night time feedings

[ButterCup17]

I'm working with ds on sleeping longer through the night during this awful sleep regression. He was waking every 1-2 hrs for a while there but last night woke only every 3-4. My question tho is which of those times should I be feeding him and which times should I be trying to encourage him to just go back to sleep? Last night he went down at 8:30, woke up at midnight but fell back asleep with his binkie, woke again at 3 and i fed him then, woke at 7 but didn't eat, then woke at 8:30 and ate. Does that sound OK? How long is ok to go without eating during the night? While bf'ing will he always need to eat during the night?

 

[Mumtodogs]

Stalking!!! My boy wakes every 2 hours at least and I just feed him each time because he takes it and it's a quick way to get him back to sleep... I need to do something about this!

 

[noon_child]

All babies are different - there are still growth spurts but not all babies wake, they just stuff themselves during the day. Others want nutrients round the clock. Others don't "need" the feed medically speaking but will not settle to sleep without the comfort (this is considered by some to be a 'bad habit' but by others to be a normal response to being new in the world.)

My advice would be to try not to get in to a rut of offering a feed without taking a cue from LO. If they wont settle after a few minutes with shhhh/pat/cuddle/music or whatever your current sleep associations are*, then the next step would be try a feed to see if LO is hungry.

I was still occasionally offering a night feed at 20months as it was all that comforted her while teething, but I tried other things first. It was easier for me to spend 10mins nursing her and go straight back to sleep than try to cope with 3hrs of screaming.

*if the only sleep association you have is nursing, now is a good time to introduce some new ones e.g a song you sing or music that plays while you nurse, a toy that LO cuddles while you nurse. Slowly as LO gets less dependent on milk you can try these things without nursing.

 

[armywife11]

I agree I think it depends on you and the child. For me I always offered a nurse as she would go right back to sleep with that appose to anything else. If I rocked her or shushed her she would fall asleep but as soon as I laid her down she would be up crying soon after. That or it would take forever so I didn't deem it as a big deal for me. She grew out of it and we did start introducing things as she got older and was clearly comfort sucking and not really nursing. When we started that stuff usually daddy would be the one to comfort her to sleep so she was less likely to get mad at me for not letting her comfort suck.

My daughter went through every single sleep regression mentioned in the books. I wanted and needed the sleep and this worked for me. We also co-slept some during the regressions so she would be in bed with me or beside the bed in her sleeper. I know thats not what everyone wants but it worked for us. Her 4 month sleep regression she was up around every two hours.. normally she would be up every four. If I remember right.