baby sleeping through night...

gratefulforhelp_2

Hi spaghetti. Am I right in thinking your family has had some disruption lately? Babies are clever - may be that?

threemuttleys just had a thread with a similar question, may be worth a look?

He's doing better than baby grateful! x

madtrekker

If you're not convinced he's hungry (and from your OP, I wouldn't be sure it was hunger either), then I'd hold off the weaning just yet. Like PP said, introducing solids isn't always the answer. At 5 months, milk should always be the main source of food, so even if you do decide to introduce solids, you'd need to up the milk anyway (which baby will do naturally when BF).

Try getting him to feed more in the day and have a look at cluster feeding in the evening. For example, a feed at 5:30 / 6pm then bath and another feed at 7pm just before bed. It'll take a few days for your milk supply to adjust but if you can get into this habit, you'll be producing enough milk for 2 full feeds this close together.

I don't know if you're waking him for a feed before you go to bed? I used to with DD until another mum told me that it's a really bad idea as you interfere with baby's own sleep rhythms. I wasn't convinced, but within 3 days of leaving DD to wake up when she wanted to, she was actually sleeping through the night (7pm - 6am). She was 4 months old at the time and fully breastfed. The first night was awful. I went to bed at 10, she woke at midnight. The 2nd night she slept until 2am and the third night, 6am (and I woke up dripping milk out the side of the bed - lol!). Thereafter, she usually slept until at least 6am.

Finally, I agree that teething is a possibility - remember that babies can have symptoms ages before a tooth actually appears. I was given a box of Teetha teething powders and they were a godsend for calming DD. I strongly recommend them.

gizmodo_2

Hi Spaghetti, my DD is only a couple of weeks older than yours and she's gone through a similar thing. With trial and error and my own gut instinct I think it was teething pains, and also around 4 months she started waking for a 2am feed which I did thinking it was for the growth spurt but she was then waking every 3 hours in the night again and I felt she was getting into habit of crying and me running to feed her to shut her up! So our latest thing has been to feed her before bed and then to feed her when I go to bed (so about 6pm and 10pm) and now she's sleeping from 10 till about 7/7:30 which I'm very happy with.

We haven't started weaning really, I'm attempting BLW and I've been giving her foods to start to feel (she likes to crush broccoli between her fingers) but she's not eaten anything yet.

spaghetti_monster

Hi and thanks for replies!

Fri night wasn't too bad, last night was ok-ish.. well actually just the same! (grizzling before the 11pm feed, but straight back to sleep, a grizzle at 2am and very cute full conversation with himself 4.30-5.15, and then awake ay 6.30)

I got some teething gel yesterday, so will look into that today and maybe use tonight.

We'd got into the routine of feeding at roughly 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm, so what I've been doing the last couple of days is: 7am, 11am, 3pm, 6pm, 8pm, 11pm - so I guess that's the cluster feed thing.

Actually when I said his bedtime feed was 7/8pm, it usually ends up being 8pm.

I have also read this thing about the last feed (dream feed is it?) disrupting the sleep rhythms, but like you Madtrekker, I don't know if I dare try stopping it!

Grateful - there has been family disruption lately, but as I'm abroad it's mostly just phone calls etc. And quite an ongoing everyday situation since before he was born, so I don't know if it's that?

Giz - our routine sounds similar. A feed 8pm-ish before he goes to bed and then one at 11pm before I go. When he then wakes we then pop a dummy in which usually gets him back to sleep.
I'd also been wondering about this - that he then begins to expect his dummy to magically pop back in and doesn't learn to get himself off to sleep.
Thanks again for replies!

skintchick

Breastmilk has a lot more calories than baby rice so it will fill him up more.

It could be a growth spurt, could be teething, he is VERY young to nightwean, my DD nightweaned at over 18 months and it is unusual for a fully breastfed baby to nightwean of their own accord at 5 months, but then it is also unusual for them to choose to eat/drink only once every 4-5 hours, too.

If you wrote down everything you ate and drank in a day, you'd see you rarely go more than an hour or so witout something passing your lips, yet we expect babies to go for hours and hours!

If he is hungry, which he could well be based on how much you say he feeds, then I would breastfeed him more. your milk is ideally suited to him, has all the nutrition he needs up to and beyond six months, and will fill him up more than baby rice or rusks or any other premature weaning foods. The guideline is around 6 months for a reason as Pigpen says.

You could try feeding him more breastmilk, perhaps encouraging cluster feeding in thee evening to see *if* it will stop him waking at night, but be reassured that night waking is completely normal well beyond 5 months old, and will occur for many reasons including hunger, thirst (and remember it's been hot recently so he might be thirsty), pain, growth spurt, teething, bad dream, uncomfortable...

