night feeds/wakings

[kels]

i have finally got my LO to settle at evening for bed and naps in day beautifully. BUT he still at 8 months wakes for night bottle and sometimes takes a while playing , to go back to sleep. although i go back to bed and leave him to it!
i have left him till this age in the hope that he would stop them himself.
questions is he seems so tired in the morning as i think he wakes a few hrs before he wakes at 7am in morning, although he goes back to sleep.and on the few occasions he has slept through he seems so refreshed!
how do i try to get him off them, it doesnt help that he doesnt drink alot in the day. also i no as he approaches a year that i should try to get him off bottles anyway

[b0nni3]

Hi Kels, I night-weaned our son at the advice of a health visitor at 7 months. I had hoped the same - that DS would stop night nursing after starting solids, but he didn't, and the lack of sleep was really getting to me. Although this is not what Baby Whisperer recommends, we used a CIO approach. We had tried no-cry solutions but they bothered DS more than soothed him. It took 2 nights for him to "get" that he wasn't going to get any milk.
I would suggest making sure he is gaining weight well, plenty of wet diapers, and getting good nutrition from his solids and milk during the day before you try to night-wean him. Also, 8 months is a vulnerable developmental period (separation anxiety often peaks at around 8-9 months) so you might want to take that into consideration, as well as your LO's temperament.

[anna*]

As I'm sure you both know, Tracy strongly advised against any CIO/CC methods as she believed they break the trust between mum and baby, and that there's always a gentler way to solve sleep problems, if we search for them.

Kels, if he is awake and happy after feeding, there's nothing you can do to 'make' him go back to sleep, but maybe a routine tweak would help? Spending hours awake and playing in the night can be a sign that they are a little undertired.

As for dropping the night feeds, how is he doing with solids? My LO never dropped any night feeds of his own accord, but once he was taking solids well I decided to stop doing any night feeds and used PUPD to settle him instead of milk. It took only took 3 or 4 nights before he started to sleep through.

[beckygatt]

How do you know when the time is right to wean off night feeds though? My lo is 6 months, has been on solids for a month now, but still wakes up once or twice a night for feeds, approx every 3-4 hrs. I'm really tired but can't stand the thought of letting her go hungry or leaving her to cry. Is PUPD the best method for weaning from night feeds? My lo doesn't stop crying till I feed her at night. Sorry to jump in on this thead but it sounded so familiar! Thanks

[anna*]

For me, it was the right time when I couldn't handle it any more. I had tried giving him a big bottle of formula at dreamfeed, and it made no difference, and by 8 months he was eating really well, gaining weight. So I decided that, even if he was waking hungry, we needed to break that habitual hunger. For example if you were to go and raid the fridge at 1am for a few nights, soon you would start to get hungry at that time. At 6 months I still felt like he was having 'tastes' of food rather than substantial meals, so I kept feeding at NWs at that point.

So I accepted that yes he might be hungry the first night, but it wouldn't harm him, hunger passes, and he would make up for it in the morning. It was actually much less of a struggle than I had imagined it would be, once I made up my mind to never feed at night. If I sometimes fed and other times tried to settle without, it was a much bigger battle.

PUPD works great because you don't have to leave them to cry, you help them work it out. But, it doesn't work if there are any other props present ie a dummy/paci.

[kels]

i dont have a problem with his playing in cot after as i go back to sleep but it seems tired in morning. -i go back to sleep after night feed. i dont want to go into this as i no it isnt advocated but i did use cc and this has worked and carson no longer cries going for naps and bedtime. i will feel awful just ignoring him in the night if i no he is hungry, he eats 3 meals a day-no loads but he does and milk varies as he has never drank alot. i guess im scared he wont up milk intake in day if i stoop night feeds, maybe i should try reducing feeds by 1oz every few days? i am not a fan of PUPD as it wil confuse carson this didnt work before and it made him worse.

[kels]

also im worried that he may still wake in night anyway!

[anna*]

You can try reducing the night feeds by 1oz at a time, and topping up with water (so it's the same amount of liquid but less milk powder). It's hard to advise on the night wakings if you're not going to use BW methods though.

[kels]

well it never worked before so it seems silly to do that. i will try reducing. x

[anna*]

Kels, I know you are committed to using CC for your little boy, but you must understand this forum exists to support the Babywhisperer methods.

[beckygatt]

Anna - that makes sense. So far she has 3 small meals of fruit or veg a day so not quite substantial enough yet. Still relies heavily on milk. I think I'll wait till she's eating more solids then try. You say PUPD doesn't work when props are present. She almost always uses a paci to sleep. How can I get around this? Should I just not use it during PUPD? Thanks a lot!! x

[kels]

i just do what works and he was less destressed with this method, is pupd really the only way?

[anna*]

She almost always uses a paci to sleep. How can I get around this? Should I just not use it during PUPD? Thanks a lot!! x

Well, if you want to wean the paci at the same time, you can use PUPD to do that. Or, you can spend some time over the next couple of months teaching her how to find and replug it herself. If she can replug it for herself, it stops being a prop and becomes a comfort item - if she needs you to replug it, it's a prop and PUPD won't work. See, the point of PUPD is to teach independent settling, and if she needs you to pop the paci in, that means she can't be truly independent iyswim.

[anna*]

i just do what works and he was less destressed with this method, is pupd really the only way?

BW methods are shush-pat and PUPD - and variations thereof. So for example rubbing the back and using white noise, if shush-pat doesn't work, or staying quietly with a crying baby who becomes overstimulated by PUPD.

[b0nni3]

With the paci thing, you can try scatter a couple of them in the cot - I leave 3 around the head side of his cot and within 2 days he was able to "fish" for one when he needed one in his sleep.