11 Mo. Old Feeding at Night

I personally have never ran into that . Both my boys were bottle fed, I could not breastfed as of heart medication I am on. We just had them both set on a schedule and it worked out. Plus both my boys slept straight through since they were 2 weeks old. I would mention this to your ped doctor. To get her to take a nap, we always played a CD for our boys and they feel asleep. It is nothing that you are doing wrong. She is just trying to assert her independence. Good Luck!

If she's not getting the calories she needs during the day, she will try to make up for it at night. If she is just nursing a bit to get back to sleep at night, then she doesn't need it. but if she is nursing af ull feed THEN going back to sleep, she may need it. However at 11 months old, she should only need one feeding a night, or none at all.

Cut out the earliest one. You didn't say when she wakes, but 6hrs sleep stretch is the 'norm' for an 11 month old. If she goes to bed at 9pm, that would put her at 3-4am for a feeding, and then be ok until morning.

Cut out the earliest feeding first, and employ your husbands help. Have HIM go in and comfort her without picking her up. It'll take a fwe days but if you don't go in, she'll relize she's ok and will fall back asleep. And you might even find if she sleeps through that nursing, she wil lstart sleeping all night, which is why its easier to tackle one at a time.

Also, its very common for babies to be distractable at this age. Much harder out in public since your baby likes to do the neck turn and either pull your nipple along or expose your boob! At home nurse her in one spot only all the time, like the rocking chairi n the nursery, or the recliner in the living room, etc. Pick a spot and that is your nursing spot, you two only sit there to nurse. TI'll make it more of a routine for her, lets go to the nrusing chair type of thing.

I also have an 11 month old who is breastfed. A few months ago she too was getting up twice a night. I was also concerned it was becoming a habit and decided not to feed her at night anymore. I needed to get my sleep too! If she wakes up upset I'll go in and comfort her, but not with a feeding. It took a few nights of letting her cry back to sleep, but she sleeps through the night most nights now. I still nurse her in the morning and evening but plan to transition to regular milk soon.

I imagine once you limit your night feedings she'll become more interested in foods during the day. You might just sit her in her high chair when you eat and give her a few options. My little one loves cheese, yogurt, Cheerios, graham crackers, etc. Try giving her small pieces of your food as they are interested in what you're doing.

I only fed her a few bottles when she was much younger and so she luckily doesn't have the attachment to a bottle you hear about. She had constipation problems at about 6-7 months and so I started giving her a sippy cup of water. It took a few days and she had it figured out. Now I give her 3-4 oz of juice in the morning and water the rest of the day. She drinks when she needs it.

I hope this has been helpful. I think you just have to decide enough is enough. She'll get plenty of nourishment, just not at night. Try different things and see what peaks her interest.

A LOT of children don't neccessarily eat well unless they're in the middle of a growth spurt. Trust me.. they'll eat when they get hungry. As far as weaning her.. I have found that looking up the lunar calender from earlmay.com, and weaning her that way works really well. If you can get her to drink from a sippy cup.. Chamomile Tea.. is a wonderful thing to relax them and make it easier for them to drift off. Another thing that no mother should be without is lavender oil. The real stuff.. not just soap with it in it. giving her a warm bath before bedtime and a good light smearing of the lavender oil I have had great success with also. Hope that helps! Good luck!!!

At 11 months, it's most likely a habit, but if she's only getting breast milk she might really be hungry!
To get her to eat more food during the day, you have 2 options:
#1: Gradually remove the breast as an option for a meal and only offer a sippy (you can fill it with breast milk) during the day.
#2: Go cold turkey. It's the only thing that ever worked for us. Put the milk in the sippy and stop nursing.
There's no reason why she can't be eating solids and drinking from another source. My boys were eating just about everything by that age and were weaned off everything but the sippy, even at night.
The only way to wean her from night feedings is to either shorten the session each time or let her cry it out. You may have some long nights at first but it will be worth it when you both are able to sleep through the night.

my son is 16 months old and still nursing at night - mostly after 3 am. i am glad to know there ARE other mothers out there who are not just giving up and stopping breastfeeding.

anyway, the resource that i most look up to is www.askdrsears.com. william sears, his wife martha, and his children, are supporters of attachment parenting, and they have advice on SO many issues. they have many many books that are fantastic! i recommend looking on their website and seeing if there is any advice for you there. they had 8 kids (if i remember right) so their advice is sound and true!

one of the things my cousin did was to send dad to baby at night. once baby got the idea that mom was not going to come nurse him at night, the night feedings stopped. crying it out is NOT a good method, and the sears family will tell you why. so kudos for you for knowing that and not trying to force your child into that method!

anyway i hope you find the answers you need

I have four children, my youngest is 4 years old. It's been a little while, and I know this is extremely difficult (I remember that part well!), but have you tried allowing her to cry it out at these times instead of going right into the feeding part? I found that at times my kids would just wake up in the middle of the night, and want to eat because this was a way of getting attention.

Maybe you could work slowly down to one feeding (say, let her cry or just be awake for 15 minutes or more longer before feeding), her tummy won't wake her anymore and she'll learn to sleep longer periods of time.

I know that's not easy!! My 3rd was very demanding at night, and we would get to the point where we would do just about anything to keep him quiet so the rest of the house could sleep!!!

Good luck!

J.

Feeding children is a guessing game and what works for one parent doesn't necessarily work for another. Or what might have worked for your 5 year old might not work for your 10 month old. My youngest is 19 months and he is different than my 5 and 10 year old were. The one thing that we have in common and that is different with my youngest than my other two is that he was 100% breast fed. When is came time to add food to his diet just tried to make a schedule that I tried to stick to every day. I would breast feed first thing when he got up. Then about an hour later I would give him cereal and 1/2 a jar of fruit. Then breast feed again. Then at lunch time cereal and 1/2 a jar of veggies. Then breast feed for nap time. Then he would breast feed after his nap. Then dinner was cereal and a meat. Then breast feed again. Finally I would breast feed right before bed. When I gave him the meals he wouldn't necessarily finish everything I gave him. But I always offered the meals to get him used to eating them. I know that there were times when for a week or two weeks usually when he was teething that he would wake during the night and want to nurse. This was usually short lived, but maybe this is what is happening with your little one. Also the fuller their stomache is when they go to sleep the better they sleep. This is what worked for me. I hope that you come up with an eating schedule that works for your little girl.