10 Month Old Still 4Am Feeding

When my son was ten months old he was eating a lot of solids. As soon as he started to eat a larger diet of solid food he stopped waking up for early morning feeds. I also do not put him to bed until later to prevent him waking at 6 am.

Well if she goes to bed so early, it is no wonder she gets up so early. Nothing wrong with that - but seems like if you want her to sleep longer, keep her up longer.

If you went to bed at 6 PM, you'd be up that early too... even though she is little and needs lots of sleep - she is getting plenty including all her naps. It might be a hard cycle to break, but slowly start shifting things until later in the evening.

I don't think this has much to do with how much she is eating... but more about how long she goes without eating - which is why she is hungry at 4:00 AM. I wouldn't let her cry it out because she has gone so long without eating - she is clearly crying for a reason.

Good luck!

Hi M.

I don't like telling what to do...I have a 10month old daughter too...she gets 3 meals a day like we do...and last bottle is at 8:00pm...she then falls asleep and stays asleep till 8:00am...maybe try not to put her to bed so early...that's why she is hungry at 4am. good luck. :)

You're asking her to go 12 hours without eating??? That's too long. You can't have her go to bed at 6:00 (which is really early) and not "bother" you again for 12 hours. Talk to her doctor. She needs to be fed during those 12 hours!!!

I think that's an absolutely brilliant amount of time for a 10 month old to be sleeping! I think its about the limit of what you can expect... so, probably best to move the bed-time back later, but if that doesn't work for you, just wait it out until she's able to go a bit longer. She'll grow out of it, or you can just hold her/cuddle her and tell her that she has to wait for the morning to have another feed. That's what I did with my son at about 15 months when he still was waking about 5am. It took a few weeks, but he eventually got the message - we don't nurse until morning. Then, he started to eat a bit more during the day as well. I wouldn't personally advocate crying it out on their own. Its damaging to their sense of self. Just remember they don't cry for no reason - they haven't got the ability to manipulate yet, they strongly feel they need something when they cry! If you aren't giving them what they need, or you aren't going to support them going through a difficult adjustment (learning to wait for a feed), then you are essentially making them feel as if they don't matter. I think the crying them out methods don't actually teach babies to 'settle themselves' they teach them that their needs aren't important to you, and its just 'the way it is'. That is why they stop crying. Contentious issue, I know. Best of luck, and enjoy that wonderful baby! A. x

Hi M.,

When my daughter was 9-months-old I asked her doctor if she should be able to go 11+ hours without a feeding at night, and the doctor said yes. She was growing normally and a healthy weight. I decided to end our night-time nursing session and used the Pick-up, Put-down method in the book, "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems". This method allows your baby to learn to get herself back to sleep on her own and doesn't require you to leave her alone or CIO. I just couldn't let my daughter cry...she was used to nursing to get back to sleep during the night, and it just became a habit that we had to break. My daughter was sleeping all the way through the night by night #4 of this method. It seemed crazy to me at first, but it worked great as long as you stick with it and do it right. When my daughter stopped nursing at night she begain to eat more during the day...

try feeding her more solids before you put her to bed... i had the same issue with my son waking up for a bottle at 4 am... i was putting him to bed at around 7pm tho... even now if he doesn't eat enough in the evening i can count on him getting up... but yes, more solids before bed definitely works for my son. i feed him dinner, which depending on his mood, he will or will not eat :-) then i inundate him with pudding, fruit, yogurt, cheese, and all those foods that are pretty good for him and he sleeps through the night. if we have a hectic evening and i'm not able to put the food in front of him, then he usually even now (after being broken from the bottle) wakes up at 4 or 5.

put some water in one of her bottles for that feed

I would feed your daughter supper later in the day, or with you guys if you don't want to do that -- and I would keep her up until YOU go to bed. If she went to bed at 10:00 instead of 6:00, she'd probably sleep until 8:00 a.m. That would be a whole lot nicer for you, than waking up at 4:00 a.m.