Try out a few things and see what works for you. If you are still thinking about weaning onto solids prematurely, then speak to your HV first. Babies should be able to sit up unaided, reach for food AND put in in their mouth unaided before solids begin.

As a reassurance for you, my DD was baby-led weaned at 6 months, breastfed about 9 feeds in 24 hours at that point, and woke in the night around 5 times, so your baby sounds very much normal to me.

I'm a trained breastfeeding helper with the Breastfeeding Network, and will happily chat on PM if you want to ask anything. There is also a breastfeeding helpline (well there are many, just Google) where you could ask your questions about what is normal with a breastfed baby.

spaghetti_monster

Hi Skintchick,
sorry was replying this morning, but didn't quite finish, then lost the post!

Thanks for all your advice. I think we'll be waiting for weaning until 6 months. I was reading up a bit and there's actually quite a lot of conflicting advice/studies/anecdotes (posted one interesting link in one of my last posts) - I think that in the end it's not totally conclusive as people don't yet understand the whys and wherefores of why we get so many allergies. But in case of doubt we usually just stick to the official advice (as like you say it's official for a reason). OH has lung allergies (asthma, hayfever, cat etc) and I have mild eczema, so as there's a choice to make we'll go with that (Here in Holland it's the same as UK, 6 months according to the WHO).
And as you and others have said, more calories come from breastmilk so weaning doesn't solve a hunger problem.

As for his feeding pattern, I thought that was pretty normal. I have several books which say something like 5-8 feeds per day (breast or bottle I think). For the first couple of months I just followed his cue and fed him whenever he seemed to need it day or night. Even from when he was born there was often 3 hrs between feeds. I've got a notebook and remember counting that in the early days it was 7 or 8 feeds a day, then quite quickly went down to 6 or 7, with a longer stretch at some point in the 24hrs (which without any prompting would then come at night time).
In the last couple of months he seemed to naturally stretch out the time between the first feeds of the day (say to 11am and 3pm instead of 10am and 1pm) and that got me wondering how to fit in the other feeds, also as we'd by then got a nice bed/bath routine going at around 7/8pm. That's why I was thinking to make sure he has 6 feeds a day by doing an extra one on the evening - feeding him around 6pm even if he doesn't seem to want it and then again before bed at 8pm.

I think he's eating enough as we were at the CB last week (Health visitor equivalent) and he's on the same curve above average (and is a cute little fatty as well from the look of him!:))

skintchick

I think sometimes we mums just need to hear that our babies are within normal ranges of behaviour! I know I was greatly helped by knowing it wasn't only my baby that woke lots at night, even if other people seem to get the babies that sleep for 11 hours (which mine does now, thankfully, after two long years lol).

meritaten

I thought guidelines were just that - GUIDELINES! every baby is different and part of being a mum is knowing (and having the confidence to act on that) when your baby is not following the guidelines! (they tend to do that - being individuals).
From what I can remember from my own three kids is that slavishly following the fads of 'official advice' and not listening to your baby and YOUR instinct is a recipe for disaster.
Mothers have managed to bring up babies for millenia without the recieved wisdom of the government, the NHS (a mere 60 years old so what do they know?) and Health Visitors.

Do what YOU feel instinctively to be right and you wont go far wrong - if in doubt ask mum or granny!
oh, and if it was teething - they dont grizzle hun - they scream the house down!

skintchick

meritaten wrote: »

oh, and if it was teething - they dont grizzle hun - they scream the house down!

Yes, they do when the tooth is actually coming through, but they can 'just' grizzle while it's moving around in the gum - teething is, as you know, a long process and not all of it is excrutiating.

Other signs of teething can be runny poo, red rash on bottom, copious drooling, drool that leaves a rash, and chewing things such as fingers. I'm sure there are more. Some babies don;t exhibit any of them yet are still teething. You have to get to know your child, like with everything else.

meritaten

skintchick wrote: »

Yes, they do when the tooth is actually coming through, but they can 'just' grizzle while it's moving around in the gum - teething is, as you know, a long process and not all of it is excrutiating.

Other signs of teething can be runny poo, red rash on bottom, copious drooling, drool that leaves a rash, and chewing things such as fingers. I'm sure there are more. Some babies don;t exhibit any of them yet are still teething. You have to get to know your child, like with everything else.

Exactly what I said hun - but every baby I have known who was teething didnt 'grizzle' - they howled! but then I suppose some babies just 'grizzled' through it. never met any myself though.