Settling & Night Feeds

Just wondering how many of you are still on nightly feeds, and if so how many per night and how old is your bub?

Lucas is still feeding twice nightly, sometimes three. Has done this since he was newborn. Is still breastfed (Wonder if that makes a difference?) ...i recall people telling me it would get better at 3 months and he would sleep through...but he didn't, then they said maybe 6 months....and nope. 9 Months and still no improvements. The broken sleep is killing me.

He is also extremely fussy with his solids, only takes puree's generally, sometimes lumpy. Is fine with finger foods (if he likes the taste of them). Some days just won't eat but im putting that down to him teething at present.

Also ...settling. How many of you settle your bubs to sleep by breastfeeding? Plunket has told me off several times (depending on which nurse I get, some don't say anything) ...It's a habit we got into and now it can take up to SIX hours to get him to sleep. For instance last nite, 8pm till 2am he just wouldn't sleep. No matter how many times he fed, and how many times I left him in his cot with the light off and door closed....I don't like this controlled crying idea, apart from the fact it NEVER works....never has! I have tried this approach ever since bubs was 3 months. He just gets himself very worked up and it turns into a tantrum where he cries, shakes/trembles and sniffles uncontrollably. I don't care what people say, i don't agree with it. Any ideas on how I can solve this problem of not being able to settle him at night? What do you do?

I guess I could also put the latter down to teething also. The broken sleep is seriously killing me though. We were asleep by 9.30pm tonight which is pretty good for bub. Mind you I had bathed him and got him ready by 6pm so still need to improve on the time it takes to get him down.

ARGH!

Daniel has a routine that goes:
6:30pm bath
7pm put down and goes to sleep in about 5-10 mins - we rarely hear from him
8:30pm dream feed
5:40-6am he wakes up, I give him a feed and pop on white noise and go back to bed (this is new)
7am wakes up for the day

I think that Daniel goes to bed so well at night because he has a routine, it never changes and by that I mean that he knows that he has dinner (solids), nappy free time, bath, massage, get dressed, bottle, bed.

We also used the sleep easy solution dvd which the sleep store has. We found it really good. Has lots of usuful tips in the dvd and they actually show you what to do with all these different types of babies with different problems right up to a 2 yr old which was really cool. It only took a night or two for their techniques to work for us.

You could try emailing the sleep expert on here- I know she has helped out a few OB mums.

It's a tricky one. Hannah and Briona went from 2 feeds per night to 1, at 6mos but I felt in hindsight that it was more a comfort feed than necessary. Anyway I wasn't strict about it so I continued with that feed until 11mos (both of them) when I weaned them, and the same night they didn't wake for a feed! Briona relapsed at about 7mos back to 2 feeds and then 3 and I thought no way, she's just doing it cause she can, not cause she needs it, so I did CC except for the usual time midnight snack (one only). It was hard - mostly hard for me, but it was what I needed to do.

Ella goes to bed at 7 every night and settles herself to sleep pretty quickly (we also have a routine during the day which does help her). She has a dream feed around 10- some nights through she doesn't want the feed and still has a night feed at around 2. Wakes up at 6 and then goes back down to sleep again for another hr and starts the morning at 7. I think the middle of the night feed is more out of habit, as she is on 3 solid meals a day...but she doesn't get feed to sleep, as she is always awake when I put her down to bed.

There is a book called the no cry sleep solution, which may help if you don't want to do the CIO approach (can get it from the sleep store or could try your local library).

Good luck with what ever approach you do decide to do and hope you get more sleep soon

Not any advice here, but I wanted tos ay that some babies simply can't do CIO. Lily can't , if she is so upset that she won't get past a grizzle in 5 minutes then she will go like your bubba, screaming shaking and it can take an hour to settle her down. needless to say we have made the decision to not do that anymore.

We can sometimes settle her by rocking in her bed, or by cuddles, but often at night we need to go the booie way. She can put herself to sleep no worries during the day though so i am not worried about that yet.

Good luck, I hope you find somehting that works for you.

one thing I have read a bit lately re the constant night feeding is to get your partner to settle for one f the night feeds and to give a bottle - you could start with EBM then move to water, so he isn't getting you all the time?

Okay..here is the routine I got given for 8month old Blake..pretty much............ I did post it on here ages ago but have no idea where.
Blake did not ever take a bottle either and never has drunk any milk. Has rice milk in his cereal and custard- thats it!
Are you giving him solids first..as from 8 months it is solids first???

So bearing in mind baby at this age should still only be up for a max of two hours to inc all feeding play etc.

6-7am - wake up- change bum- big bowl of solids plus piece of toast - then within the hour a FULL breastfeed from both sides. Play.
8-30 -9am Back to bed for sleep (aiming for at least 1.5-2hours)

11am -12 wake up change bum etc..big bowl of solids then sandwich then full b/f on both sides within the hour.....
play play play........

2ish back down for afternoon nap........

4 -4-30ish play dinner of solids and big custard or some yoghurt etc finger food to chew on then you can either do full b/f then bath or bath then feed straight before bed.....

9:30....very quiet dream feed no lights no contact just in and out and back down....try that for 3 nights then dont wake for dream feed.



If bubs wakes in the night wait a good 15 minutes before going in and patting and wrapping - saying SHHH and walk out. Honest it wont take long for him to get the picture that night is for sleeping and day is for eating and sleeping and play!!!

PM me if you want to.... :o)

Thank you sooo much for all that, Im going to print it out & give it a try for the next few days starting tomorrow. Im guessing it might take a couple of days before he adheres to the routine and eats his food properly?

And how do you put them down to sleep if they keep jumping up and walking around the cot? Thats why i always end up resorting to breastfeeding him to sleep to try and settle him because he makes it impossible otherwise!

And if he won't take the solids i offer him....then what?

Ah............forgot about that......... well I wasnt using a safety sleep before going to Mothercraft but they use them and insist on them there and it was a godsend. They say it makes them feel secure - stops them banging heads on cots etc so waking unnecessarily etc. I know lots of people dont use them but I will be for next one as it was great for Blake and had I started earlier with Paige would have been great to keep her in - not that she was ever bad sleeper! Terribly ahead of herself to the point we ended up having to lock her in her room as she would climb out of her cot at 9 months and end up asleep on the floor. She would fall asleep on her teddies etc too!! (really funny)

Blake only came out of it in the last month and has been nodding off in some odd positions but all good.

Yes it could take up to a week with perserverance...could only take 3 nights too :)

Oh and I did exactly what you were doing - b/f to keep the peace with all the rest of the house.....It was the first thing they said was going to stop.....LOL