Hi moms, My son is 6-months old and still wakes up once at night to eat (nurse). He is exclusively breastfed, but we just started rice cereal/fruits 2 weeks ago. I even do a late night feed (around 9:30pm before I go to bed), but he still wakes up once more to eat before the morning. He is a VERY big boy, 20 pounds at this point. I nurse him in the morning, leave 15 oz (three 5oz bottles) of pumped breastmilk while I'm at work (plus now rice cereal and stage one fruit 2 times a day), nurse him before bed, then again at 9:30pm...isn't this enough? Seems like a lot to me, but I guess he is just a hungry boy. It doesn't seem like he is nurnsing for comfort in the middle of the night, he eats like a hungry piranha, then goes right back to sleep.
I keep threatening to "Feberize" him, but it's only the middle of the night that he is up, otherwise sleeps well and naps fine too. He has always been the kind of baby that you put to bed awake and falls asleep on his own...the middle of the night is different....he is hungry and cries until fed, pacifiers and soothing not working!!! Help, I'm tired! I know, we all are as moms, and this too shall pass.... any advice or words or wisdom are appreciated!!! :)
Thank you to all who took the time to respond! I have always done the "dream feed" before I go to bed (usually around 10pm...I'm too tired to stay up later than that!). I KNOW that waking once is normal, as many moms said...just wanted some words of wisdom! My other son (now 2.5) was also breastfed and slept through the night (6pm-6am...yes 12 hours) starting around 2 months old...so I guess I was spoiled! I'm going to try to enjoy the quiet time nursing baby Gavin in the dark, because he is already very distracted with daytime nursing with all the excitement my 2 year old provides....!!! Happy holidays to all!
I have a 21 month old boy who has NEVER slept through the nite except for his first 3 months. He is also a BF baby. I have no real advise for you except just to tell you that its not abnormal for a 6 mth old to wake up once or twice. I remember my sons pediatrician telling me that he should wake up once a nite until around 10 mths...then should probably sleep through the nite. But not all kids are the same.
Hello,
I know it is frustrating but he will sleep through the night when he is ready. My daughter was the same way. (She is 19 months old now) You aren't doing anything wrong and there is nothing wrong with him. It is just that every baby is different. Good luck!
How I sympathize! My daughter just turned 7 months, and she is also on the large side--18 lbs. I wonder if you should try leaving more than 15 oz for him to drink during the day. I'm only suggesting this because my daughter, who is also breastfed, has been taking somewhere between 20 and 30 oz during the day while I'm at work. I keep pushing them to offer more solids, but regardless, she still seems to drink around 24 oz during the day even with cereal and fruit/veg. And yes, keeping up with that is HARD. I pump every morning after her first feeding, then try to pump 3x at work, then feed her solids at dinner time and nurse right at bedtime between 7 and 7:30. Then I pump again before I go to bed. The only reason I'm willing to do this is because I know it will be short-lived!
With all that, she usually sleeps from about 7:30 to 6 am. I feel like a normal person with that schedule. I know that when you're working, sleep is critical. But I also know how burdensome all this pumping can be. Good luck to you.
At 6 month that doesn't seem unusual esp. given his size. Our 1st son was similar size at that age (and hasn't slowed down yet..he's 6!). He took night feedings at that age and we introduced food at 5.5 months. The food will help sustain him longer. See if you can push your later feeding our a bit too. Could you do 11 to get a night of uninterupted sleep in exchange?
Good luck!
It is completely normal for a 6 month old to nurse once during the night. My son didn't night wean until well past a year old.
Sleep training methods which encourage ignoring your childs needs are unhealthy. Do you really want your child to cry until hes accepted that his parents have abandoned him, then gives up and falls asleep? Sounds harsh, but thats essentially what happens in a baby's brain when they are made to "cry it out". The level of stress hormones in a CIO baby's system are scary. Please look into it and choose a sleep method which takes everyones needs into account. Elizabeth Pantleys No Cry Sleep Solution is great. The main thing to remember, though, is that babies wake up at night, babies need to nurse at night, and they are not simply trying to inconvenience you! They cry and wake up because they need something.
This may not be much comfort, but all babies are different. I have a friend who had a baby that slept through the night at about 6 weeks. I hated her for it. Your son just may not be ready to sleep through the night, despite how much, or what you feed him. One of my daughters (I have twin girls) didn't sleep through the night until she was 23 mos! And that was after we "Ferberized" them!
The Ferber technique certainly reduced the amount of time they were up in the night. I did it at 6 months. It took 6 days/nights, so don't give up. You have to be stronger willed than he is, and remember your end goal is to have night after night of good sleep.
