Moms of older infants still eating at night

Mine are 8 months but looking for any feedback here. My kids are still waking up at night. Some nights they will only wake up once for a dream feed around 11(they go to bed at 6:45) I have tried to do later naps and later bedtimes but it does NOT work. They are ready for bed at 6:30. The latest they go down is 7-7:15.

Anyway-I am still feeding them. They mostly suck down the bottles-sometimes they won't finish but rarely. What is your "plan" to stop your babies from waking up? I mean I am not going to be giving them milk in a sippy in the middle of the night and I want a full nights sleep!!

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

BTDT here.

I was in the same boat. I gave him the ultimatum of his first birthday and then he wasn't getting bottles in the middle of the night anymore.

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

Erik was about 11+ months before he stopped regularly eating during the night.

eta: we did CIO at that point as well. I would have done it earlier but we were in Europe for the prior 2 months, so I waited until we got back home.

Message edited 8/3/2009 12:58:46 PM.

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

At 6 months, the ped asked us if DS was sleeping through the night. We told him no, he was still waking for a bottle bc he was hungry around 4ish. He told us that between 4-6 months, they only wake up because it is now routine for them, and they do not need to eat at night. He said the first night we would probably be up a lot, trying to just comfort him-but to stop feeding him at night.

We were skeptical bc the poor kid's stomach would growl, but we decided to try it that night. The first week, he woke up, but we only gave him his pacifier, and he was satisfied. He did not want to eat, we found that he would lose the pacifier and want it back, and we were mistaking that for waking up and being hungry. I'm sure a couple of times he did want the bottle, but we stopped bringing one to our room at night, so we wouldn't give in and give him one.

We did let him cry it out if he was insistent, but that never took more than 20 minutes.

DS still wakes up at night now, around 2 am, but he has lost his pacifier and is sitting up in the bed, so I go in to give it back. He then will wake up around 5:50 (bc of the light starting to come in the window) but for the last 2 nights at least, I've let him whine for about 5 mintues, and he goes right back to sleep without me going in.

Sorry so long.

Message edited 8/3/2009 12:54:50 PM.

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

I do believe that at 8 months they are waking up more from habit then being hungry - but it's your decision to choose to do CIO or not yet. We did CIO at 6 months and stopped the middle of the night feedings then.

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

Jonah is still waking up usually 2x a night. Its getting ridiculous, he's eating every four hours, and at 7 months old I am sure its out of habit. I am beyond exhausted. 7 months without a full night's sleep has taken its toll. I think we are going to have to do CIO to get him to STTN. We did it to get him to fall asleep on his own and it worked.

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

My DS kinda just stopped on his own, I'm hoping it goes the same for DD ( although by this point w/ my DS, he was pretty done with middle of the night feedings )

Re: Moms of older infants still eating at night

Kaydyn did not STTN until 8 months when we did CIO. She was still waking up once a night for a feeding (anytime between 3-5am). I was exhausted and said I would not get up one more night . She got it right away and she only cried maybe two nights in the middle of the night before she started sleeping right through (for 12 hours stretches).