WOW! that is a good baby to sleep that long. Maybe if you put her to bed later and give her creeal with a bottle before bed she will sleep longer, but that is normal to want to eat after 12 hours of sleep.
Good luck T.

I guess you'll have to decide whether you want to keep that feeding for now or not.
If not, can you try having your husband give her a bottle (maybe water) at that time. After a few of those, she'll probably lose interest.
Make sure she's very FULL at night time before she goes to bed.
Her bedtime seems early to me, too. Why so early? Can you try slowly moving it back, maybe start the bath at 6:00, feed her, etc and move it 10 mins later each night til it's more like 7-7:30? She may not be actually sleepy enough to stay asleep til 6-6:30 if she's going to bed at 6 p.m......just a few thoughts. Good luck!

I have to say I would have killed for this problem at my dds age! In bed at 6pm? Awesome!!

Try the "No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. It works well with breastfed babies. You have to commit to it, but it sounds like you are already a well committed Mom. :)

ADDED: I just read the rest of the responses and realized we have yet another CIO/anti-cry debate. So here is my two cents: under age one, I too am anti-CIO, but also ani being-a-martyr-on-no-sleep Mom. I think there is a way to be sensitive to your baby's needs without being an all-night buffet. I think the Pantley book will help.
Oh, I have read BOTH sides extensively, including Mark Weissnbluth and Ferber. How about everyone reading the following article to give some more balance to the debate. It's interesting : http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/handout2.asp

Hi M.,

Contact your local La Leche League Representative.

www.llli.org

Hope this helps. D.

I think 6 is too early to put her down. If you put her down more like 730 she will sleep longer. You can try pushing her naps back a little and she will be able to go to bed later. I am guessing that she is your first...there is no way i could have cooked/eaten dinner and got the babies down by 6...eep!!

Hi M.,

Congratulations on nursing your daughter for so long!! It is wonderful to see you meeting her needs so well. If your daughter goes to sleep at 6 PM, then she is probably starving by 4 AM. I wouldn't cut that feed out. I'm sure she needs it. Her little belly can only hold as much food as the size of her little fist, so she is already going 10 hours without eating - I wouldn't even dream of asking you to make her go longer. If you'd like to try getting her to sleep later in the AM, then I would suggest that you gradually change her evening bedtime. It is best to do this VERY gradually. Keep her up 15 minutes later until she is happy going to bed at that time (for probably a week or two), then adjust it another 15 minutes for a week or two, then another. This gradual adjustment will help to adjust her internal clock so that she can learn to stay up later and also sleep later. It will take you several months to complete the cycle and may disrupt her sleep habits for a bit. But gradual is really the best way to do it. Eventually you can get her to the point where she is going down at 8 and sleeping till 6 and then going back down until 7 or 8. As you adjust her nighttime schedule, her daytime schedule will also likely adjust - so be prepared for that.

Good luck adjusting her schedule and congratulations again for doing such a great job with your daughter.

J.

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my daughter was still waking around 3 or 4 am to feed at 9 and a half months, when i said to myself, this is silly, she is too old for this! I was feeding her 3 solid meals a day which my dotor suggested, one of them being cereal and fruit before bed. It took about a 5 days or so of not gettign her out of bed and feeding her for her to get the drift and stop waking up and go back to her normal self during the day because she was keeping herself awake waiting for me to bring her bottle. But after those few days she stopped waking completely and then was not cranky in the morning. I would suggest giving her more solids and refusing her the feeding, i worried the same thing you do, that as she got older it would become habit and be harder to break and i have always read that any habit is harder to break the closer they get to one years old. Also when i took my daughter to her 10mo well check the doctor told me if she still wakes at night you really shouldnt be feeding her, this made me feel much better!

I would still think its normal for her to wake at 3 after 9 hrs of sleep. Why resist something that works. I fed both of my girls whenever they wanted and eventually they slept on their own thru the night. Each child is different and I think you need to do what works for you sometimes and not by the book!

