Eliminating nightly feeds to stretch out sleep? Any experience?

macbook · October 2014

My pediatrician recommended we do this for my 4 month old since she is now waking up every 3 hrs. I put her to bed at 8:30 and she wakes around 12, 330, 530/600. The dr said she isn't necessarily hungry but doing this out of habit/comfort. She said i should eliminate one feed. I know I can't listen to my baby cry it out but she said your husband can comfort her (since she won't smell me). What do you all think? Any experience or suggestions on how to do this??

bazingaa · October 2014

I'm on team feed baby if baby is hungry. However.... You could try rocking first, or using a pacifier, or some other calming technique. If you do feed, you could always try letting LO nurse for a short timeframe or have just a little from a bottle to see if just a small amount would calm him or her down. I have noticed the when my son gets up in the middle of the night I can usually get away with just giving an ounce or two. He isn't really hungry, but eating calms him.

fsumom · October 2014

My DS is 4 months old and I plan to always feed on demand. I BF and co-sleep.

WannaBmomma · October 2014

My baby is two months and sleeping through the night. At 10 pm I give her once ounce extra water and put a tablespoon of rice cereal in her bottle and she sleeps until 6 am. We feed and bathe her at 7pm and she wakes up at 10 for the last feeding. Since I am a working mom this helps me be alert for work

Unknown · October 2014

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WannaBmomma · October 2014

She was diagnosed with acid reflux and cereal was recommended. I don't give her plain water I use 4 ounces of water for formula instead of 3 in her last bottle.

I by far am not selfish, I simply don't use a book to rear my child. I take he advice of my mom and her pediatrician and guess what? It works!

My child has laughed, smiled, turned over on her own, raises her head, said her first words, grasps on her own and is attentive to sounds and lights. Her development is right on par so I will give you that advice to think about tonight while I sleep. I didn't post anyone on here to get hate or critized.

My husband and I feel that scheduling is the best route for our child. Children need routines and structure. Don't hate on it. Ask your pediatrician and do a little research

WannaBmomma · October 2014

I don't let her cry! If she needs me, I am right there for her. She just sleeps through the night.

delatl · October 2014

Not to be rude and burst your bubble, but when my baby was two months old, she used to sleep 5-9 hours at a stretch every night too. I could pretty much count on getting a solid block of sleep between 11-5 or 6 am. Now she's almost 5 months and she is in her 4-month sleep regression. Has been for 6 weeks now. She goes to bed at 7 but is up 2,3,4+ times a night. Just know that it can change. Like pp said, it's luck at this age.

Unknown · October 2014

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SanRemo · October 2014

My first dd was sleeping through the night at 3 weeks. I thought it was my crazy ability to swaddle. My newest dd is almost 6 weeks and wakes up at regular 3 hour intervals no matter how I swaddle or bath her or the awesome white noise machine I used for older dd.

You got lucky and I for one am jealous.

jenn43 · October 2014

I'm on team "feed the baby if he/she is hungry". But the first question to answer would be- is your LO hungry every time she wakes up? If she's taking a full feed, she's obviously hungry, and you should feed her. But if she's dozing off without eating much, then it might be just a habit. You can try waiting a few minutes before you go in to see if she's really awake, or sending DH in to check on her and make sure she has a clean diaper. Both are reasonable options.

BBColt78 · October 2014

What do first words at 2 months sound like? I thought DD #1 was great when she talked at 7 months, but your baby kicks her ass OP.

BTW... I was a know it all first time mom too. My dd slept 12 hours a night starting at 5 weeks, no cereal necessary. You can change your know-it-all self by having another child. Then you'll learn that baby controls everything. DD #2 gets the same routine as #1 did, but is a shit sleeper. My baby whisperer book forgot to explain the luck part.

I won't badger you about rice cereal, but for the love of Pete at least use oatmeal.

lhberner · October 2014

Oh my goodness. You all are so catty.

