Hungry or habit?

[Sarah13]

What do you ladies think!? Kynon is on his 6th feed tonight since putting him down at 8pm its now after 5am and I've hardly slept as it takes me a few mins to get back to sleep. Tbh after 5.5 months of nights like this I am pretty tired now! This last week or so he's jumped from 4 feeds at night to 6. It does seem like habit and comfort but then I guess he's nearly 6 months and it must be hard for him to keep his chubby little figure on less feeds! We're starting BLW in a week but I doubt it will make much difference straight away. Btw he feeds 2 hourly in the day too!
Do you think it would help if I ate and drank more while he's still mainly bf? Or is this more of a sleep issue that I need to sort?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[Lettie]

firstly I'm so impressed you've kept this up til 6 months o would have crumbled so well.done he has a dedicated mummy! Secondly In my very limited knowledge I would have thought he should be going longer between feeds at night and as you suggested it may just be habit. Do you always offer food when he wakes or do you try resettling, soothing him, stroking his face, cuddlibg him etc before food? If not this might be a good way of stretching out times between feeds even if you still have to feed him eventually. It's hard tho when you don't want to disturb the whole house but you need more sleep and so does he probably! Di you 'tank him Jo's before bed? Feed before and after bath if he'll take it then a dream feed before you go to bed might buy you a couple more hours? Don't know if that helps but yiur boy is veru lucky to having such a commited mum! X

 

[Lettie]

Sorry for typos, on phone! X

 

[tinks77]

Sounds like maybe abit of both, if I remember rightly he's always like his food
My next door neighbour is bf and still gets up 3/4 times a night. Her daughter is 8 months and as she won't take a bottle or dummy she can't try the water trick to see!
She's been weaning since 6 months but baby hasn't been massively interested in food, she likes boobie too much
Not much help I'm afraid, hopefully when you start blw it might just be a little trigger for him that other things are just as nice as breastmilk.
I don't know how you've managed to cope so long and they grow up so quick that you'll always look back on this time with fondness even if you ate exhausted!

 

[Hemera]

Drake was feeding several times a night but I decided to see if it was habit or not and started just settling instead of automatically sticking him on the boob like I did before. Got him down to 2 defer a night at about 11 and 3. Only been doing it for a week or so so he is still waking at 1 and 5 but I can generally settle him without feeding. I'm hoping he Will soon figure out its not worth waking at those times

 

[Sarah13]

Think Ill try and be more persistent with settling this week. I know it sounds lazy but i do put him on the boob after a few mins when he starts crying as I know it will work for another couple of hours, you get to the point where you will do anything for a little bit of sleep when you so tired yourself! Also i worry about him waking dd as she is doing her standard grades just now.
I was managing with 4 wake ups but that was 7 last night in the end i do feed him loads before and after his bath and normally I will get 3 hours but not this week!
My oh is away off shore just now so no help there either. Think if I could get more sleep I would have the drive to resettle better, its like a vicious circle! Oh home for a week this weekend so maybe Ill rope him in to do the resettling, after all he gets a good 10 hours sleep offshore when he's not on shift! Think i need to go offshore for a rest lol!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[DW1978]

We are the same hun sometimes. Jax was waking sometimes once, sometimes 4 times and I was just feeding him overtime, automatically. Then a couple of times, he slept from 6pm till midnight, had milk then slept till 6am. So, I though, he must be able to do it. So now, if he wakes before 11pm, I just resettle him. Last Friday, I couldn't get him to resettle straight away when he woke at 9.15pm so decided I would feed him. Oh what a mistake, he projectile vomited EVERYWHERE, the whole bottle. Had to change him and the whole cot. Was a total nightmare and ended up with him being awake till midnight as he was then wide awake! I also did it again this Saturday, he woke at 9.30pm, resettle no problem, woke at 1am for milk, then woke again at 3.30am and I fed him again! Projectile vomit everywhere again. So now I've made myself a rule, not to try to feed him unless its been at least 3 hours since the last feed and to try my hardest to only feed once during the night! Last night he woke at midnight, then again at 4.30am. The second time, I just left him but after about 40mins he was still cooing in his cot so I have him milk and he went back to sleep till 6.20am.

It's so hard isn't it to get out of the habit of just feeding them. It's what you so from them being newborn and I'm not sure when you should decide not to do that anymore!

Mummy to two beautiful boys; Lennon born 5th March 2006 and Jax born 24th October 2011

 

[Sarah13]

DW it's horrible when they are sick everywhere, Kynon is never sick at night but I think my suppys are probably lower. Think I need to try and resettle, I think he must be waking after each sleep cycle. It's hard as I know he feeds a lot during the day and he's just getting to that weaning age. DD was a four hourly feeder and def woke less at night by this age but she was weaned at 4 months