help... nearly 8 month old, wakes up 4 times at night! habit? how can we break it?

[am988]

My ds2 is 7.5 months. He eats well tru the day 3 meals plus, finger food, water after each meal. He was exclusively bf, recently tried to start formula, he likes the milk itself, but not too keen on bottle. I try to bf during day, but he doesn't t seem too keen, keeps latching latching, looking away, not interested.. my husband tries bottle, most he managed at one go is 120ml. But mostly he s not interested. Then aft his bath, 7 ish he bf, doesn't t seem for long, I keep trying.
He starts waking at 10... then he feeds properly, no looking about. Then he wakes again at 1, I do feed then too.. he feeds well too.. then he wakes at 3 or before and wants more, by which time I m so tired... so I 'try' not to feed, normally husband sendsme to the spare room, as I can't resist the screaming, when he tries to feed then he just doesn't want any... eventually at 4 or so he may have some 50ml from bottle, he wakes again at 5.30... sometimes he settles back till 6.45.. sometimes he stays awake. Then when I feed him in the morning he takes but it doesn't t seem too much either... he then has a good solids breakfast. All this happens so accurately I can tell the time. He stays awake for 3 hrs and goes for morning nap.. 1.5 hrs... smoothly as ever, different baby from the night, has good lunch.. maybe a short nap then... and maybe a half hr-45 min nap 5.30.. 6 before bath.
I try to bf and bottle true day but he just seems to want milk seriously only nights! How can we break this habit? Have never slept more than 4 hrs but now this has become too much. What are we doing wrong??

[DrMcDreamysWife]

You could be me. I'm interested to what your replies are. Like your ds my dd is bf but very distracted in the day. I think she takes the large majority of her milk requirement at night and hasn't done more than a 4 hour stint since early December. She is almost 8 mo and I'm on my knees.

My HV says I need to do controlled crying and that my dh needs to go to her more so that we break the feeding at night cycle. But I hate hearing her cry and she ramps up so quickly...

[Nicknamefail]

Bumping as although dd is 6 1/2 mo, she takes more at night. Hopefully someone will come and tell us what to do not cc as I don't want to do this yet

[Nicknamefail]

I just fed dd prior to her morning nap. She did take some, so am going to offer the boob before each nap as well as other times to try and get more down her.

[am988]

Hi... yes thanks for bumping, seems it's not just US, I searched 7 Month feeding mostly at night and other discussions came up. My ds wakes up at 10, 1, 3 and 5.30 for feeds! I try to skip the3 am but normally I give in by 4ish as utterly exhausted.
Last night tried waking him up for feed at 9.40... to try break habit, which worked as at least we had one less cry... he fed for 10min... maybe not enough, then he woke up at 11... where I think I gave him dummy... it's all a blur,, fed him at 1230.. at 2.45 he woke again, tried to settle him on me.. w dummy.. put him in our bed, he was not totally settled... of course he wanted milk, ... at 4.45 he was crying again by which time I was so exhausted... hubby tried to settle him.. I went to spare room to resist the urge. And to sleep for an hour. he held on till I fed him at 7 ... he had a good 10 min. Well I slept little.. so exhausted, I have to stop this as so sleep deprived .. any books about this? going Cold turkey and not feed crossed my mind but at night I will give in. I 've been trying to feed milk when I can.. tru d day, also adding lots of formula to his food... let's hope it will get better. Good luck all and any ideas ....thank you

[Nicknamefail]

Oh that sounds awful. Our bad nights are like that but we had a good one last night (only 3 wake ups but enormous e feed each time. ). I don't want to admit it but expect time is just the answer. Good luck.

[am988]

Had three wake ups and two big feeds... so guess that s progress... been trying time cut breastfeeding time at night feeds, and make sure I give him lots of milk in his food, yoghurt, and give him a protein dish... and offer milk often I think he only has two good milk feeds max. Hope it gets better,,... running out of ideas now!

[babybouncer]

My DD is now over a year, but was always a poor sleeper. At 7 months she was insisting on being fed to sleep and woke so much during the night I was broken. We did controlled crying, which helped greatly, but she still didn't sleep brilliantly. Our other biggest improvement happened when I stopped bfing at night. I had been hoping to carry on longer and I had already dropped all the other feeds as I was back at work, and she didn't seem to like bottles much, but she fairly quickly reduced the number of wakings, and of course I could theoretically share the burden!