BBColt78 · October 2014

lhberner said:
Oh my goodness. You all are so catty.

Where is the information you are giving?

Take a look at the Honest responses. Each also includes good information, which you have not provided.

You gotta be new to tb.

WannaBmomma · October 2014

Well I prefer the old school method of child rearing. It was successful for my parents and I like my pediatrician. He came highly recommended. When my baby was a week old and was diagnosed with acid reflux he recommended the cereal and it helps her. She isn't spitting it up. If she cries at night I immediately check her. She is s good baby.

I am sorry that so many disagree with my choices but they work for my child and she is happy and developing just fine so I won't change a thing.

I don't agree with all the new school parenting advice.

Seems that people are quick to jump on the bandwagon but I will always stand my ground when it comes to my child.

My child is fed when she is hungry and has gained almost three pounds since birth.

I do not think there is anything wrong with mixing one teaspoon of rice cereal into a four ounce bottle to keep her from spitting up and having a bad tummy ache. Her reflux only bothers her at night so I do it at the last feeding because that's when she sleeps the longest. But even the new age books say a baby should be sleeping through the night at her age. We have kept her schedule from the hospital where she was born and this is what they did. Her pediatrician in the hospital made the same recommendations that our pediatrician made so it is definitely not bad advice.

Someone ask for suggestions and I gave her mine.

Unknown · October 2014

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argonne · October 2014

delatl said:

Not to be rude and burst your bubble, but when my baby was two months old, she used to sleep 5-9 hours at a stretch every night too. I could pretty much count on getting a solid block of sleep between 11-5 or 6 am. Now she's almost 5 months and she is in her 4-month sleep regression. Has been for 6 weeks now. She goes to bed at 7 but is up 2,3,4+ times a night. Just know that it can change. Like pp said, it's luck at this age.

***STUCK IN GREY***

This. When DD was 2 months old, I thought I hit the baby sleep lottery. She would go down at 7:30-8 and she'd sleep until 2-3AM. About 2 weeks ago that all changed. She still goes down at 7:30-8, but is up at 11:30, 12:30, 1:30....I seriously think we hit the 4 month wakeful about a month early. It sucks, but I just keep sticking with the routine. Eventually she'll sleep. If she gets to about 8 months old and is still doing this, we will use a more strict sleep training method, like we did with DS.

JayBzo · October 2014

I don't think there is anything wrong with attempting to re-arrange feedings during the day to help LO get their OZ during the day vs at night. You could stretch by a few minutes for a couple nights also to see how things go. I agree that if you know baby is hungry you should feed them (they likely won't go back to sleep then anyway!) but as a parent it is completely okay to guide your child to sleeping longer. If LO resists or can't get enough OZ earlier in the day then keep on feeding until they can.

I also don't think anything is wrong with this advice from your ped - they said one feeding, not all. Follow your gut, you are the parent!

MommyAtty · October 2014

I think your ped gave you good advice. I don't believe in letting a baby cry, ever. Ever. But I think letting DH try to comfort your baby without feeding is fine. Some babies really are just in the habit of waking up. The best gift you can give your kiddo is teaching your baby to be able to go back to sleep.

I have 2. DD slept thru starting at 6 weeks. Baby Whisperer. DS wasn't a fan of Baby Whisperer at all but did great on Happiest Baby and started sleeping thru at 8 weeks. Some of it is luck, but it's also really being devoted to the notion that helping your baby get enough sleep is as important as helping them get enough food or attention or comfort or love. So, yeah, I'm a fan of doing what's needed to help your baby sleep. LO may need food, in which case, feed. But if LO just needs help going back to sleep, give LO some new options other than food (a paci, a hush-pat, etc). It can't hurt to try it.

Lara0802 · October 2014

Everyone on here is going to have different advice and opinions - and we all have our own ways of raising our babies.

