2am wake ups

We have been sleep training our 7-month olds for what seems like forever. We have a great bedtime routine that involves bottles, jammies, stories, and nursing. Both babies go down easily around 6pm after about 8oz of breast milk/formula. We then give them another bottle (6-8 oz although sometimes one or the other won't finish) around 11pm often as a dream feed. We won't hear from DD until 6am but DS consistently wakes up at 2am and cries. Presumably he's hungry but despite what I've read about night weaning, our little guy just can't the message that the kitchen's closed. We've tried so many strategies: patting, rocking, soothing, cluster feeding during the day, increasing ounces before bed, increasing ounces at 11pm, solid foods, and then invariably CIO which can last from 20-40 minutes. Every night.

As far as I can tell we either need to be more patient, give in and feed him a bottle, or do something we haven't thought of. Are we putting them to bed too early? Should we cut out the 11pm feeding?Feed them more? Is it not even hunger? I'm running out of ideas. Any tips? Thanks!

 

I have found that if I dreamfeed my twins before I go to bed they actually wake up more in the night to be fed. I thought dreamfeeding would get them to go much longer at night, but it doesn't. So I stopped doing it and they actually sleep longer. It would be worth a shot to try a few nights without it and see how they do, if it doesn't work you can always start it up again. Keep in mind that if you do quit the dreamfeed and they go to bed at 6 p.m. they could wake at 4 or 5 to be fed and then go back to bed. That is 10 hrs without food and for little bodies that need it that is a good long stretch. I don't think 6 p.m. is too early, that is what time mine go to bed and they sleep until about 7 or 8. with at least one feed in there somewhere sometimes 2x for my DS.

If you want another perspective on night weaning and feeding babies during the night you should look into books written by Dr. Sears.

 

Ah, dreamfeeding sounds like a good idea in theory but for us, it backfired badly. So my babies were almost sleeping through the night when I had the idea of doing a dream feed and then they started waking up more often during the night. I think they had given up their 3 AM bottle and after I started doing dreamfeedings - they started to wake up at 3-4 AM anyway... It was around 4-5 months. It took a few weeks for them to get back to normal and I think I did the dreamfeeding only for few days, less than a week anyway. Some people are big fans of dreamfeeding, but NOT me .

Try to give up the dreamfeed and just feed him when he wakes up anyway, see how that goes. I mean, worst case scenario he wakes up at 2 AM just like he's doing now anyway. But he may surprise you and start sleeping longer in few days. Good luck and keep us posted how it's going.

 

Neither of mine could have gone through the night without at least one feeding (plus the early morning 5 am nursing session) at 7 months, 6 hours was the longest they could last even the one who started STTN early. They were often too tired to nurse well at bedtime and were both low on the weight curves so I am convinced they needed it. I breastfed and the babies' crib was right next to our bed, so it was no big deal for me.

If you want a soft approach to "the kitchen is closed at night" you might try watering down the 2 am bottle bit by bit so the baby gets used to less and less nutrition at night. If he or she starts waking more I would guess the baby still needs the extra milk. If you are lucky he or she decides that water is not worth waking up for.

GL!