What to do if DD wakes up hungry at 5am?

[traumafaerie]

Sorry about all of the questions, you have all been so helpful.

I am wondering about what to do when she wakes up an hour or so before her usual wake-up time, clearly hungry.

Before we started PU/PD, I would feed herand she would go back to sleep for another couple of hours, but since I stopped giving her the boob at night, she will just cry with DH doing PU/PD until her usual wake up time. I'm so confused when is appropriate to feed, when isn't and how to do it so it doesn't confuse DD.

She has never taken a sucky or bottle, so giving her a bottle of water is a no-go.

Any ideas?

[SandyGal]

You mentioned in your previous posting that dd is teething. My dd will go through a few days of waking early when she is cutting teeth and then she goes back to normal when she is feeling better.

If dd is waking out of habit, you  might want to try the wake to sleep method and see if that extends your morning. Also try to increase her calories during the day (difficult when teething, I know). If she is teething though, you may have to ride it out for a bit and then try to change once she is feeling better.

HTH

[traumafaerie]

Thanks!

The wake to sleep might be worth a shot! Just to be clear, I would set the alarm for before her normal habitual wake up time, then goto her...but I'm not clear on what to do with her to prevent her from waking up. I get so confused with some of the BW advice because on the most part, it assumes that the baby will soothe in your arms.

We've tried upping her calories during theday and I think the worst of *this bout* of teething has passed, but she is just so active, still not a fan of solids and only feeds on the boob for 5 minutes at a time - even when she's famished!

It certainly has brought out the Italian mama in  me, constantly trying to feed her every waking moment ofthe day.