s/o STTN reasonable expectations for BF babies

In letter of Melissa's letter from a pediatrician thread. I was wondering what you think are reasonable expectations when it comes to night wakings and night feedings for a breastfed baby.

So what do you think would be reasonable at 3 months, at 6 months, at 9 months and at one year, assuming the child is otherwise healthy, not premature, and is gaining adequate weight.

I'm going to give my personal opinion, which is not based on scientific research at all :laughing: So I think at 3 months you should be able to get at least one 3-4 hour stretch a night without a feeding or waking, maybe some nights with two 3 hour stretches, but the rest of the time waking every 2-3 hours, so that's about 3-4 feedings. At 6 months I'd say at least one 5-6 hour stretch without waking or feeding, and 1 more 3-4 hour stretch, so I guess that about 2 feedings a night. At 9 months I'd say no more than one waking a night, probably an 8-9 hour stretch and another 3-4 hours before waking. At one year I think, night feedings should be zero, and baring any problems night wakings should only happen a few times a week or less.

So what do you guys think?

 

I don't know... but we swaddled ours starting back at wk 5 and they started dropping feeds... (1st night they dropped the 2a feed) by 8 wks we were getting closer to 8 hrs of sleep and by 12 wks it was close to 12 hrs of continuous sleep a night...

by 6 mo. they started teething... so they woke probably 1x per night on average... and that was on and off for a few months. most of our night wakings were due to teething or colds.

the sttn didn't hurt my supply, though also around the 7 mo. mark I did start to add a pumping session around 11p to help boost supply and give the kids an expressed bottle for the next evening since my supply wasn't as much in the evenings.

our kids might have been anomolies compared to what that article was talking about... but we sure did enjoy the sleep from 2 mo.

 

Mine are almost 11 months old now (6 weeks premature) and only started STTN less than a week ago. For us STTN means from 12 to 6. They were not ready for it before, I guess.

They had severe reflux, so I think it was pretty normal for them to need the comfort of nursing.

 

Mine were horrible sleepers at night. Orion would wake every 2 hours after a 3.5 hour stretch starting around 7. But what I'd like to see is by 4 months a longer stretch of say 4 hours, then every 3 after that. By 7 months about 2 wakings for feeds a night, by 8 or 9 months dropping from 1 to zero. I do think co-sleeping really has it's advantages for this time and am open to the idea for the next go around.

 

Mine actually did pretty near what you have mentioned. Once they got through the initial every 2 hour stage, my DD started sleeping a 5 hour stretch (~2 mo) but DS wasn't ready for that. I started dreamfeeding at that point and ended up with 3 overnight feeds for DS and 2 for DD. DD dropped her 2nd overnight feed by 5-6 months. We kept the dream feed until 9-10 months when they didn't seem to want it any more. About that time, DS also started to STTN. I never thought anything about DS needing feeds at night because he was always small for his age and it helped my supply. I also work and pumped during the day, so I willingly nursed as much as they wanted to at night because I never pumped enough.

I think there is a difference between babies who wake just to wake and babies who wake, eat, and go back to sleep. We shouldn't strive too early for STTN, just strive for babies who only wake to eat and then go right back to sleep.

 

My MIL was a maternity nurse years ago early in her career (late 60's/early 70's) and said that if the baby was a healthy weight at birth, they wouldn't feed them at night while they were still in the hospital and they were STTN by the time they went home a week later

Anyway, I think that at 3 months it's not unreasonable to do 2-3 feedings a night. At 5-6 months this should be down to 2, and at 9 months it should be down to 1. I 100% agree with your post in the other thread that our culture just doesn't support patience with sleep habits. Moms and dads have too many demands on them and not enough support. Breastfeeding is so energetically demanding and there's just not enough acceptance of it.. I was often told when I complained about BF'ing struggles to just quit rather than someone actually offering to help out. So I get why people want to reduce the number of feedings and get more sleep.

 

i had no issues with getting up to nurse the girls at night - as long as they went back to sleep! that was the crux of it for me. we made some rookie new parents mistakes when the girls first came home from the hospital that interupted the natural progression of sleep consolidation & ended up in a right mess. so we did sleep training with the girls when they were 3.5 months old - however, our inital sleep plan called for 3 overnight feedings & that was fine. the girls dropped one on their own almost right away so we were getting a 5 - 6 hours stretch of sleep at that point. then they dropped the early morning feed between 6 - 7 months. we kept the dream feed until around 9 months. that felt reasonable to me. knowing what i know now, i think i would also be comfortable with that whole process taking a longer time.

i also agree that more daytime support for moms, breastfeeding or not, would go a long way to helping this situation. also, more support of co-sleeping (which i'm planning to do whenever baby #3 decides to make its appearance).

