skimmed Ferber--DD still wants 1 feeding per night

suh5969 · January 2009

I have tried all kinds of methods and she does put herself to sleep most nights and can sleep for along time but at this point still insists on one feeding a night. She has gone w/o it but it takes such a long time, and many tears that I give in. Sometimes she wakes so completely when I let her cry, and if I fed her she would just go right back to sleep. I don't know what to do. Part of me says just feed her and everyone go back to sleep. The other part says I am creating a terrible habit. It is around 3 that she does this. She goes to bed between 7 an 8 and I get up at 5 and she gets up between 5-6.

axr8111 · January 2009

Yeah, we had something similar, but finally we just let him CIO even at the night feeding back when he was 10 months old. After a couple days, he didn't need it anymore. It was hard, but worth it.?

Jeannie143 · January 2009

same thing as pp - Lucy would wake up once a night and eat, and I thought it was easler to feed her and put her back down - our doctor told us that she was fine with what she was eating during the day and we needed to let her learn to sleep better - so we let her cry, following the Ferber 2006 method, and she was not waking up anymore after 3 nights. It was definitely harder for me than for her - I cried and cried right along with her. It was all worth it now though.

NJGirlNTheSouth · January 2009

I want to preface this by saying we did not have this particular issue so I am NOT speaking from experience. I would say to try to fill her up as much as you can during the day - maybe move her dinner or milk sippy closer to bedtime. She is old enough to go all night without a feeding. She and you will be better off with the extra sleep!!

This is something I read : If she still wakes up - you can try giving a bottle with just water- she will not think waking up only to receive water is worth it and eventually keep sleeping.

GL to you - I hope it works out soon !

niclet · January 2009

The same thing was happening to me, and when we went in for DD's 9 month appt my dr said we needed to cut it out. We did ferber for naps and putting to sleep, but struggled with night wakings (basically, I didn't want to go through it). What I did was slowly decreased the amount of formula in her bottle. The first night was 4 oz formula to 6 oz of water (did for 2 nights), then 4 oz formula to 5 oz water (1 night), 3 oz formula to 5 oz water(2 nights), 2 oz formula to 4 oz of water (3 nights), and then just water. I did the plain water for about 2 weeks, and then she started STTN on her own...

DevonPow · January 2009

Do you BF or FF? If you are giving a bottle, give less and less each night, or give water instead. That is what we did for DS - we cut down on the oz every 2-3 nights, and then started comforting him back to sleep instead of feeding him. After he was off the feeding entirely, then we worked on not even having to go in to comfort him.