I just broke my 19 month old of this habit a month ago! When my daughter woke up in the middle of the night & wasn't able to go sleep on her own, I would go into her room & rub her back or if she was reaching out to me I would hold her standing only since she associates the rocking chair w/nursing. It took a good week to get her out of the nursing back to sleep habit...but we made it! I'm sure you'll still have nights that your daughter will wake up wanting to be nursed back to sleep but you need to be strong! Just last night my daughter woke up around 1 am, I picked her up & she started to yell "hungry..Hungry" but I told her that she's a big girl & doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night & she went back to sleep after a back rub. Just make sure that if you do continue the nighttime feeding that you are brushing your daughter's teeth before you lay her back down in her crib, you don't want the breastmilk sitting on your daughter's teeth to cause decay. Good Luck!

I say if you are ok with it, keep doing it. I nursed my son and he wanted that night time feeding until almost a year. Then he just gradually stopped waking up for it. Like you, if I tried to let him cry it out, it was off and on the rest of the night where as if I fed him, he would go right back to sleep and stay asleep until his usual wake up time. I hated to give it up before he was ready because he really didn't make that bottle up during the day so I felt he was missing out on the nutrition as well. She will grow out of it when she is ready =)

Ummm, if she's sleeping almost 12 hours don't you think she'd be hungry? I mean if you're putting her to bed that early than yeah she's going to need a 3 or 4am feeding. It's not unusual at all for a breast feeding baby. Most bf babies will even be up more depending upon the needs of the child. My dd at 2yrs was still waking up once a night to nurse. And she would sleep 12 hrs as well. With the amount of growing that they are doing at that age it's very normal.
V.

My step sister has 12 kids, this worked with ALL of them and both of mine. She has too eat more during the day all day long! Once she is not hungry at night, she will not wake up. Do not remove any feedings unless you replace them with..more feedings! Her overall calorie intake has to be enough to sustain her through the night. Don't do cry it out until you know she's stuffed. It takes the baby's body a few days of increased eating to know the difference. Then you can let her cry it out with ease, but she probably won't even wake up.

Just adding a thickened bottle or big feeding at night is not enough. You must feed her as much as she'll take all day long. Don't wait until she seems hungry. Offer more often, and if she's hungry she'll eat. If not, she won't. Just feed her as much as possible. Good luck! THIS WILL WORK! She'll sleep like a stone all night.

M.,
Your daughter is waking up at 4 am because she's hungry or probably awoke because you put her to bed so early. Could you stand to aleast put her to bed @ eight and then she'll probably sleep through the night.
just a suggestion.

Hi M.!

I'm in accord with the opinion that 6:00 PM is too early to be putting your daughter down. I understand that your little one is probably tuckered out around this time. However, I think you need to move her sleep time gradually. I, too, am a huge fan of Ferber. I realize that some people don't agree with him, but I urge you to pick up his book "How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems." I remember reading that you can adjust sleep time gradually by moving it up/down 15 minutes until you get it to where you need it to be.

My two pumpkins used to go down at 7:00 PM. We were able to make gradual adjustments to 8:00 PM.

I remember when my daughter was 10 months old, she was doing two naps a day: one from 10:30-12:00-ish and the other from 3:30-5:00. And then we started the evening "process," if you will (bath, bottle, cuddle, story) at 7:30 so she was in around 8:00. She was up around 7:00 each morning.

I brought that up b/c I'm not sure if she's maybe tired by 6:00 b/c she is napping earlier on.

I do wish you luck. I realize it can be confusing and frustrating, but if you stick to something gradual and are consistent with it, you will be able to see a change.

Ferber also talks about phasing out the night feed which you already know is unnecessary at this point. Thus, reading through the book would be most beneficial to you.

