I know this has been asked a million times...but how to get lo to bf more?

[Andrea T]

Hello....

I'm just wondering if anyone out there has any tips on how to get an EBF baby to eat more during the day, so that NW's will decrease???  Our DS will be 7 months soon, and I was hoping to try and eliminate his DF as Tracy says you should do in TBWSAYP, but his NW's for food are increasing lately rather than decreasing!  He started to sleep through the night at about 6 months, did that for about 2 weeks, then started having NW's, and now last night he woke up 3 times to eat!!!  I know it's a hunger issue, since he is very able to put himself to sleep independantly, and only wakes up if he's teething or hungry. 

He's a terrible breastfeeder during the day usually, very distractable.  He usually only feeds off one side.  When he was sleeping through the night, I'm pretty sure it was because he was feeding off both sides at all his feeds during the day. 

Now that he's waking at night for feeds, he's not hungry at 7:00am when he wakes up, and so then our EASY is a mess.  I basically just feed him when he gets hungry, and try to make sure it's not close to his nap times.

Does anyone have any ideas?  I'm feeling a bit like a bad mom, since I feel like there's lots of pressure for these kinds of issues to be over already!  I also don't want DS to get in the habit of waking at night for food....Should I just ride this out and see what happens - hoping that he'll start to eat more in the day?  Could this be a GS (I'm not sure if there's a GS at the 7 month age range?)  Or should I start to gradually decrease nursing times at night???

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,

Andrea

[NoelleChristine]

As an experienced mom can I first say...get rid of the pressure you're putting on yourself.  The good thing about reading books and seeking help is that we have an idea of what we can do to help our lo's, the BAD thing is we take away expectations and if we, or our babies, aren't meeting those expectations, we feel like we are doing something wrong, or there is something wrong with our babies.  You're not a bad mom!

Okay, that being said, you could try to gradually decrease nursing times at night, yes.  That would meet his need of hunger if that's what's driving the waking, and slowly get his little belly taking in smaller amounts of milk at night, and hopefully, getting rid of the waking.  You can read more about it here:https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52857.0

It's a good place to start at least.

[NoelleChristine]

Here...let's try that link again.

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52857.0