. It only took one night and she decided water wasn't worth waking up for.

Message alchris about a new forum.

patchen30 · May 2012

pandabearlover:

We didn't CIO but when we were ready to give up night feeds, I took a sippy cup of water in when she was supposed to eat. It only took one night and she decided water wasn't worth waking up for.

Message alchris about a new forum.

I only know how to message someone if they've recently posted by clicking "send private message" in their post...Is there another way?

Jessiree · May 2012

patchen30:
pandabearlover:

We didn't CIO but when we were ready to give up night feeds, I took a sippy cup of water in when she was supposed to eat. It only took one night and she decided water wasn't worth waking up for.
Message alchris about a new forum.
I only know how to message someone if they've recently posted by clicking "send private message" in their post...Is there another way?

Google "alchris the bump" and you should get results with posts she's responded to and you can PM her from there.

Also, the sippy with water was how my mom night weaned as well. She said we all decided within 2 nights that water wasn't worth the fuss lol

cbubbles2 · May 2012

We're kind of in the sAme boat here too. We did sleep training at 5 months and I still fed him once a night. He goes down at 7:30, up at 4:30 to eat and back down until 6:30-7. When he was waking up at 4:30 his tummy was usually growling so I felt kind of bad dropping that feeding. The past two weeks though he's been pushing it to 5:30 so I'm hoping he'll gradually sleep later and later. If he wakes up anytime before 4:30 (which is rare) I don't go in and he'll fall back asleep.

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Weaning Night Feeds?

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