Also, if they've got a cold, etc, and they're up in the night because of that, you'll have to do it again, but it will be quicker/take less time. These are sleeping habits you're teaching him for a lifetime. And my daughter who didn't sleep through the night until almost 2 years is 10.5 now, and she's the best sleeper in the house! Lays down, closes her eyes, and is out in about 5 min., and sleeps all night.
Good luck!
I looked through the posts quickly, so maybe you got this suggestion, but what if you offered him some formula for the middle of the night feed? You would want to introduce it a little during the day first, just so he knows what to expect, but ultimately you could entirely keep with daytime nursing. Just this way you could switch off with your husband for that middle of the night feed, you get some more sleep, and the baby, who really seems hungry, gets to eat. In my mind, it's not all that different than just dropping the middle of the night feed; he ends up with the same daily intake of breastmilk. The one other suggestion is to up his liquid intake during the day, as that's where most of his calories are coming from. Good luck.
Hi J., I'd first like to say that I know formula-fed babies that don't STTN either so it's not just because you BF that your baby is waking up to eat. I know you've gotten many conflicting, yet all well-meaning responses already. You just have to think about your values and your child. I never could have or would have let my 1st child CIO because it wasn't what was best for him. At around 9/10 months we did the pick up/put down method and it worked great for him after a little over a week. He's 3 1/2 now and is just really social and connected and still doesn't like being alone. He also has a super fast metabolism still and was genuinely hungry when I was nursing him at night as a baby.
My daughter is 10 months and didn't need to eat at night as much and will put herself back to sleep after about 5-10 minutes of crying if she wakes up (since around 6/7 mo), my personal limit is about 15 min. My son would've cried for 2 hours straight in genuine distress. I feel like I know the difference between her cries and will go to her if she cries too loudly or too long for me. You could try leaving him when he wakes for 10-20 minutes and seeing if he starts to settle down or becomes increasingly distressed. Use your instincts - if he's really hungry, just know that 1 feeding a night at 6 mo. is not bad at all and that it will be over soon. Hope all this advice is helpful : ). D.
It's perfectly normal to have to nurse once per night at this age. My daughter did the same and would gobble down her bottle (never latched, pumped for a year) until she was 11 months old. I'm sure you are exhausted but he still needs the night time feed. Good luck and enjoy!
This is what I said to my mother when she objected about us letting our son cry instead of feeding him..."If someeone offered you chocolate cake every night, wouldn't you eat it?" The point is, sure your son is hungry, but only because he is conditioned to be because he's used to being fed. He definitely doesn't need the extra nutrition. You wake up in the middle of the night hungry sometimes too, don't you? But you know it's the middle of the night, and you don't get up to eat in the middle of the night, so you go back to bed! You deserve your sleep at this point:) I hope this helps....
I also have to say that I just read the other responses, and I am a little shocked. Why would you need to keep up your milk supply for a feeding that you're dropping? At four months, my doctor said sleeping through the night is 8 hours, certainly not five. Lots of babies will sleep through the night without intervention when they're ready, but why should you wait for a year and a half to sleep through the night when your child is a healthy weight?
Hi J.,
Sounds to me like he's not getting enough during the day? At this point solids don't give enough calories, from what I understand--they get what they need from breastmilk/formula. And b/c he sleeps well otherwise, it sounds like a specific need.
My daughter is also a big eater. At 6 mos. she was drinking at least 24 oz. and only weighed 13 lbs (as she was a month early). You could try adding an ounce to each bottle and see if it makes a difference?
Have you cancelled out other potential wakers? Too cold, too hot, uncomfortable pjs, missing you? I know you're tired, but I'd wait on Ferber if you can. Your baby is just telling you that he needs s/t and even though it's hard, it will pass.
Good luck!
This may be a blessing in disguise. Some women's milk supply drops when they don't nurse or pump during the night.
I'm a pediatric dietitian and a mother of a 9 month old daughter. I know this isn't what you want to hear, likely, but getting up 1 time per night to nurse is totally normal! Often at that age they will get up 2 times per night! My daughter is just now starting to sleep through the night at 9 months a few times per week, but got up twice last night to nurse. They will wean themselves off the night time feedings when they are ready. I know it's tiring, but I find it is way better than it used to be!! You are doing what is best for your baby, and doing a great job. It's hard when you hear about other people's babies sleeping through the night, but there are just as many getting up still to eat, and often they are breastfed. Please don't be discouraged...you have a healthy baby!
Yes he is definitely hungry! 6 months is very young, his poor belly can only fit so much in at a time! this is one of the main reasons we co-sleep with our baby. She has always slept through the night. She stirs a few times to nurse, latches on and rolls over when she is done. Completely normal and we both get a full night sleep. The nighttime feeding is also crucial to keep up your milk supply(my lactation consultant mom told me this). I come from a long line of nursing moms, and I can tell you, keep feeding at night. It certainly is beneficial to your baby, and there is nothing wrong with it! I love the names of your boys btw!Cherish these fleeting times, they pass all too quickly!
