My 5 mos old gets up religiously at 11:30pm and 3:45am every night. She sleeps a 10 hr night and though I think that is a long time for a 5 mos to go with out food, I do think she can go down to one feeding and do 5 hours on either end.
She gets Breastmilk in a bottle at night. I have tried giving her less, but that has not worked. I heard you can water it down?
I also have no problem rocking her, bringing her into our bed, etc to not feed her, but I am sure she will scream! I was hoping for a gentler method?
If anyone has a success story to weaning a feed I'd love the advice. Thanks!
Don't water down breast milk!
These sleep deprived times will pass. Until then, try thinking about the nighttimes as you special quiet times with just mommy and baby.
Btw, why breast milk from a bottle? I've always liked that it comes preheated on tap. :)
This is a very normal schedule for a 5 month-old! Like others have said, she is waking because she is hungry. Don't feed her less or water down her food. She will wean herself when she's ready. This time will pass quickly and soon she will sleep through one and then both of these feedings.
My daughter woke every night at 1:00 and then again at 5:00 to nurse. Eventually she dropped the 5:00 time, but I fed her at 1:00 every night until she was 13 months, then she slept through both. Now, boom, she is nine and staying up at night reading and sleeping late on a Saturday morning! They grow up so fast!
She is exclusively breastfed and is only 5 months old. Waking to eat and eating round the clock is part of the game mama! And perfectly normal. It is perfectly normal for her to wake at night to nurse/feed. She is growing by leaps and bounds. Absolutely *DO NOT* water down a feeding. That won't do anything except give you a baby who isn't getting their nutritional needs met.
I understand being tired and looking for ways to make changes. Read my story at the bottom. But bottom line is your baby is telling you what she needs and she is very little.
Every breast fed baby is different. My first could go 10-13 hours a night (at 7 months old) without waking to nurse. My second woke to nurse most nights her entire first year. And you know what? THat was ok! She was telling me what she needed and I was a wise mama to follow her cues.
This is expected and what we sign on for when we become parents to a newborn. Parenting doesn't stop at night, doesn't stop because we are tired, sick, want a few minutes to ourselves, had a date night planned. Baby's needs come first.
I don't understand what the problem with feeding a tiny infant at night is. You are talking about being awake with her to rock her, bring her to bed but not feed her?!? That doesn't make any sense mom. Babies are very adept at telling you what they need. If you have no problem bringing her to bed why not bring her to bed and nurse her there? Co-sleeping was a life-saver when I was pumping round the clock (every 3 hours day and night) for my high needs preemie and was desperate for some sleep.
Wanna talk no sleep? I would have to bottle feed my preemie, then hold him upright on my legs after due to reflux while I pumped, get him back down to sleep, wash and sterilize my pump parts for the next session and then try to grab about oh, 45 minutes of sleep. And this went this way for 12 weeks. and after that he woke to nurse every 3 hours till he was about 7 months old. My point is we do what we need to do for our babies. They are small for a very short time.
If she's eating, she needs the food!
Your infant is too young to deny her food. She needs the nutrition she's asking for because this first year will be the most a human will grow in such a short time and they desperately need the metabolic consumption.
The times she is waking sound about right. She is hungry and waking up to be fed.
Breast milk should not be watered down.
If you are breast feeding regular feeding is the norm.
Time flies and it won't be long before she is sleeping the night but not yet.
B. k
i agree with most of your repsonses - she needs the breastmilk still - 5 months is too young to cut back. I also second Sara B's suggestion - add a dreamfeed (in the dreamfeed you just pick her up without waking her and nurse her - put her right back to sleep - she'll sleep through the whole thing but eat) right BEFORE she wakes up at 11:30pm if it works with you or your husband's schedule. And then whoever did the dreamfeed can sleep and the other gets up for the 3:45AM.
I'd keep feeding the little thing - she's only 5 months old. Good luck!
Updated
i agree with most of your repsonses - she needs the breastmilk still - 5 months is too young to cut back. I also second Sara B's suggestion - add a dreamfeed (in the dreamfeed you just pick her up without waking her and nurse her - put her right back to sleep - she'll sleep through the whole thing but eat) right BEFORE she wakes up at 11:30pm if it works with you or your husband's schedule. And then whoever did the dreamfeed can sleep and the other gets up for the 3:45AM.
I'd keep feeding the little thing - she's only 5 months old. Good luck!
we did a dream feed before bed, I'd pick her up still sleeping, feed her, and put her back to bed, still sleeping. That way she was full and wouldnt wake up for the earlier night feeding.
5 months may be a little early to night wean (I did around 10 months). But when the time comes, there were 2 techniques I used. The first was to do a dream feed-go in about 30-1hr before they habitually wake. Since my little guy has always had a very strong will, that didn't work entirely. Since you do this when they are mostly asleep, was nice that he wasn't waking up crying for me and then it was so easy to put him back into his crib w/out him waking. The 2nd thing that worked for me (as I was completely night weaning 2 feedings), was to decrease each feeding by 1 minute. So I estimated that I nursed for about 10 min at each night feeding, so at wake up #1 cut it to 9 min, wake up #2 to 8min. Then the next night wake up #1 do 8 min and #2, 7 min. I felt like this was the most gentle way of weaning. The down side is that you need to be fully awake during the whole feeding to keep track of the time, but the good side is that it worked wonderfully! I was also increasing nursing/bottle feeding during the day. When I was down to 2 min and 1 min, then I felt confident that he was getting the milk he needed during the day and that we could now work on bad habits during night hours, knowing he was not hungry.
Fit in the two feedings that she is getting during the night into the day time. You'll have more feeding, more closer together during the day but should be able to drop the feeding without depriving her any food.
C.