I would be wary of people like Amy who talk about negatively affecting your child with "crying it out." More often than not, these are people who have NOT read anything but rather think that Ferber's techniques involve you leaving your kid to cry unconsolably in a crib all by him/herself. Let me assure you that this is NOT the case. Sadly, these people are completely mislead and need to better educate themselves on Ferber's techniques before they render their opinions. My two kids (one: 2 yrs and the other 6 months) are completely well-adjusted (as one can be at 6 months!). It took no more than three days to get them sleeping through the night. They don't seem damaged that I checked in on them in intervals of 3, 5, 7 minutes or 5, 7, 10 minutes at a time. (Whatever the intervals were.)

Much luck!
T. :)

6-6 is a long time to go without eating, so i think you can count on that 3:30 feed unless you move her bedtime later gradually. I would keep her up a little later each night until you're at 7:30-8, then in time you'll find that 3:30 feed disappear- it will take time to break that cycle though. More solids will help, but I think it has more to do with the bed time.

I am with the camp that says 10 hours is a great long stretch! Consider how often she is nursing in the day time. My oldest nursed every 1-1.5 hours. Asking him to go 12 hours at night would be similar to me not eating for something like 72 hours.

I wouldn't worry much about what the other bottle fed babies are doing and I have never had much luck stuffing a baby with food- especially before bed. You don't want her to have an upset stomach while you're trying to get her to sleep. I would consider getting her off baby food. I've never had much luck feeding breast fed babies purees. They are used to controlling their intake of food. She may eat more if you let her self feed.

If you are looking for a good books try The No Cry Sleep Solution. In the past I have had much luck combining that with Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. I sort of mush them together and came up with something that worked well for our family and specific children. Both of my boys are now terrific sleepers and I never had to feel like I was pushing them to do anything before they or I was ready. I also don't feel like I was "played" and my boys were waking up out of habit.

Good luck!

Sleeping 9-10 hours is great and only way to stop that would be to keep her up or wake her up after an hour or so and keep her up. The problem is what time she is going down.

First, 6 is too early for bedtime. Stretch that gradually by fifteen minutes each night until she is up until 7 at least. You are right, she does not need that feeding in the night. You can do the Ferber technique or you can try another Ferber recommendation which is to decrease your nursing time by one minute each night so that she gradually does not need that feeding. So if you nurse for 10 minutes, tonight try 8 or 9, then the next night try 7 or 8, until the amount she is getting isn't enough to wake her up with hunger.

I can't say enough about the Dr Ferber Sleep Solutions book. It has saved my marriage and my sanity. If this technique works for you, you should get the book because most likely you will use it several times over the years. It is my favorite handbook for my kid's sleep issues!

Good luck to you, sounds like you have a great baby!

Your daughter is sleeping 9-10 hours straight, God bless her heart! Consider yourself VERY lucky. If you don't want to be awakened at 3 or 4 a.m., put her to bed later. As many others here commented, I think 6 p.m. is really early. And I agree with the others who said that after 10 hours, it isn't unreasonable that your daughter is hungry! You can certainly try packing her full of food throughout the day, but I think that the easiest thing to change, and the thing that will make the biggest difference, is changing her bedtime.

M.,

For a breastfed baby, it's very common to still have nighttime feedings for the first year. My little one was up multiple times per night until we nightweaned at 15 months. The transition to sleeping through the night was way more simpe than I ever anticipated, because we were both ready for it.

The solid intake you describe is also very normal. For the first 12 months of life, solids are really just for play and not for nutrition - the majority of her nutrition should be coming from breastmilk or formula (75% at one year). The percentage tapers off over the next year (50% at 18 months and 25% at 2 years). After 12 months, another milk source can be introduced (rice, almond, hemp, cow, etc) to take the place of the breastmilk.

Hang in there Mama, these days will pass before you know it. I'm not sure how my little girl is about to turn 2 this summer, it seems like she just got here. She's still nursing all day, but if we're out and about and distracted, then she's happy to have a sippy cup.

Best wishes,

S.

Hi M., Wow, your daughter is in bed for the night at 6pm? Then she sleeps til 4am? That's great...10 solid hours is a great nights sleep for a 10 month old! My suggestion to rid yourself of the 4am feed is to move her bedtime. Best wishes.