Night Feeding/waking

Dear K., Maybe ask you Doctor if you could give him a little cereal yet. He is getting bigger and maybe wants more feedings. I think if I remember correctly I started my kids with just a little cereal in there bottle at there last feeding for the night at about 4 months or so. They slept better after that. Good luck.

At 4 months, very few children need to eat during the night. My pediatrician was quite firm with me on this. Of course, if he gets fed then he will expect it and will continue to wake up and not go to sleep until he is fed. So while it is hard, the best thing you can do for both of you is to feed him before he goes to sleep. Do not but any food in his bottle - it used to be done but is now strongly advised against by the american academy of pediatrics. But he could start on some solids. The Academy recommends starting solids between 4 and 6 months depending on whether you are breastfeeding or not ie 6 months if you are. Then when he wakes in the middle of the night do not feed him. He is still somewhat young for cry it out but letting him fuss for a bit and then fall back to sleep is the best thing you can do for him and yourself. Sleep deprivation is just as bad as food deprivation. Good luck.

K.~
I'm going through the exact same thing!!! My son just turned 4 months and he wakes up about every couple hours. We have stopped feeding him unless it's close to the time of getting up or if we can't calm him. He is definitely not like my daughter was, she was sleeping through the night by 3 months. I believe he has gotten in a routine of waking up and he knows that we are going to jump up and sooth him, because we're afraid he will wake up the 19 month old. We've had pretty good luck with shushing him and giving him the Nuk and he goes back to sleep. But its hard to have your sleep interrupted every couple hours. We've just decided that we're going to try and let him fuss and see if he'll go back to sleep on his own and hope he doesn't wake his sister up. We started him on cereal a week ago and it's not going good, he doesn't like it but we're going to continue and hope he will like it sooner or later. Good luck...boys are difficult!!!

We started my son on solids when he went from sleeping through the night to waking for feedings agian.About 3 1/2 month old.( he is now 6 months and sleeps from 7-8 ish to 5-6) Our dr. recomened that we give him cereal 2 times a day. Now he sleeps from 7-8 ish to 5-6 ish. I never denied my son a feeding in the middle of the night. Every now and then he will wake and I feed him. Check with his doc, as to what they recomend. If he is getting enough during the day then he might not wake at night.

Babies are typically capable of sleeping through the night by this point. Capable doesn't mean they do it, they are in the habit of waking up and eating.

I recommend the books "On Becoming Babywise" and "The Baby Whisperer". They talk about having a routine during the day (basic eat, awake time, sleep cycle) that allows your baby to get good food and awake time during the day and when they are capable of sleeping through the night.

If you want ideas for how to get him back down now in the middle of the night the "No-Cry Sleep Solution" works well too.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but if you want to stop the night feedings, these books have great info.

Good Luck!

K.
In my opinion anytime a baby under 6 months wakes for hunger then he should be fed. That being said you can try to feed him more often during the day in order to curb the night feedings. Also babies do go through growth spurts both physical and emotional keep this in mind when your sleep deprived. Good luck and happy parenting!

J. O
mom to five

Definitely feed him, it is probably a growth spurt and he is so little when he asks to eat he needs to eat. The call milk given at night grow milk because that is when babies grow the most and they need the milk to sustain them through the night.

3-4 months is usually growth spurt time. If your son is breastfed he will wake when he is hungry and take what he needs. A little bit harder to decide with a bottle. No matter what hes still little. If he seems hungry you should feed him. You may find that in a few weeks his waking will change. My pediatriton always says that by the time you almost get a routine down they grow a little more and you have to start fresh. It does go by so fast...

At four months you need to go with your baby's needs and feed him or find out if it is a different reason he's waking up (itchy clothes, wet diaper, gas, etc.) But if your baby is hungry, don't not feed him just because you're tired. At this age his needs have to come first, as hard as it is. Hang in there! It does improve :)

Also, not all babies are capable at this age of sleeping through the night. It has to do more with weight and size. If your baby is a smaller baby, he may not sleep through the night. Usually, they are ready for that when they reach 11-13 lbs. My second son was on the smaller side and it took him longer to sleep through the night. Also, my dr. said that if the baby wakes up between 4-5:00 that is considered sleeping through the night b/c the baby by that point has slept 8 hours even if you haven't. So, if the baby is small and is hungry and it is okay to feed him. He told me this when my son was more like 9 months.

K.

He is little...if he is hungry, feed him

Hi K.,
I think that your son is simply growing. It can be frustrating to feed on demand, but unfortunately, that is what is needed with a growing baby. You could try to feed him more from the hours of 6p until his bedtime...i.e. 2 oz every hour and see if that will help him elongate his night time routine. That worked well for my second son. Hang in there!
D.

He's probably ready for solids

sounds like a growth spurt to me! good luck! feed him, especially if you're nursing as it will help increase your supply. either way, you can feed him a little less at each feeding (if you're nursing, time it and if you're bottle feeding do 1/2 oz less each night) so that as the growth spurt ends he'll be back to his original sleep pattern.

Google "four month sleep regression." Apparently, there is this phenomenon where babies' sleep patterns get worse at four months and at eight months. And, from what I read, it's much more common in boys. If you are on npn, there are a few past discussions on there as well.

In some cases, people can point to specific development happening (could this be the beginning of teething), but in other cases, it just happens. In my case, I went back to work when my son was four months old which compounded the situation.

There are different schools of thought about how to handle, but at four months, you have to feed them when they are hungry. I feel for you - it's really hard for the mom to go back to getting up at night when you've gotten used to sleeping through.

I think the same rules apply for working through this. Do all of the things that helped you get him sleeping through in the first place - make feedings as short as possible, don't change his diaper unless he's pooped, don't engage or make it "fun" to wake up.

He will work through it...

I worked for an obstetrician that had a set of twins, who swore by a book called, "On becoming baby wise" by Gary Ezzo, M.A. it states that a baby needs to establish a routine for a true sleep pattern. So we do have to teach them how to do this, if waking due to hunger then the regular feedings are not effective ie fallin' asleep while eating is common and not getting enough to eat. Yet, yes it could very well be a growth spurt? At any rate with the aid of this book my son was sleeping for 5 hr stretches at night by the time he was 2 wks old, so that's what it did in my case. I love the book and bought the second edition on older babies as well. I am a graph oriented type and with the amount of "stuff" a mommy has to do, writing it down helped me keep track of how often and how much my baby was consuming, so I felt satisfied he was getting "enough". I do hope you check out the book it helped me tremendously!