dropping the night feed at 8 months.

[qjane983]

I was reading the FAQ's and I'm getting confused about how to drop the last night feed, my LO is 8 months now and still wake sfor a feed at midnight.

It says

 "A gradual approach to eliminating feeds often works well. Parents can decrease the number of formula ounces given, or number of minutes a baby breastfeeds slowly over time.  Then, the eliminated ounces or breastmilk is added to daytime feeds.  Pat/Shh, or PU/PD (as age-appropriate) would replace the actual feed towards the end until the baby learns to sleep through the feed.  Remember that this is a process and will not change overnight, unfortunately. A LO may even wake habitually at the former night feed time, in which case wake to sleep (W2S) is a good tool to correct that"

so I gradually decrease the amount of time she breastfeeds for and I need to add this milk to her day time consumption. How do I do that? will I need to feed her more often during the day?

[anna*]

You don't need to worry about her adding more in the daytime, it's not something you need to 'manage', but as she is taking less overnight she should naturally and of her own accord switch those calories to daytime feeds (just by feeding for longer, not more frequently). With BFing yes you would decrease the number of minutes you allow her to feed for.

[jmd]

The book recommends you cluster feed if breast feeding to get in those extra calories

[anna*]

Not sure I would start cluster feeding an 8 month old, but certainly for younger ones that is a great idea.

[jmd]

I took it straight from p123 'How do I stop the dream feeds?' from the Baby Whisperer solves all your problems

[anna*]

Oh I don't doubt it is there in the book! Just saying what I would/wouldn't do!

QJane, is it the 11pm dreamfeed you want to drop, or a middle of the night feed? What worked for us with dropping the dream feed is bringing it gradually 15 mins earlier every 3 nights - then when it got to about 9pm, we dropped it and he didn't wake for it.

[qjane983]

Ok I will give it a go, I stopped the cluster feeds at around 5-6 months so I don't think I will start that again. It's only one  feed at around midnight otherwise she sleeps through. I don't really think she needs it anymore because she is more comfort sucking then actually feeding. And I don't think she is OT because I finally got her on a good day time routine. I don't know if I have to resolve to do PUPD in the middle of the night though.

[anna*]

I know the feeling, but it may not be as bad as you fear. My LO was having multiple night feeds at 9 months old, but it only took 2 nights of PUPD to get him sleeping through.

[qjane983]

I tried feeding her at 10 pm last week for four night but she still woke at midnight, she's like an alarm clock. Which is another reason I think it's more a habit/comfort thing rather than her actually needing a feed.

I'm of two minds really because it's so easy just to give her a quick feed and back to bed rather than however long PUPD will take however I don't want her to learn bad habits and still be waking up at midnight when she is a toddler. sigh what to do?

[anna*]

If it's habitual at midnight, you could try doing the feed at 11pm so that it will also act like Wake 2 Sleep?

Personally I would give the PUPD a try. It might only take 20 mins or something to get her back off.