night time feeding?

[updaduff]

back on the board wondering if im doing the right thing, once again...lol.

DS is 5.5mths. He get a bit of rice cereal at dinner time and just starting this week a bit of rice cereal in the morning. He is breastfed.

He usually will only wake once at night for a feed and goes back to bed no prob. though recently he's been waking 3 times during the night. :sleeping: Each time I've fed him and put him back to bed. and now im wondering if I really need to feed him each time? this morning when he woke at 3:30 i didnt take him out of his cot (just sort of comforted him) and within 20 minutes he was back to sleep.....

what do you ladies do when your bub wakes in the night? some times the only way to get him back to sleep is with the boob! when he's on a more regular solid regime - will night time feeding be still absolutely necessary? will i be 'starving' him if i dont bf him each time??? i really dont know...

[Herchy]

What I do... I replace DD's dummy and see if that's the problem, but if she's still cranky a few minutes later, then she is hungry and wants a feed.
DD was sleeping 10-12 hours through the night for 3 months and then all of a sudden was waking several times a night. This last week she has done a couple of 8 hour nights which has been great, but I don't expect it to last.

[JimJamsMum]

Babies wake in the night for reasons other than hunger. If bub wakes during the night I make sure he's warm enough and give him his dummy. I'll only get him up if he continues to whinge for more than about five minutes. IMO, if bub isn't hungry it's a good idea to help them get back to sleep without getting them up so they can learn to do it by themselves and not rely on a feed to get them back to sleep.

[MummaMilk]

Were co-sleepers here now but what I used to do was to see if I could comfort them, if they settled then great if not then they were obviously hungry (if they were really upset I would just feed them straight away).

There is no evidence to suggest that feeding solids will cause a child younger then 6mths to sleep longer, here are 2 studies:
Macknin ML, Medendorp SV, Maier MC. Infant sleep and bedtime cereal (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2672785&dopt=Abstract). Am J Dis Child. 1989 Sep;143(9):1066-8.
Keane V, et al. Do solids help baby sleep through the night? Am J Dis Child 1988; 142: 404-05.

[updaduff]

thanks - i might just give the comforting deal ago and only do his normal middle of the night feed...
I think i've made it too much of a routine to wake and get fed? so thats what he expects now? just wanted to check im not doing the wrong thing.

Another question - what age does it become unnecessary to feed in the middle of the night?

[updaduff]

thanks for the links mumma milk :)

[Wookie1]

Babies wake in the night for reasons other than hunger. If bub wakes during the night I make sure he's warm enough and give him his dummy. I'll only get him up if he continues to whinge for more than about five minutes. IMO, if bub isn't hungry it's a good idea to help them get back to sleep without getting them up so they can learn to do it by themselves and not rely on a feed to get them back to sleep.


This is what I tend to do also. When I've got him up in the past few weeks and offered a feed he has refused or had very little (he's FF).
I'm sure he'd lets us know if was hungry. ;)

[Jelly Baby]

Try not to get into the habit of 'boobie-feeding' back to sleep.

I have done this with DD who is 1 next month, she still gets up 3-5 times a night for a comfort suck/feed.

:hair: :sleeping: :banghead:

[LilMissnBoo]

DD1 was a shocking sleeper and didn't sleep thru until 15 months. I always fed her to sleep, gosh it was much easier than listening to her cry! Also I ended up co-sleeping to make it easier..on me! :D

Your bubs could be waking for different reasons, maybe he is having a growth spurt and needs the extra feeds, he could be teething or maybe the solids at dinner time are upsetting his tummy. I would maybe cut out the solids in the evening to see if that makes a difference. :)

[TripleTime]

We try a dummy first & give it 5 minutes to work, if it doesnt its a feed. Most of the time its for a lost dummy.

[kuddles]

We pop the dummy back in his mouth if that doesn't work we pick him up and give him a cuddle. Sometimes he'll be happy with that. We try and make feeding the last resort.
Unless your bub is underweight/ has weight gaining problems he shouldn't need a feed in the middle of the night. Does he always wake at the same times?
I started my DS on solids at 5.5 months. We feed him at lunch time only to start with and then made the feeds a breakfast solid feed and a lunch solid feed. We have not long been on 3 solid feeds a day. We try and have solids by no later than 7:30pm. That way if he wakes with a sore tummy/wind it will be before we go to bed. :)
HTH