Hi all!
Just wanted to let you know my success story - have waited a few weeks to tell it just in case he reverts back to his old ways but 'touch wood' everything is fine...
Thomas has been on 4 hour easy for a while now and has always been a good feeder - emptying both boobs in less than 10 minutes
! So at 4 and a half months I really felt that he should be sleeping through the night. His dreamfeed was at 10.30pm, he was waking erratically between 1am and 5am and having a short feed then refusing to take anything at his breafast feed which resulted in a really short morning nap cos he couldn't then go the 4 hours till his next feed. Which resulted in a grouchy baby...
He used to cry and as soon as I walked in he would start giggling, I would put him on the bub and he would smile at me and the take his feed - he would take both breasts if I offered them to him. I was so confused - i thought because it was erratic that it must be hunger and wished it was the same times every night so that I could blame habitual waking!!
So I made a plan to stop! I started off by just offering him one boob and as soon as he fell asleep or started doing the loose jaw thing I would put him down in his cot. This went on for about a week - his morning feeds naturally increased in time - then I thought 'let's shh pat him and see what happens'.
The first time it took me about 2 mins and he went off to sleep. I couldn't believe my luck - and he didn't wake until 8am - I never usually let him sleep past 7 so this was a complete shock to me! But it gave me the confidence I needed to know that he didn't need the food. The next night wasn't so quick and took me an hour and a half during which time I used shh pat and PUPD, but again he slept in past 7am so I knew he wasn't hungry. The next night was only an hour and gradually over less than a week it took shorter and shorter until it got to the point where he would wake up and make noises then drift off to sleep on his own... we don't even hear him now!!!
Several weeks later and he is still sleeping through from 10.30pm df to between 6 and 7am - wonderful!
That one week was v hard. I nearly gave up so many times - I was more tired than when i was feeding him (I used to do this in a beautiful dreamy haze and sometimes fell asleep walking back to bed!!) and was a bit grouchy but it has SOOOOO been worth it!!
I know everyone is different and yours may not be ready to give up his night feed, but I wanted to share to give some mums a ray of hope that there is sleep at the end of the tunnel!
Thanks for all your support
Louise
xxx