Comments on: Night Feedings by Age -When Do You Night-Wean?

By: Brittany

Brittany — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:47:41 +0000

My 6 1/2 month old daughter used to sleep much better but when 4 months hit, she got off her schedule and it has been bad ever since. Now, she goes to bad at 8:15 and wakes up around 1:30 and then every 1-2 hours after that and wants to eat each time as well as rocked and comforted. I’m not sure if she is hungry, has gas, or why she does not want to sleep. Often, she will be very alert and not seem tired at all and will not go back to sleep even after eating and being rocked. What should I do? We both need sleep!

By: vanessa

vanessa — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:15:47 +0000

hi, i have a 5 month old and she eats every 6 hours, 4 feedings a day,i feed her at 7pm and put her down at 8pm and she wakes around 12-1am and then again at 5:30-6 am but just fuzzes and doesn’t eat much. how can i get her to sleep longer at night? she just started on cereal and eats 36 oz of formula , shouldn’t she sleep longer? should i night wean her and feed her early? or how can i get her to wake up later?
thank you

By: Amie

Amie — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:09:29 +0000

I have twin 9 month old girls that have very sensitive sleep patterns. They get up about three times a night each- so I’m really up 6 times! If we do anything out of the ordinary during the day, they are up more the night after. I think that they aren’t used to being alone and just want each other or me there, but if I put them in the same crib they wake each other up. Any ideas on how I can get them to learn to comfort themselves? Or should I continue to comfort feed? Thank you!

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:20:17 +0000

@Joanne I feel your pain in that my almost 2 year old seems very sensitive to hunger, too. If we don’t give a snack before bed, he’ll either wake at night or too early in the morning. A couple of weeks ago I woke up around 5 a.m. and my stomach HURT I was so hungry. I mean it really really hurt. It made me think of all the starving children and how much it must hurt them to be hungry all day. Anyway, you can’t really force her to eat too much more and if you’ve tried the snack before bed, how about just leave something she can eat on her own in the middle of the night such as a few crackers to take the edge off? It’s not good for her teeth, but she’s probably growing a lot and will outgrow this, eventually. You might be able to change her daytime diet to be more fatty or higher calories to compensate. We have dinner around 5:30 or 6 and then have a substantial snack before bed. Sometimes it’s like another dinner. Hang in there!

By: Joanne

Joanne — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:57:04 +0000

Hi there! My 3 years old girl is still requesting for night feedings occassionally (sometimes once, sometimes twice). If we don’t feed her, she’ll cry either until we give in or she’s tired. I don’t know how else can I do, as I’ve tried getting her to eat more in the day, snack before night time (just to fill her stomach), refused her feed when she wakes up…

Really appreciate all advice and help given…

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:54:02 +0000

@Rendy I’m so behind in replying to blog comments that I’m sure you’re done with the night-weaning. At least I hope you are. I typically offer night-weaning advice on a case-by-case basis anyway, since it’s so tricky with night-feedings and I hate to think of a baby crying because he’s hungry. Many times just delaying how quickly you go in and discourage feedings can prompt many babies from not feeding at night anymore. If you need more help please visit my services page and purchase just a two-email package and I’d love to help! Good luck!

By: Rebekah

Rebekah — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:27:24 +0000

dito rendy.. my daughter is 11 months now and im going through the same exact thing. i miss my sleep and my husband.she is constantly getting up at nght to get some boobie lol. so if you got some help please pass it on

By: Rendy

Rendy — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:06:53 +0000

After I posted my message last night, wouldn’t you know it… he slept through the 2am feed! LOL I don’t expect it to “stick”, and would still love your feedback on the best way to go about dropping that feed.

Last night was the first night in a LONG time that I actually got 6+ hours straight. It’s so amazing how good it feels to actually get uninterrupted sleep!

By: Rendy

Rendy — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:22:10 +0000

My baby is turning 11 months old on Thursday. He’s always woken several times a night to nurse, and I’ve never tried to wean him because he seemed hungry…would nurse and go right back to sleep. He’s also on the bottom 5% of his weight class for his height/age, so I figured I wouldn’t want to deprive him of the additional calories if he needs it. Right now he nurses to sleep at 7pm, wakes about 10:30-11:00pm, around 2am and again about 5:00am. There was a 3 weeks stretch where he stopped waking for the 2am feed on his own (and the sleep I got was HEAVENLY), but he started teething and the 2am feedings are back.

So when you say to drop the first feed of the night (10:30-11:00pm), how do you actually do that? Do I just try to rock him back to sleep or just don’t go to him and let him cry (if he doesn’t get too worked up) and see if he goes back to sleep on his own? I’m not a fan of CIO, but will rocking him back to sleep create a bad habit and keep him from sleeping past the 10:30 time that he’s used to waking anyway?

I’m to the point where I’d really like to start weaning him from the night feedings he doesn’t need so we both can get better sleep and be much more fun for my husband I’ve also heard that once babies start sleeping longer through the night, their naps during the day get better too (he’s a short afternoon napper…only ever 1/2 hour).

If there’s too much detail to give in explaining how to wean that first feed and I need to contact you through your email service, just let me know. I appreciate your help!

(BTW, the new name of the site was a good choice!)

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:01:22 +0000

@Alexis Thank you for commenting and trying to help! Be careful about putting your actual e-mail address in comments because it might put you on spam lists. I have edited it for you.