Dropping a feeding?

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I'd really like to get DD to drop some of her night feedings. At 7.5 months (and now eating a lot of solids), she should be able to go longer at night. Instead she's starting to stretch her day feedings out which is not really the desirable result...

Last night, her sleep looked like this:

8:30 - nursed to sleep
9:30 - sent DH in, she went back to sleep pretty fast
11:30 - nursed back to sleep
1 - awake and PISSED off that I wouldn't nurse her back down. Took almost an hour to get her back to sleep
3:30 - nursed back to sleep
6:30 - awake and hangry, nursed again

As you can see, I'm trying to skip the 1 AM feeding. I'm fine to wake up and nurse her once, was thinking that should be the 3:30 AM. What is the best technique to do this? Have her just keep being angry? Am I confusing her by sometimes feeding her and sometimes not?

[SoonerTexan]

How late does se eat her last meal of solids?

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

7:30

[Pollyanna]

I know this is hard with a resident spouse but the best way to drop the night feedings is to send daddy in. Baby will go back to sleep much quicker and will decrease the night wakings. And yes, I think sometimes allowing her to nurse is confusing. She will always try and demand to nurse if she thinks it's an option. Hang in there mama, her sleeping will get better.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I know this is hard with a resident spouse but the best way to drop the night feedings is to send daddy in. Baby will go back to sleep much quicker and will decrease the night wakings. And yes, I think sometimes allowing her to nurse is confusing. She will always try and demand to nurse if she thinks it's an option. Hang in there mama, her sleeping will get better.

Ok.

I'm not so committed to skipping that feeding that I'm willing to confuse her/let her scream. If it's better to wait it out and let her skip it, I'm fine to just keep feeding her every 2-3 hours. I was just hoping that there was some logical way to encourage her to drop one feeding.

[HouseofWool]

Personally, I would keep the 1am feeding and try to get rid of the 3am. 1 is roughly halfway through the night and I found that the 3 am feedings often caused such a disruption in my sleep that I wouldn't fall asleep again and I was up for the day. And if you can, send Dad in to deal with her when you don't want to feed.

[SoonerTexan]

Hmm, I was going to suggest maybe feeding her dinner later, but it seems your child actually goes to bed at a reasonable hour regularly, so no advice here (from the mother of the child who decided to go to bed at midnight last night instead of her normal 10pm bedtime)

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Hmm, I was going to suggest maybe feeding her dinner later, but it seems your child actually goes to bed at a reasonable hour regularly, so no advice here (from the mother of the child who decided to go to bed at midnight last night instead of her normal 10pm bedtime)

I mean, if you count being up every 2-3 hours or more frequently ("going to bed").

[ladymoreta]

I think HoW is right. We had more luck getting DD to drop that feeding. She's down to 2 feedings per night; bedtime at 8:00, then feedings at 1:00 and 4:00, awake at 7:00. It's taken a lot of work to get there, and she's 9 months.

[SoonerTexan]

Is she still sleeping with you at night? Does it make nursing easier? Last night N had a bad night (molars, argh, and I let her sleep in that morning) and would go to sleep until midnight, but then ended up sleeping straight all night in her crib. I had to do the morning nursing session while I was already late instead of in the drowsy morning hours and it sucked! I'm ready for her to be out of our bed from 10-5, but man those early morning wakeups are awesome.

No advice, just rambling. LadyM, I still need to read the sleep thing you sent me. I'm just so unmotivated, though. I know what bad habits she has, but most of the time I just don't feel like addressing them because it is a PITA and it doesn't bother me that much.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I think HoW is right. We had more luck getting DD to drop that feeding. She's down to 2 feedings per night; bedtime at 8:00, then feedings at 1:00 and 4:00, awake at 7:00. It's taken a lot of work to get there, and she's 9 months.

I was trying to get her to drop the 1 AM because she just ate at 11:30 and thought she wouldn't need it.

And DH isn't going in there. It's just not going to happen.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Is she still sleeping with you at night? Does it make nursing easier?

I'm just so unmotivated, though. I know what bad habits she has, but most of the time I just don't feel like addressing them because it is a PITA and it doesn't bother me that much.

She is in her own room on a twin bed mattress (long story but that's working out GREAT instead of a crib). I bring her in anytime after DH leaves at 4:30 AM and it's sooo much nicer/easier to just have her next to me in bed though at the same time, having her in her own bed makes going to bed nicer for us because we can have a light on, etc. instead of creeping into bed without waking her. We can't have her in bed with us anymore FT, DH is too tired and it's not safe.

I'm pretty unmotivated too. I was just trying to get ahead of it because I don't want to think back when she's 15 months, "you should have addressed this when she was 7.5 months". It doesn't bother me that much. She usually only nurses for 5-10 minutes and I either pass out with her in her bed (the glories of a twin bed) or am back out in a minute. Instead, I'm sitting there right now for an hour trying to settle her back as she screams the angry scream to try and get her to drop a feeding. It doesn't seem super worth it but then again, I'm fearful of not addressing lest it come back to bite me in the ass.

The only thing that really does annoy me is that she manages to wake up EVERY night pretty much the second I turn out the light. Or, if we're having sex, about 3 minutes before we'd ideally be finished. Awesome.

[SoonerTexan]

Dude N too! As soon as I am about to fall into a deep sleep the baby monitor goes off! It's like she knows.

No judgement on the mattress. N is sleeping with a light blanket now because I think the risk is minimal and it makes a differencw

[ladymoreta]

ST, I wouldn't worry too much about the sleep plan. It sounds like N is a much better sleeper, so most of that won't even apply to her.

T&S, it's so frustrating. I feel for you and your husband so much. I wish I could just come over and give you a good solid stretch of sleep, because nobody can understand how good that feels until they've lived through a bad sleeper.

For now, I'd work on getting her to fall asleep on the mattress without nursing, and maybe dropping the first feeding. Don't even worry about the other feedings for now; just get her back to sleep as quickly as possible overnight. As she loses the sleep association of nursing to sleep, even if she falls asleep in the overnight feedings, she will start only waking for true feedings that she's hungry for.

Also, be sure you're pausing for a couple minutes before going in to her. As DD dropped the nursing to sleep association, she would still wake and fuss briefly before settling back down. After a day or two, it sounded very different from her crying when she woke up hungry, and then she stopped fussing and slept right through the old feeding time.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Also, be sure you're pausing for a couple minutes before going in to her. As DD dropped the nursing to sleep association, she would still wake and fuss briefly before settling back down. After a day or two, it sounded very different from her crying when she woke up hungry, and then she stopped fussing and slept right through the old feeding time.

This is really hard for me. We have a video monitor and she sits up and looks to the door for me. It's really hard not to go rushing in there to her when she's wailing and looking at the door. I know what you mean about sleep fussing but I feel like since she's sitting up, she's unlikely to fall back asleep without assistance.

I think you're right, maybe I should focus on getting her to sleep initially without nursing all the way to sleep. I will say though that she doesn't have THAT strong an association to nursing to sleep since she goes to sleep for the nanny 5 days a week without nursing...so it's not like she NEEDS it.