Cold turkey to nightime feeds??

[sleepless in B.C]

hi everyone, 

I'm the mum of a wonderful 9 month old.  My partner and I have just started pu/pd today.  Up to now my LO has nursed to sleep for all naps and nightime and I've needed to stay with him.  ( he has been sleeping in our bed )  My question is considering that he has always nursed through the night is it fair to take the boob away cold turkey in order to get him onto the proper routine??  He is getting enought food and enough bf during the day but I'm just not sure what to do for him tonight???  ANy help would be so appreciated.

Thanks.

[Jocasta]

could you post an example of your current daily routine?  what's a normal night look like?

[sleepless in B.C]

Hi there,
     Well we are just starting the "easy" routine today.  But up to now our little guy has suckled through the night ( waking probably 6-7times for just a little 5min suckle then rolling over to go back to sleep ).  I know that it's not hunger and that it's habit but I just feel badly stopping it all at once but that it's maybe the right thing to do??  I'm not sure,  I especially feel that if he has been crying alot during pu/pd that he could use a drink?   I'm weak when it comes to my little one.

Thank you for any insight.

[Icedlemonade]

This may help:
babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52857.0

We've tried "Pantley's Gentle Removal Plan" and I think it helps.

[lisi's mum]

The gentle removal plan is a nice way to do things if you have a LO who plays along. Mine alas were / are really not into me deciding how long they get booby for!

There must be something in the air, I vowed tonight I was going to start getting tough on my 9mo too ;-) What would I do? At the moment I'm just working on eliminating the first of the night feeds, and getting dd to sleep a longer stretch.

I'd set a time that you're fairly confident your LO can get to without a feed. Right now for us it's midnight. Dd wakes fairly religiously at 10, here I try to resettle without a feed - no feeding from bedtime to midnight. After that, any time she wakes, I try to resettle, if it doesn't happen fairly easily, then I'll feed. This is where the gentle removal business may come in handy.

Going cold turkey on the night feeds is going to be miserable for both your LO and yourself. Take it slowly, it may take longer, but is going to be a bit less stressful.

Good luck!

[Tobysmum]

LISIs Mum.
I have been reading this post as I have an 8 month old who feeds twice per night but in the past 4-5 nights he's woken between 9.30 and 10.30 and will not resettle without a feed - last night he woke again at 1.15am and again at 5.00am.  In the past couple of weeks he's been able to go to at least 11.30 - even as late as 1.30am before a feed.  His last feed is around 6.15/6.30pm. 
You said that you set a time when not to feed him and try to resettle him.  If your baby wakes before your cut off, and you try to resettle and she does not resettle before midnight - what do you do, give in at midnight and feed her?
Did you do it last night - if so, how did it go?

I'm having the problem that he just won't resettle - he gets soooo angry and screams - we've tried pu/pd, and just placing a hand on him etc etc but the moment we walk out or his head hits the mattress, he screams.  The only way to get him to sleep is to feed him (he doesn't feed before naps or at bedtime).  Saying that, for this new 9.30-10.30pm wake, he hasn't always settled even after a feed which is unusual.

How long has your baby been waking at 10pm?

Mine has only been about 5 days.  I'm seriously worried about AP but I can't see another way.

[lisi's mum]

Toby's mum - that's a really tricky one, and TBH I don't know what the EASY experts would say. I've been giving in and feeding her as much for my sanity as her's. Feels bad, make her upset for 2 hours and then feed anyway... *sigh*

How long has Norah been doing this? Oh lord, way too long LOL. When she was 3 months old she did 7-3-7 but it seems to me it's been downhill since then. TBH I can't remember when she started waking at 10 again, but a long time ago. I did nothing about it for ages as it wasn't every night, and usually happened 'cause I'd been noisy in the bathroom (flushing the loo is enough  ) but gradually it's moved to being every night - definate habit.

Now when I try and reinsert Norah's dummy she rips it out and throws it on the floor, head bangs etc etc. I'm thinking of trying some W2S as the resettling isn't working well. It does work better later on in the night though.

I do remember from dd1 that all of a sudden the nws stopped. Don't know if it was something clicking 'cause of the resettling or something clicking that she didn't actually need the feed and would have stopped despite my work 

I should never give sleep advice  other than to say don't go cold turkey on mulitple night feeds 

[Tobysmum]

No, would never go cold turkey for sure!  I totally hear you about giving in and feeding for your sanity and hers - I feel exactly the same.  I agree that it's not great to try and resettle them for 2 hrs and hen feed anyway - it's so difficult - you have two voices in your head (at least I do) - one says, feed, they obviously need it (even if it's not for food, but for comfort) and at least you may be able to get back to sleep for 4 hrs or so, but then the other voice says - no, you are accidental parenting, they don't need feeding less than 4 hrs from their last feed, you are going to get into a habit you can't break, you should try and resettle and not give in - etc etc.

DS#1 was a very good sleeper - we had our moments, but he was very easy to fix - when he was having too many NWs to feed, I did PU/PD twice for one night and then he started sleeping through again!  Amazing. 

I guess we'll see in a weeks time whether this is habit or whether it's a GS or perhaps a tooth will arrive!

I would love to co-sleep if that would improve things - but he will not co-sleep, he just squirms!

I am going to try and early bed again for a few nights - it could be cumulative OT as he's not a great napper (i.e. doesn't take more than 1.5-2hrs total nap per day).

Anyway - thanks for replying and good luck!

[Lilah'sMommy]

Sleepless, are you now also discontinuing cosleeping?  Because if that's the case, then I'd make that transition before tackling the night feeds.  You'll probably find he wakes fewer times when you aren't right there next to him, and then you can start to eliminate the night feeds he does still get by always pushing back the first one.  So say he wakes at 10:00, you do whatever you can to get him back to sleep without feeding.  But at the next night waking, go ahead and feed him.  He'll likely push back that first feed to a later time, say 12:00, so you're then still doing what you can to get him back down at that waking and then feeding at the next NWing.  The trickiest part of this method for me was that we'd get down to DD2 sleeping through till 5, and there was no way she'd go back down without a feed, so I'd just feed and put her back to bed, figuring one feed at 5 am was fine by me.  But then inevitably it would creep earlier and earlier, first to 4, then to 3:30, and soon she was waking at 2 AND 5.   So getting past that 5 am wake up was tricky for us; we ended up finally just saying no more night nursing until 6 am and that did the trick... but she was already almost 18 months by then.

However, we night-weaned DD1 at 9 months when she had been waking 3+ times a night and she immediately got it and slept through till the morning after her very first night waking of the night weaning process.  So it's not always a nightmare.