Night feeds - do you wait until they cry?

[emmajlh]

Hi,

my DD is 9 wks old, she's a very good night sleeper, goes down at about 9.30pm then wakes around 4.30am for a feed, this feed has become nice and quick in past couple of weeks - (i think this is because i now feed lying down as opposed to sitting up) she's up and down again within 15 minutes. My question is should i wait until she cries before lifting her out and feeding? currently i'm woken by her 'hungry grunting' noises and i just lift her out of her moses still asleep and feed her, i understand that this helps reduce the amount of air they swallow - the less frantic they are the less they gulp. But i can't help but wonder whether i should shhhh her and wait till she does proper crying - sounds a bit cruel but is that how you begin to move towards sleeping all through the night?

[MadamePlatypus]

DD sounds pretty similar to you - she is 10 weeks and usually sleeps 7-2.30 (what on earth am I doing up now! I should be in bed getting my core sleep!) I reckon that at 9 weeks its best to just let them feed and not attempt to get them to sleep through, and that on this basis you might as well feed her when you hear her as you are awake anyway.

DS (now 3) had a similar sleep pattern and he gradually stretched to sleeping 7-5.30 when he was about 5 months. After this it all went a bit hay-wire with teething, colds, learning to roll, weaning, and he eventually slept through (without training) at about 8 months. I think it is quite normal for babies to wake once at night for a feed when they are 9 months old, and despite what the books say, many of them grow out of it by themselves. (Grow out of night feeds that is - the waking in the night because of illness, bad dreams, lost teddies continues for quite a few more years...)

[Elanor]

Hi...If your little one is sleeping peacefully 7 hours, then I expect she is genuinely hungry at 4.30am and a little breastfeeding and back to a peaceful sleep is preferable to crying, to me.
I still night feed....I would support breast feeding on demand anyday.

[shish]

You might find if you wait for her to really cry then she might take a little longer to settle. This way, she can feed and sleepa again straight away, and you can get your sleep too!!

[Aloha]

I'd feed her, and thank my lucky stars every single day that my baby was such a brilliant sleeper! Why wait until she cries? She'll be more upset, more awake, so may be harder to feed and harder to settle. If it aint broke...