[Greenlea]

My 7mth old son is up a ton at night. He goes down for bed between 8 and 8:30pm and is up at least every 2 hours (sometimes more) until he's up for the day around 6:30am (sometimes as early as 5:30am though). I nurse on demand during the day and three days a week he is at the sitter and takes bottles. But does he really need to be eating so often at night at this age?

He has started eating some solids, we are doing baby led weaning. He gets solids and lunch and dinner, after a nurse or bottle. And recently I started trying to get him to soothe himself back to sleep if it hasn't been 2 hours yet, as I really can't be up all night long anymore. And no, this is not a growth spurt - when he has growth spurts he's even worse!

So, when did you night wean? Is he still too young? Or maybe I could just get him to cut down on so many feedings at night? What do you think?

 

[P.J.]

Both KellyMom and Dr. Jay Gordon strongly recommend waiting until one year to night wean, if at all.

This may get moved to the Breastfeeding forum, and I would say anyhow you might want to post this there as you'll get lots of personal stories and advice over there about night weaning anyway (as well as here).

Good luck Mama!

 

[QuestionGal]

i'll be the odd-ball here and say that yes, you can probably begin nightweaning. Doesn't mean he'll suddenly go the entire 10 hours without eating but it sounds like he's old enough (and presumably big enough weight-wise) to go a longer stretch at night.

That being said there are several approaches to night-weaning.

1- replace one of those wakings with a small bottle of water (couple of ounces). Have dad give it to him. After a few nights of not getting to nurse he'll stop waking at that time. (he could move the waking time to be earlier or later and you'll have to decide how you want to handle that).

2- offer a pacifier

3- choose a timeframe that you don't want to nurse (ie midnight to 6am). nurse him/dreamfeed just before that time begins, then if he wakes anytime during the "milk went night night" time, don't allow him access. (For us that meant DH took him and I slept with a shirt and bra on, DS did NOT sleep next to me during that time).

4- you can also time how long he nurses and reduce it by one minute every 3 nights until he stops waking up.

5- increase his intake during the day (offer larger bottles, offer breast more often).

We nightweaned DS at 11 months but in hindsight I wish I'd done it MUCH earlier. He was up every 2 hours until that time. 3 rough (but not horrid) nights and then we all slept MUCH better. Our approach was to pick a timeframe, boobs were not accessible during that time (if DS was in our bed he slept next to DH, not me), if he woke up DH offered him water and repeated "the milk went night night, it's time to sleep now, night night" over and over. If he got really upset (which I think happened a couple times) I'd go get him and try to calm him down without nursing (but I usually gave in and nursed him). We expected 5-6 rough nights, the first night was rough, the 2nd less so, the 3rd even less and then no more.

good luck!

 

[PatioGardener]

Mine still nurses when he's hungry/thirsty at night. He's 14 months old. We cosleep so I mostly sleep through it.

Have you tried squeezing another feed into the day? That may help... but 7-8 months is a bad time for sleep I've found - they are learning so much their brains are on overdrive!

 

[Greenlea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatioGardener

Mine still nurses when he's hungry/thirsty at night. He's 14 months old. We cosleep so I mostly sleep through it.

Have you tried squeezing another feed into the day? That may help... but 7-8 months is a bad time for sleep I've found - they are learning so much their brains are on overdrive!

I nurse on demand during the day so I could try to get him to nurse more. And what sucks is that he's pretty much been like this since birth, eating every two hours at night. When he has had a growth spurt he's been up every 45min to an hour. And he won't eat laying down anymore, so I can't sleep through it. I actually have to sit up in bed, with my boppy and feed him. When I try to feed him laying down, he tries crawling and getting up with my nipple in his mouth - its like he's half asleep.