Night feedings

Re: Night feedings

• TabulaRasa25 member

  March 2016 edited March 2016

  I think it just depends on your kid.  I want to say don't eliminate them, if he or she's hungry, he or she's hungry. But, I have a kid who hasn't awakened for MOTN feedings (apart from a really weird week at about four months where he had a stretch of random nighttime waking that coincided with a growth spurt) since he was about 2.5 months old, so take it with a grain of salt.  
  
  I am curious, though, when you say "wakes twice a night," what does that mean?  When does the baby go to sleep, typically, when is the baby up for the day? How many hours in between those nighttime feedings.  When I say my kid "sleeps through the night," that means that there's a reliable six-hour stretch usually where he sleeps without interruption...recently, this has stretched out to be consistently closer to eight hours.  But sometimes I read where parents will put a baby down at, like, 8 p.m. and expect solid sleep till like 8 the next morning, which def. wouldn't be realistic for my kid.  When I say "sleeps through the night," that takes into account a late-ish bedtime and an early rise. But I'd rather that and sleeping straight through than an earlier bedtime with more waking, personally. 
  
  Also, I breastfeed, so as far as amount eaten in a feeding, I have no real concept of ounces consumed, he just feeds till he's no longer hungry. 

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• ElleMF728 member

  March 2016

  DS will be 7 months on the 10th and still eats twice.  We have been focusing on different things but I plan to try weaning one feed in the next month or two if he doesn't do it on his own.  With my first I just picked a feed and dropped one ounce at a time.  If he slept normally for a few nights I'd drop another, if he struggled to fall back asleep or woke hungry again I bumped it back up and tried again later.  Eventually he just stopped waking for that feed.  
  
  I've recently started working towards 3 solid meals a day and I'm pretty sure as we have bigger bottles it will sort itself out on its own but that is my plan if it doesn't.  

  

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• ForeverEverAfter member

  March 2016

  I EBF, so I cant manipulate the amount LO eats-she gets as much as she wants haha. She generally eats twice a night, with a 5-8 hour stretch (12-13h total from bedtime til morning) so I'm content. I would only interfere if baby was waking for a feeding, but only taking a few sips and going back to sleep. 
  
  Night feeding needs depends on the child. A lot of research supports the biological need both to wake at night, and eat at night through infancy, one article I read on sleep training found genetics to play a bigger role than sleep training methods. 
  
  DD1 was still at 3 feedings overnight at this age, and needed to eat at least once (full feeding) overnight til about 1.5yo. She dropped them one at a time by herself.

  

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