I let my first cry it out at 7 months and used Ferber on the 2nd. They weighed less than 20 pounds at that age. First took 4 days to sleep through the night (after 4 hours of crying each night not a peep the fifth!) and the second took about 2-3 weeks to sleep through with Ferber. 20 lbs seems like sufficient weight to make it through the night - ask your pediatrician. Mine were still feeding every 2 hours at that age so I needed to do something. Once per night does not seem that much at 6 months, but 20 pounds should allow him to make it 6-8 hours through the night without starving, haha! Giving him less milk and more water each night also might work since after some time he will decide it is not worth waking up for zero food. I kept the Ferber books for years since at later years there were stages where all of a sudden they would show up in our bedroom at 4AM and such, there is lots of good advice about all kinds of sleep issues in that book. Sweet dreams! Cato
J.,
I understand being tired but if your son is hungry he will need to eat to go back to sleep. Also breast milk goes thru a baby in 1 hour where as formula takes 3 hours. This alone is reason why he is getting up. I breasfed exclusively for the first 6 months then introduced solids and my daughter still needed night time nursing for quit a while.
Another thing is that you should even try to sleep train a baby til they are older than 6 months. I started when my daughter was 7-1/2 and I was I had waited. It was really stressful for both of us. This first method only worked for a short while 'ferberizing' then I waited til she was over one year and used a book called "Sleeping thru the night" by Jodi Mindell. It was very helpful and since using it my daughter has made it thru the night by herself. Again she was older and didn't need the night time feeding any longer.
I would really base your decision on weather or not to sleep train by your sons need for food and not just your want of sleep.
Good luck,
L.
Hi! Your problems sounds similar to the problem we were having- I know you'll get all kinds of responses that he's still really young, what's wrong with bf-ing when he wants it, etc...but it sounds like he's old enough and big enough to not need to be fed in the middle of the night.
When we had our 6 month appt, I complained that our son wasn't taking solids well (she had us try at 4 months but he gagged a lot so we kept trying every once in a while but never had much luck and figured he'd take it when ready) and my pedi told us that he was old enough to have 3 solid meals a day!! I thought she was crazy since everything I read was that you start at 6 months (or a little earlier) but at that point it was just "for fun"...she said our goal was to have his pincer grasp strong by the 9 month appt. She also said that at 6 months they can go 12 hours without being nursed...which I also thought was crazy. We usually put him to bed at 6:30pm and he'd sleep most of the night, maybe waking at 3am for a feeding (on a "bad" night around 1am)- and like your son, he wasn't getting up to play, he was sucking hard. But I started wondering if maybe she was right, maybe he was waking up out of habit (and, I figured he was hungry since it had been 9ish hours).
I started focusing on really getting in 3 solid meals a day for the calories- he didn't really do a good job at eating them until 7 months, but I figured by trying 3x/day he'd get the hang of it, and soon he was a great solids eater. I also still nurse him every 3ish (maybe 4) hrs during the day (he's almost 10 months now). By making sure he ate enough during the day I was confident enough to *try* letting him cry at the 3am waking knowing he shouldn't really be hungry (I also did a solids meal around 5pm followed by bf-ing at 6:15pm to stock him up!)...painful as it was, sure enough, within a couple nights he slept all the way through until morning!
He still wakes now and then around 3am...just last night I had to let him fuss for 40ish minutes but he went back to sleep and slept until 6:45am. If you don't mind doing Ferber or cry-it-out, give it a shot...you might just find that he's been waking out of habit (and then happily eating). Good luck!!
Maybe you could try giving him an expressed bottle in the middle of the night, instead of the breast, and over several nights begin diluting it with water so that eventually he is just waking up for water. When he realizes there isn't anything good to wake up for, he may just stay asleep! My daughter was waking up at 1 am every night to nurse and after we ferberized her (5.5 mo old) she stopped waking up in the middle of the night. She didn't need to eat then - it was just a habit!
I think, based on what my pedi told us, that he will make up during the day with enough solid food and breast milk to get him through the night without the breast. He's getting to the point where HE needs a good night's sleep too, not just you! We did 4 nights of pat-the-back but don't-pick-up, and our son started sleeping through the night. It was better for everyone. He was 6 months old at the time. It was tough but it didn't scar him for life or anything, and we just planned it for a long weekend when we didn't need to sleep too much!