With that said, what I've done with both of my babies has worked well (and I think it's mostly LUCK). But, for the first 8 weeks I feed on demand. Whether that's every hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, whatever. Once baby reaches 8-10 weeks, I try to get baby towards eating every 3 hours. And then at night, I nurse twice (60-90 minutes apart) before putting baby down for the night. At 10 weeks, my DD and my DS were both sleeping about 5 hours this way. Then, I'd nurse and put right back to sleep until morning. Slowly, I was able to get that 5 hour stretch up to 6, 7, then 8. Instead of nursing immediately upon waking I would always try a pacifier first. If that soothed baby for another 30 minutes or another 90 minutes, I'd let them sleep. Sometimes, it didn't work and I'd nurse anyways. But this allowed me to gage whether or not baby was looking for comfort or food.

At 4 months, both babies were sleeping through the night. I got really luck with my little guy, he's been sleeping 8+ hours since 3 months. And now at 4.5 months is sleeping 10+ hours. He goes down around 8:30/9 and typically sleeps until about 7/7:30. He doesn't wake at all (knock on wood). I still nurse twice before bed. Once at 7/7:30 and then again at 8/8:30. It's getting harder now that bed time is earlier and my DD goes to bed around that time so I'll be transitioning to bottle feeding exclusively and pumping exclusively instead. Once I do that he won't get 2 feedings, but instead, just one bottle.

I also want to note that he is now drinking 6 oz bottles during the day. (he was at 4 oz, then 5 oz and now just recently 6). When we had him at 4 oz he was fussy every 2 hours during the day so we upped to 5. Then last week, he was super fussy for a few days in a row until we upped bottle size again (growth spurt). He drinks about 30 oz total for the day.

glitterclaws · October 2014

Kimbus22 said:

Ummm....isn't rice cereal for reflux still the way things are done?

Don't know since my kids don't have reflux.

We're telling you that your parenting decisions are NOT the reason your kid sleeps. And also that she is not talking. We're not telling you to stop giving her rice cereal if it helps her reflux.

IME, no, cereal in the bottle is not the current method. LO has had reflux from early on and we ran through the following -

Step 1 was the handling changes - bed on an incline, holding upright for 30min after every feeding, feeding smaller amounts more frequently to never all for a full belly. After that, we were recommended a small dose of zantac. When he was still emptying his stomach throwing up, we had a pedi at our practice recommend cereal, only to have a different pedi at the same practice tell us absolutely not. So we were switched to nutramigen (milk allergy formula/elemental formula) to prevent the daily vomiting. And it worked. So after 4.5 months the reflux is under control. And I'm sure someone wants to argue that cereal is better for baby than zantac. That's fine, but I'm going to say I think you are wrong.

WannaBmomma tried in the one week before she started giving her kid the cereal.

macbook · October 2014

My situation is complicated because even though i really want to eliminate or spread out night feeds my breasts literally cannot take it. I get plugged ducts so easily - i must feed latest every 5 hrs so if baby goes to bed at 8:30, i need her to be up at 1:30am. I admire all the women who bf and can sleep through the night - you have no idea how lucky you are!! It seems like i am much more of the exception than the norm and I'm really trying to figure out what to do since its exhausting to have to keep waking up.

KatWAG · October 2014

macbook said:

My situation is complicated because even though i really want to eliminate or spread out night feeds my breasts literally cannot take it. I get plugged ducts so easily - i must feed latest every 5 hrs so if baby goes to bed at 8:30, i need her to be up at 1:30am. I admire all the women who bf and can sleep through the night - you have no idea how lucky you are!! It seems like i am much more of the exception than the norm and I'm really trying to figure out what to do since its exhausting to have to keep waking up.

-----

Have you heard of a breast pump?

macbook · October 2014

i have had a lot of problems w the pump! I have a hospital grade one but i just don't get a lot out of it. And i have noticed pumping van bring on plugged ducts for me since they don't empty them out

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