Night feeding help please!

[PollyP0429]

So DD is nearly 6 months old, has been having a spoon fed lunch and dinner for the past 2 weeks. We started small, just baby rice once a day for a bit then it became apparent she wanted more. So now we have above situation with breakfast just being introduced. She still has her breastfeeds during the day and at least 2 or 3 at night. Really I want that to drop to 1 a night and I have no idea how to go about doing it.

I have tried doing dinner later for her to help her sleep but so far she just refuses it and gets upset.

I really don't want to start refusing to feed her at night but I can't see any other way...

[NorahBone]

I've been trying to cut night feeds down. When MiniBone starts crying (sort of regular whinges rather than constant crying) I ignore until I know he's really awake, because very occasionally he'll settle back to sleep. Then I try cuddling back to sleep, just in case he just wants comfort. Next I try teething gel. Finally, if nothing else works I feed him. It has been working ok (one feed when I go to bed, one in middle of night and one first thing to try and get an extra hour's sleep) although last night I couldn't deal with the crying and just fed him every time he woke.

[NorahBone]

He is actually teething, by the way, I don't just drug him with Bonjela. Although, as he has been quite bad recently, I've been using Calpol. Then I realised he stopped crying as soon as he saw the bottle - little junkie.

[yumyumpoppycat]

I remember this being quite tricky I think I replaced bf with cuddling one feed at a time too, the idea being that after a while they will give up waking at that time once their bodies get used to not having that milk feed. I also did some slowly withdrawing from the room techniques when my dc got older. It can be quite hardwork dropping milk feeds gently but if you are fairly consistent with your plan you will get there and then sleep should def improve.

[rootypig]

Cutting night feeds is not about hunger for most 6 month olds, it's about habit and self settling. All babies (and people) rouse naturally to the point of waking at the end of a sleep cycle (light, deep, REM) - but for most we go back into sleep so readily we don't recall it. Babies need to learn to do this. But many, especially BF babies, develop a sleep association with night feeds (I say especially with BF babies because 1. it's so easy to cosleep and night feed as the easiest response to broken sleep in the early months and 2. I think not knowing what quantity of milk your baby is getting means it's harder to make the hungriness judgement call).

It is so hard because the time for leaving them to see if they can get themselves back to sleep comes when you are so sleep deprived, all you want to do is feed them back to sleep because it's so fast and easy. yumyum's right, a consistent plan and you will get there.

[yumyumpoppycat]

Having said about being consistent I have just realised your baby is not yet 6 months and still probably not getting that much food in quantity. If you really seem to be getting nowhere after a few nights of trying to drop feeds it might be worth holding off for a couple of months.

[yumyumpoppycat]

Oops cross posts - it is a confusing business ;) Hopefully you will get a sens from the cries abd babies response wether it is habit or hunger. It seems unlikely she needs 3 feeds during the night though, so maybe decide by starting you will only feed twice for a while and progress from there.

[rootypig]

^^ agree with that too, we cut DD's night feeds at 10ish months. Think we could have done it earlier but 7/8 months probably best. What you can do is start trying to work out what's going on - distinguish a hungry cry from tired cry (maybe this is obvious but DD's weren't that different - still aren't) and try to leave some time when they wake before you feed them, to see if they calm down a bit with cuddles.

One of the things I realised with DD was that the reason she was screaming so much from the second she woke was because she was so tired and frustrated at being awake - not because she was hungry, as I thought. It took a good month or more to night wean her as I wanted to do it gently. I'm glad I did, she has been a pretty good sleeper since (now 20 months), sleeping through most nights from 11 months, with no cry it out.

[PollyP0429]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Rooty We have the same problem, very hard to tell the difference between cries. If DH goes in and shushes her and she stays asleep she was just pissed off, if she wakes after 10 mins or so I feed her. I get the feeling she actually only wants the one feed - she just really struggles sometimes to stay asleep.

Haha Norah I have to fight hard not to drugg DD with calpol sometimes.