A friend of mine switched to formula at night and slowly decreased the amount of formula ie one scoop less each time and within a fortnight, her baby stopped waking up at all (and I've heard of others having success with this).

[am988]

Thanks that s encouraging.. couple of nights last week I slept in a different room, husband kept settling him but he was virtually up every hour... I only fed him at about 6am.. so after a couple night's like that you would have thought he d give up waking up, but no... so I keep worrying and wonder if he s really needing milk! Bought the suggested book no cry sleep, thing is he sleeps well through the day, I don't feed him to sleep then. For his naps I give him his dummy, blanket and if I take him up to his cot when he s tired he sleeps, I offer him bf when he wakes but he doesn't t take much. May this time pass and we get a good night's sleep soon!

[babybouncer]

I could tell that DD wasn't really feeding, although there have still been times when she's had a whole bottle at night - last night she had 2 back to back - she sleeps better overall.

[rootypig]

bump - this is me! my DD is just coming up to 6mo and is feeding more at night. she is mix fed and I'm weaning her off the breast and onto bottles, which she seems content with. She will go much longer in the day without feeding than at night! during the day she is distracted / won't BF / won't finish a bottle. At night wakes every 3 hours at least and cries quite forcefully until fed. I have just started BLW but I know the answer is more milk in the day, not food. but how the hell to get it into her?!

someone, come and help us!

[SuiGeneris]

Watching with interest as DS2, 1, wakes every 2.5-3 hours or so and only goes back to sleep by bfding. He eats well during the day and had enormous breakfast yesterday, so not sure he had much milk at night. We are introducing cow's milk slowly, but it is only about 50 ml a day at the moment, so not enough to make a difference. Would like to bf until 2, so not keen on introducing other milk, but otoh I need sleep.

[NoWayPedro]

Sounds like a bit of reverse cycling. You need to make it v dull in the day when feeding and time around solids ie. an hour before.

My DD is 8.5 mo and we had frequent wakings, snacking and more co-sleeping than i was happy with. She was teething so I went with it but a few weeks ago two bottom teeth popped through so i thought right - enough!! We did some light sleep training plus gradual might weaning for a week (and took dummy away). Last night she went 7pm until 5.50am - best night ever!

I've read no cry sleep solution and tbh was doing most of those things - in the end we've tried a bit of CC which i didn't ever think i would. I'm lucky she's not a screamer and has mostly been out for the count before 6 minutes (apart from once) so I think both of us were ready for it.

I can't/won't tell you to do it as not for everyone and I know babies waking frequently is normal. I was becoming ill and it was making everyone miserable. In the end its been easier than anticipated for us so I'll wait to see if it continues during the rest of the week.

[am988]

Hi, last night best ever night he went to bed at 7.45, last feed was 7.15.. woke up at 11.15... then he slept till he woke up for feed at 5.45?! I couldn't believe, I was sleeping in spare room as night before that he was waking up ev 2 hrs! So I had to get some sleep.. maybe not sleeping in the same room helped? ?. He s teething, so maybe it's his teeth? I don't know, maybe the gods took pity on me? Wish I can feed him without distractions tru the day.. I have ds1 who is 2.. and he loves baby.. well the feeling is mutual as ds2 can't take his eyes off him.. and keeps looking at him if he speaks when I am feeding.. or rather when I m trying to feed! No point telling my 2 year old to stay out of the room... hope the gods are kind to us all tonight mummies.. x

[rootypig]

Thanks Pedro, have looked up reverse cycling and that's really helpful. Goal now is to get LO to drink her milk during the day! Last night was better - bottle at 7pm slept til 10pm, another bottle and slept til 2.30am, BF and slept til 6.30am. So, slightly longer stretches! hopefully they're coming out of it am

[NoWayPedro]

Good am998! Don't under estimate the havoc teething causes with sleep as like you, my DD was a good napper, not fed to sleep etc. She's so different now the teeth have come through and I night weaned (we BF). Try calgel and teething powder if you don't want to give too much calpol?

rooty glad you're getting a few more zzzz's too :). I know not much goes in at first with blw but intake of food also plays havoc with sleep and perhaps digestion just getting used to formula? Doesn't sound tooooo bad for 6 mo but keeping tanked up during the day will defo help.