Hi J.,
My soon-to-be 6 month old daughter still wakes up once a night to nurse (usually between 3 and 5 AM) and she too is hungry and then goes back to sleep. I agree with the first reply - it's good for your milk supply - and I'd add that personally, I enjoy the night feed the most because it's just she and I in the dark and quiet. Her pediatrician sees absolutely nothing wrong with 1 nursing per night at her age. Enjoy it while it lasts!
M.
What makes you think a 6 month old SHOULD sleep through the night?
Think about it, their stomachs are tiny...also...they're BABIES...not adults.
If you want a longer period of sleep at night, try co-sleeping...I know it's not for everyone but it's an option so that both of you can get some sleep. And when your son is ready to sleep through the night, he'll let you know.
Enjoy the time he wants to spend with you now, before you know it he'll be running ahead of you as a teenager pretending he doesn't know you. :)
Good luck with everything.
they say sleeping through the night is a 5 hour stretch. If he's actually nursing and not just sucking then he's hungry and you should feed him. breastmilk is digusted much faster then formula so its normal for a bf baby to be hungry sooner.
It is absolutely NORMAL for a 6 mo old to nurse during the night!! There is absolutely no comparison between you eating cake in the middle of the night and your TINY BABY nursing then! If you think about how much they are growing and developing, it is no wonder they need sustenance during the night. If he was waking a lot I'd suggest giving extra feeds before bed, but once a night. Wow, that is so not a problem at that age!
I'd suggest you stop talking with sleep trainers who think babies should be sleeping all night at that age. Many, many babies won't be and it really has nothing to do with whether or not they are having solids during the day.
I know the sleep disruption is rough but I think that our bodies must be designed to take it when babies are young as the biological normal situation would be nursing day and night for quite a while. Training babies to sleep alone away from us for long amounts of time from an early age would not be the biological norm (though it is the cultural norm). I think we put a lot of extra pressure on ourselves because everyone is constantly asking us if our babies are sleeping through from day one it seems and we are in a rush to push that on them. But the fact is that what he is doing is totally normal. Here's a bunch of info on kellymom about babies and sleep http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleep.html. Perhaps you will find that helpful. Really you will sleep again!!
You have gotten a lot of advice - some of which is in line with the way I think and some of which is not. You obviously have to decide what you are comfortable with, I too believe it's not right to "sleep train" a baby to accept that he/she is abandoned so that they fall back to sleep all stressed out. I believe in helping babies learn to fall asleep independently but it sounds like your baby knows how to put himself to sleep so that's not the issue. Especially since all his other sleeping is fine, he seems to know how to sleep so you don't need to teach him. It sounds like he is simply hungry. I agree the chocolate cake comparison is completely irrelevant. His primary source of nutrition at this point is STILL breast milk. I would definitely bolster his food intake during the day if you can.
One suggestion I didn't read in the other posts, and that I did for a LONG time - until 9 or 10 months I think, maybe more. I did what was called a "dreamfeed" recommended by the Baby Whisperer (Tracy Hogg). She believes you should never break a baby's trust by making him cry it out but that you always need to be responsive and sooth and encourage self soothing.
ANyway, the "dreamfeed" is when you go back in and feed the baby one last time before you go to bed. You don't even wake the baby up, just pick him up gently, latch him on and let him nurse - the whole time he stays totally asleep. Now maybe you go to bed at 9:30 and that's what you are doing. If not, I'd go back in and feed him right before you go to bed. I used to go to bed around 11:30 when my little one was that age so I would feed her around 11:15 or 11 and she'd then make it through the night til around 6 or 7. You can give it a try, worked well for me though it took a few nights for ME to get it right - i was at first so nervous about waking her up but she really got it. DOn't change him or anything - just nurse and back in the crib, no burping even.
For me, I enjoyed the nursing time, and wish I would have cherished it even more as she refused to nurse during the day at about 9 months, then gave up her evening feed about a month later and stopped her first morning feed at around 12 months. I was devastated and still miss it as I am pumping now to make sure she still gets a little of that precious human milk even though she's over 2. So you never know when he is just going to call it quits - enjoy it while he does.
Good luck. Your baby sound PERFECTLY fine. He's simply a baby, even if he is big.
Hi J.,
Both my kids were exclusively breastfed with a slow introduction to food starting at 6 mos as well. I know a lot of people say by 6 mos they should be able to go "through the night" but I found that both my kids naturally weaned themselves off the night feedings a little bit passed 8 months. I was also told by either my midwife or lactation consultant (and can't remember which) that 5 hours is considered sleeping through the night. I'm not sure at what age that reference changes.
Since he is such a good sleeper with great sleeping habits I'd try to stick it out a bit longer. Especially since you mentioned that the feeding does in fact seem to be for hunger vs comfort. I know it's hard being chronically sleep deprived-my thoughts are with you ;)
Good Luck!
