4 month old waking ALL THE TIME at night to eat!

[Briana387]

I have a 16 week old DD who is EBF. Up until last week she would start out the night in her pack n play in our room (we only have 2 bedrooms and our DS is in the other one so DD is in our room) and I would bring her into bed with us after her first night feed. This worked since I could just nurse her laying down and then go back to sleep, but about a week ago she started waking to have her pacifier put back in whenever it fell out, so she was keeping us up at night. Finally we decided to go cold turkey on the paci, which has actually been awesome! She is sleeping MUCH better during the day and puts herself to sleep for naps and when going to bed at night, but ever since taking her paci away she has wanted to nurse ALL THE TIME! I try to feed her as often as she wants during the day, and I have noticed that she is taking much longer to nurse which is fine. She has always been a quick nurser, about 7 minutes total, but now she takes about 20 minutes to eat. I think she is just hanging out most of the time. I don't mind this during the day, but she was waking 7-8 times a night to eat.

Anyway, last night I decided to keep her in her pack n play all night, so feed her then put her right back in her bed. It was HORRIBLE! I fed her at 9:30, then she woke at 11:30, 12:30, 1, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:45, and 5:30. GAH!!!! I fed her at 12:30 and 3:30. The hardest part is knowing that if I just feed her she will suck for a couple minutes and then go right back to sleep! I just want her to put herself back to sleep when she wakes and not need me to nurse her back to sleep.

This is what I did last night, please tell me if I need to do things differently: whenever she would wake, I would wait a minute or so to see if she was mantra crying or actually upset, and she always turned upset. I would then quietly shhhhh her and pat her tummy like I do for nap and bed time. For about 4 of the wakings this worked and she would stop crying after 5-10 minutes. The times that I fed her, she cried for 15 minutes before I fed her then she was out within 5 minutes.

Does this just take a long time to work? How many feedings do EBF babies usually have at night by her age?

Sorry this is so long! I am new at this. :-)

[alinjones]

Wow! I just read your post. Sounds so much like my life at night...minus the feeding part. Know I'm thinking about you tonight while I'm up at all hours! I am brand new at this and by NO means a BW expert, in fact, I'm very novice. However, when my son was waking up like that I first thought he was hungry (EBF as well) and would feed him, which only caused him to wake up MORE often thinking he needed to eat. At that point I decided I would only feed him a maximum of twice during the night and they had to be at least three hours apart (which is totally appropriate for his age..in fact he could handle only one feeding or none at all (I still do one). (Sidenote: My son refused the dream feed. Have you tried that?) So when he woke up crying and it was more than a mantra cry, I would go in (put the binky back in --you read about my problem now!) and reassure him with my voice (my son seems to be more bothered by the patting). It took a little bit at first, but now when he wakes, he goes right back to sleep with the binky but never cares that he isn't being fed. In my experience, it was definitely me who was misinterpreting his wake ups as hunger. He was totally fine, just had to get used to not being fed all the time. To make a long story short, I would use all other soothing techniques to get her back to sleep without feeding her if it hasn't at least been three hours. Just remind yourself that physically she does not need to eat. She is not hungry, just using that to get herself back to sleep.

Just trying to help, although obviously I'm not expert. If I were, I probably would have gotten more than 9 hours of sleep in the last 4 days!

[stevesmum]

Hey ladies, I'm in much the same...My lo is 16wo on Tues, and at times he has gone from DF at 10 through to 5am without a feed (I use this as my basis now - you did that so surely you can last a little longer). Then I think we must have had the growth spurt as he started waking 12, 1,2,3 etc... I have just been dummying and working on the principal that see if he shushes by himself, if not, dummy and shshsh (i've found that patting just wakes him up more especially in the daytime) until he drifts off a little... and if more comfort is needed then i might pick him up and shshsh... but I am holding off feeding until at least 4 (if we can!!) as I figure that's a good 6 hours... and considering he's gone to five before, shouldn't be too tricky!! It's a bit rough, but I think I started it - i tend to be a little too quick to feed my kiddies!!! - so we've got to move it out. Also his day feeding has gone troppo too, which I think is because he reckons he can get it nice and quiet and EASY at night time....

Don't know if that's any help, but yeah I agree with alinjones....

[Shiv52]

I think you may have hit the 4 month growth spurt.  It is a BIGGIE especially for EBF bubs.  Best advice is to feed, feed, feed and it should settle down in a few days.  The fact she nots settling and still waking hungry 10 minutes later would suggest she is hungry.  

HTH x