The 5 am feed

Last month we decided to try to night wean. Instead of breastfeeding each 2-3 times during the nights, I sent DH in for a few days to calm them back to sleep. We dealt with one waking at a time: the 2 am one a week or so before the 11 pm one. It worked very well (until we went away last week, developed colds and ear infections etc and all went haywire ).

I decided to breastfeed them whenever they woke after 5 am as I noted that lots of peoples' babies seemed to have a 5 am feed and then go back to sleep. So I thought maybe 7 am to 5 am without food was long enough.

The thing is, the girls are still waking once or twice each per night. One of us always goes in quickly (too quickly?) to soothe them back to sleep (humming a lullaby and sometimes stroking/putting a hand on their back). Often, but not always, they quickly fall asleep again.

I'm wondering if part of their continued waking is because babies can't tell the time. Could they be waking up to check whether I'll feed them yet? Should I also stop feeding them at 5 am? Is this too long without food? Any other suggestions?

TIA, lisa

 

It is normal for BF babies to wake more often during the night, especially up until the FY mark. Since Breastmilk is easier to digest, it digest quicker than formula would, making more frequent feedings. That is why they say (with most BF moms) to feed on demand.

Mine were formula fed, but still woke up around the 5 AM mark as well, I just fed them, and let them go back to sleep.

 

I still do a 5am feed with my guys, they eat and fall right back to sleep, so it's no skin off my nose!

You might want to see if daddy can soothe them at 5am, maybe they are waking out of habit, but they might be really hungry after 10 hours!

 

My guys wake up at night too and they are formula babies. We let them cry too and it doesn't seem to help. Just goes to show you that not all babies can CIO and not all babies will sleep through the night. Mine still want to eat too.

I figure by the time they are in HS they will probably stop.

 

My girls still wake for the 5am feed. We don't mind b/c they go back to sleep. They are difficult feeders too and eat so much better half asleep.

 

They can't tell time, but if they are pretty easily soothed back to sleep at those pre-5:00 wakeups, my guess is that they aren't hungry yet. They're just used to being soothed back to sleep. Even if you don't want to do CIO, you could try waiting, say, 5 minutes longer than you normally wait before going in, and see if they go back to sleep on their own. You may be surprised!

If they don't fall back asleep on their own, you will have to decide whether to keep soothing them back to sleep, or choose one of the many methods of teaching them to fall asleep by themselves.

As far as whether to keep feeding them at 5 a.m., if they go back to sleep afterwards, I say keep it up. My problem was that if I went in at 5 a.m. at that age, they were up for the day. So we had to basically refuse to go in before 6. Sometimes they still wake up at 5, but now (since about 13 months) they either go back to sleep or just chat to themselves until it's time to get up.

 

Mine were routinely waking up around 5 for a bottle and then would go back to sleep. Since the time change, it's been 6 or later and I've been debating whether or not to keep them up or go back to sleep. The other day, I put them back down after a 6:15 feed and they slept until 8:30!

 

Ours go down around 7:30pm and they like to eat around 4:45 am with a feeding in the middle somewhere! After the 4:45 am feed they go back to sleep until around 7am! I say do what works for you!