When will night feeds stop?

[sorpresa_bea]

My 3 month old is still feeding 2, sometimes 3 times at night (I'm ebf). He does go back to sleep right away and generally will sleep from 8-9 pm to 7-8 am. However having to feed him so often (still) at night is tiring, specially since he's not drinking so much for some of the feeds and I'm think it's just habit

Any suggestions to try and remove some of the feeds or will he gradually need less in a few weeks? I was hoping for less feeds needed by this age ?

 

[Goat]

Ah hun, he's still quite young and in all honesty doing pretty well for an ebf baby. I think at 3 months you could try and shush him back to sleep by patting his bum/dummy but you're still better off just taking his lead as his tummy is still very small so I don't think he's necessarily doing it out of habit. I wouldn't really expect an ebf baby to go all night without feeds until they're weaned onto solids until then they go through so many phases of growth spurts/sleep regressions that their feeding pattern at night is so unpredictable, will improve then seemingly worsen then be great again.
Don't doubt yourself, dont do what I did and compare your baby to other babies who are sleeping through, your baby just needs those extra feeds and it's completely normal. Xx

 

[CARNAT22]

Oh my.... so this is going to go on until weaning? Blimey!!!!!

James was ff from 8 weeks and started sleeping through then too. Bee still wakes up a few times but I find having her in with me helps.

Last night though she went from 11pm-5am which is miraculous. I know it's probably a one off though!

Sorry OP that I can't help but I do sympathise.

X

 

[Maud]

I agree that he is still young to be worrying about him sleeping through the night. Mine dropped her night feed at 10 months, but all babies are different.

 

[Durhamchance]

I'd had enough by 8 months with my son and he was FF. Under the HV advice we used CC to get him to drop the night feeds. I did try giving just water and gradually reducing the amount of milk before that but only the CC worked.

 

[littlemonkey]

My son was FF so can't offer a huge amount of advice. I was of the opinion though BF babies still had regular night feeds for a while yet.

What I did notice with my son at around 10 weeks was he would wake in the night and if I fed him he would only be having a couple of ounces rather than a full feed. He was never really crying or fussing for a feed either, just awake and I was offering them assuming that's what he wanted. I was considering not offering feeds, but around the same time we moved him into his own room. This is when he dropped the night feeds. I think he was still waking, but because he was in his own room he wasn't waking us up and was then dropping off on his own.

Maybe just try to settle your LO back to sleep with out a feed and see how it goes. We also stopped changing LO in the night around this time unless he had pooed because we felt this was disturbing him too much.

The other option is you could try co-sleeping so LO can latch on in the night without disturbing either of you too much.

 

[Sprout]

Perfectly normal My baby started sleeping through at 5 weeks, then started feeding twice a night at about 3 months, this gradually increased to about 6 feeds at 5 months...so we started bedsharing and now she only wakes up once or twice, pretty much helps herself to boob and we both go back to sleep - it's great

 

[mellie_88]

Haha my boy is 5 1/2 months. Sometimes he wakes up 5/6 tomes a night to be fed! A lot of people will tell you it'll get better when you wean them however it all depends on the baby. My son hasn't had any thing other than breast milk at the moment but I'm not holding out much hope for it changing once he's on solids too.

 

[naomip]

They're all so different. Mine still wakes up at least once for a night feed and he's 13 months x

 

[Iwant3]

same here - my lo is 13 months and still has a bottle at around 3-4am! doesn't bother me tho. My older daughter had one around 2-3am until she was 2 and a half!

 

[Clairabelle]

My dd is nearly 21 months old and still wakes in the night for a feed !! We co-sleep and she is still bf so it doesn't bother me too much as I don't have to fully wake x

 

[Rose83]

My little girl is exclusively breast fed but via bottle as I had terrible thrush which made her refuse to feed from me - long story short the thrush lasted about 8 weeks by which point she was too used to bottles to go back. So I express everything. Between about week 8 and 9 she was only having one feed from me - her night one at 4am. Her last feed was at 110ml breast milk at 11 at night then she would do the 4am on the boob then morning feed at 6.30. She began staying on for less and less time at the 4am one until in week 10 I decided to just change her nappy and see if she would go back to sleep, she did and has done ever since. So she does 11pm to 7am every night with just a nappy change and is still exclusively express breast fed at 18 weeks x

 

[sophiadavies]

my 1 year old still wakes through the night and guzzles a bottle!

 

[H16]

I was really lucky, daughter started sleeping through at 7 weeks old. She does occasionally go through phases of wanting a night feed if she didn't eat much in the day or is feeling out of sorts/teething etc - think it is more of a comfort thing. It is very rare though.

She sleeps through from 8pm until 7.30am with no feeds and is 18 months x

 

[Rooster30]

My newborn only wakes once in the night Not sure if that's right at all?! I had to get her up at 5am for a second feed because my boobs were so full and I needed my little pump. She fed and went back down until 0845

My son started sleeping through from about 5 months old.

To be honest I am shocked to read so many older babies still needing night feeds! I hope my daughter is done with night feeds by about 5 months, like my son!