 

We had almost the same situation with doing sleep training to get them to fall asleep after feeds. Many people assume that the only purpose of sleep training is STTN, which is SO not true!

 

i ran into this a lot. people were horrified that i was trying to make my 3.5 month old (6 week premature) babies STTN. that wasn't our purpose at all. i needed them to sleep in their crib, and to go back to sleep after feeding. heck, i would have settled for them sleeping next to me in my bed, but they would only sleep if i was holding them both on my chest. it got to the point where i wasn't actually sleeping at all, only dozing between feedings. i was thisclose to :crazy:. we hired a sleep consultant & i do not regret it at all.

i hope with the next baby we can avoid the scenario all together by starting off on the right sleep foot, so to speak. plus, as i said, i'm planning on co-sleeping next time so hopefully things will go a bit smoother. i've got my fingers crossed anyway. :good:

 

My first was 3 weeks old and sleeping from 11pm-6am. For the twins, Nathaniel was 4 weeks old and sleeping midnight-6 am, and William started at 9 weeks.

 

We had to do sttn so they'd go back to bed - after we did that nursing at night got a lot more manageable.

 

To me its not whether or not they are a breastfed baby, but rather what goes on during the day and what else does the mom have going on?
Is the mom able to sit down and nurse/cuddle the baby very frequently throughout the day? or is the mom a working mother (outside the home) and the baby may not get that direct breastfeeding & close snuggling?

I know for me personally, the first time around I breastfed I was a full-time working mother of twins. My kids nursed A LOT in the evening and all through the night. But I wasn't there for them during the day to cluster feed or nurse and tank up etc. With Kennedy whom was bottle fed all breastmilk she initially slept 6 (and even 8) hour stretches! (granted that was once she went to sleep at 3am) but then as she quickly progressed through developmental milestones she had a lot of night wakings. 6 months was a real turning point in terms of sleep at predectable times. and from about 9 months on (when she started walking) she finally gets up 1x or no times in a 12 hour period! She also only takes 1 nap a day

Just as a fun tidbit: I learned that babies can not and do not have the ability to produce melatonin until around 4 months of age. That being said, breast milk contains something that helps to set their circadian rhythms. Ahh the powers of breast milk!

 

I don't think I can agree with you on this matter. I took all the time in the world to snuggle and cuddle and still my girls wouldn't give in to their sleepiness. I co-slept, nursed on demand, did everything to make sure they'd feel safe and comforted. Nothing helped. They used to cry a lot, day or night.

 

Not to say that all babies that are snuggled and cuddled and fed on demand will be great sleepers Im just saying (like for us) my kids were up a lot more at night,(then maybe they otherwise would have been if I would've been able to stay home with them) they wanted to "reconnect" with me after being gone all day and I don't blame! Just another thing to look at in the full spectrum of things.

 

Mmmm, I have a hard time accurately remembering my twins first year (not that it was 6 years ago.) And I'm not sure if it's fair to use Drex as an example since he seems to be an extroninary baby. Really, if a couple of Buddhist monks showed up at my front door someday telling me the believed that my son was the reincarnation of Rimponche whoever, I'd totally believe them!
From five weeks he'd wake up every three hours, feed then go right back to sleep. Now at nine months he sleeps from 8:30 to about 1, has a feed and sleeps again until about 4, then feeds pretty much continuiously until 6, I get up between 6 and 6:15 and he sleeps a bit more until we leave the house at 7:20.

But with all three of them, STTN was never a goal. I remember that my girls did not sleep through the night until sometime after a year. But never had any bedtime issues, and still don't.

 

E&Msmom, thank you for your reply. I was probably overreacting.

 

My DD was sleeping 12 hour at 4 months. My DS was by 6 mo going 12 hours. Both were exclusively breastfed. At 3 mo they were both going 8 hr most nights. And after 6 mo I never fed them at night. Even if they woke up for teething, sick, whatever they didn't expect to be fed.