If I do two feeds at night she's not hungry at breakfast.
Which two feeds are you talking about, like a 12:30 am and then 5 am? I guess you need to decide what it is you really want to do, either keep pushing her through the 12:30/1 waking and feeding her at 4-5ish or feed at the 12:30 waking and then not again til morning. Writing it out that way does make it sound more appealing to push through, so you don't start getting EWs, I guess. I think, though, that just because she's done it once, doesn't necessarily mean she can always go 11 hrs at night, yk? Has she done her 6 mo growth spurt yet?
Until two days ago she never slept til 1am, she would always have a feed at say 10pm and then again at 2am, and then still not be hungry in the morning. Think she's had the GS a couple of weeks ago but I couldn't swear to it. I didn't really notice her 16 week one...
I just needs clear 'rules' for her and for me.
Yes, I get that, I'm a rules girl too. What do you want to do, Anna? You know her best. I definitely wouldn't feed her at 10, unless you want to do a DF, which you don't.
I don't know. I don't really see what else I can do other than keep pushing through - it's either that or go back to feeding when she wakes up. When she wakes up I've no way of knowing if it's hunger or not, so I have to either feed or her not feed her. And if I feed her there's every possibility that she'll wake up 2-3 hrs later.
I feel like its just clearer and more consistent to say no feeds rather than 'sometimes'.
I get this too. That's while I've always waited until I'm sure they can make it through, as it's not always clear. So, I'm very cautious, because once I did this with C, she dropped on the curve for a good while and while a lot of it is contributed to moving all over the place and not taking much to solids til later, I've always wondered if I should have held onto that NF for longer. I'm not saying this to make you question yourself, because yours is a different situation. Just wanted to let you know where I'm coming from, so maybe I'll just wait and let others chime in.
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I guess I am lucky that weight gain has just never been a concern with either of mine. If they drop a centile well they will still be on the 95th. If Audrey needs more calories in 24hrs, there is plenty of scope for her to get them without having to feed overnight. For example she only ever takes one breast at a daytime feed (except at bedtime). I know she doesn't 'know' this.
Also at 5-5.30 she's not ravenous.
Is this after being fed at midnight, or after going most of the night? If it's after going most of the night, and that's what suits you best, then I'd stick to your plan and keep pushing her through.
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This is after her last feed being at 6pm (she goes to sleep for the night at 6.30pm). If she went back to sleep at 2 and woke up at 4 I would feed her at 4. I would feed her at 3 - although not if it was at the end of a NW (i.e. following the rule that if I'm settling her without feeding that Im going to settle her - not do a 2hr NW and then feed her at the end of it).
As you know (I think, again foggy over here) I DF my two EbF babies well further than 6mths - in fact I kept up the DF till 10/10.5 mths when they were taking HUGE amounts of solids at each feed....
I really don't think an EBF baby can go 12 hrs at night consistently - never heard of a single one. Particularly when you factor in distraction, older sibs who unintentionally come in in the middle of feeds etc.
Yah, I know Shiv, but Audrey has NEVER consistently had a DF. She usually wakes up - can be as early as 9pm - so then I would have an hour or more of resettling, and then have to go up 30 mins later to DF, and lose my whole evening. Or just feed at 9pm and then have her up to feed again at 1-2am.
I would say reasonale at Audrey's age and weight (she's 98th centile allround, right? length, weight, head circ etc) is to feed at 8pm and then push to do one NF - no more no less.
Her last feed is somewhere between 6 and 6.30pm - she goes to sleep for the night somewhere between 6.30 and 7.
In a way I would recommend not a W2S but a feed before she claims she is hungry/in pain/upset. A kind of DF but where she can rouse a little.....so before her 4 hr mark - if she goes for it - breaking her waking cycle but still feeding her, getting the cals into her, so you know at 1am that she CAN'T be hungry.
So try again to do a DF? Even though I've never had any luck with it in the past? It's 9pm now, should I go and feed her now? The thing is, for all the long NWs we've been having, she's also sleeping longer stretches than she ever has. She's never slept from bedtime until 1am before. This seems like progress to me. If I had any good experience of only having to go up to her once or twice overnight, I might feel differently about this, but all my experience has been that a feed overnight equates to another waking 2-3hrs later when I KNOW she isn't hungry, so I end up getting up twice as often, twice as frustrated, twice as exhausted, and with a baby who has no idea, when she wakes, if she's going to be fed or not.
