| Posted By |
Message |
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Okay, so my 10 month old seems to have a night waking issue where he will wake up anywhere between 3 and 5 am. If it is 5 am or later I will give him a bottle and he will typically go back to sleep for an hour or two. However, the 3am wakings have become more and more frequent. If I let him cry he can cry for over an hour if I don't go in to soothe him. However, if i do go in to soothe him he will go right back to sleep but typically wake up anywhere from a half hour to an hour later.
He is little - still under 20lbs. Do you think that I should feed him at 3am and see what happens? These night wakings are really driving me crazy. I am about to lose my mind after not getting a solid period of sleep for 10 months straight.
Please help. I appreciate any advice or suggestion, but I have tried filling him up with food for dinner, letting him CIO at night, going in and soothing him, adjusting bedtimes, naptimes etc. He takes a 9 am & 1:30/2:00 pm nap and his bedtime is 7:00/7:15pm. His naps are each about 1.25-1.5 hours.
|
Posted 11/6/08 6:09 PM  |
| |
|
Janice
Sweet Jessie Quinn
Member since 5/05 27567 total posts
Name:
Janice
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
I did a 2 AM night feeding till 14 months old.
I am a softie though and could not bare hearing a what could be hungry cry.
Ped told me to give him protein right before bed to fill him up.
|
| Posted 11/6/08 6:21 PM |
| |
|
|
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Is there any way to keep him up later at night?
|
| Posted 11/6/08 7:09 PM |
| |
|
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by Summersalwaysinseason
Is there any way to keep him up later at night?
I tried an 8 o'clock bedtime but it didnt make a difference. he was still up at the same time and crankier throughout the day.....
|
| Posted 11/6/08 7:15 PM |
| |
|
mommy2Alex
3 babies for me :)
Member since 5/05 6683 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
I have the same issue with DD, who is 1 yr. I give her the bottle. I never did with DS but for some reason I can't let her cio plus I am afraid of her waking him. Ped said it was a habit and not hunger, but she will drink 8oz around 5am and goes back to bed. I figure I rather do that than wake at 6am for the day.
|
| Posted 11/6/08 7:35 PM |
| |
|
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by mommy2Alex
I have the same issue with DD, who is 1 yr. I give her the bottle. I never did with DS but for some reason I can't let her cio plus I am afraid of her waking him. Ped said it was a habit and not hunger, but she will drink 8oz around 5am and goes back to bed. I figure I rather do that than wake at 6am for the day.
I did the same and I am fine doing it at 5am, i just don't know how to break this backward cycle of waking up earlier and earlier. i would almost give anything to have him go back to taking that bottle at 5 without waking at 3 something.
I also should add that i am really, really not handling this sleep deprivation very well. i am considering not having any more children because of what this is doing to me both mentally and physically.
|
| Posted 11/6/08 7:39 PM |
| |
|
dpli
Daylight savings :)
Member since 5/05 13973 total posts
Name:
D
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Is he getting enough to eat during the day? I would try getting him to eat a little more during the day, even if it is increasing his bottles by an ounce. Whenever my DS was waking up at night (if it wasn't because he was sick or teething) it was because he didn't finish a bottle during the day.
At 10 months, I think both of you need to be able to sleep through the night. 
Message edited 11/6/2008 8:32:50 PM.
|
| Posted 11/6/08 8:29 PM |
| |
|
mikeswife06
Drama Momma
Member since 9/06 9947 total posts
Name:
Anne
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
I believe in feeding a hungry baby.
|
| Posted 11/6/08 8:31 PM |
| |
|
aliwnec10
mom of 3 boys
Member since 4/06 11426 total posts
Name:
Ali
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
When you let him cry... how long does he cry? an hour you said? well what about the next night? and the next when he CIO? Does it improve at all? Are you being consistent? Or are you giving in here and there and going in?
|
| Posted 11/6/08 8:55 PM |
| |
|
kaadf5
LIF Adolescent
Member since 4/08 538 total posts
Name:
anna
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
My dd is 15 months old and she has always done this. Now she is waking at 4am I give her a bottle and she goes back till 7:30. If she wakes up and calls for me any earlier I will ignore her and she goes right back to sleep. I haven't tried to ignore her at 4am yet, but when I get her at 4am her tummy is growling.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 6:34 AM |
| |
|
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by dpli
Is he getting enough to eat during the day? I would try getting him to eat a little more during the day, even if it is increasing his bottles by an ounce. Whenever my DS was waking up at night (if it wasn't because he was sick or teething) it was because he didn't finish a bottle during the day.
At 10 months, I think both of you need to be able to sleep through the night.
He is a bad eater so he never even finishes a 6 ounce bottle...... I try to get him to eat more solids but when i overfeed him he throws up. he threw up a ton last night.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 6:42 AM |
| |
|
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by aliwnec10
When you let him cry... how long does he cry? an hour you said? well what about the next night? and the next when he CIO? Does it improve at all? Are you being consistent? Or are you giving in here and there and going in?
We did one week where we didnt go in and his crying was inconsistent. some nights 5 minutes, some 40, some over an hour. it didn't seem to improve.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 6:43 AM |
| |
|
LisaI
Momma's Little Beans
Member since 1/06 3923 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
He is definitely hungry. I would feed him and maybe during the day introduce more finger foods to him. He may not be interested in baby food/bottle. Try other things. He's old enough. good luck ann!
Message edited 11/7/2008 7:38:46 AM.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 7:38 AM |
| |
|
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by LisaI
He is definitely hungry. I would feed him and maybe during the day introduce more finger foods to him. He may not be interested in baby food/bottle. Try other things. He's old enough. good luck ann!
Thanks! he is having some eating issues, which may be part of the problem i think. he doesn't do finger foods. won't even eat puffs when i put them on his high chair. he will eat them if i put them in his mouth but i stopped doing that because he was gagging. I also can't move him to stage 3 foods because he gags and vomits those as well.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 7:40 AM |
| |
|
CrankyPants
I'm cranky
Member since 7/06 18178 total posts
Name:
Mama Cranky
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Every child is different, but I in our case it came down to developing good sleep skills because according to our ped, at that age it is usually not hunger but rather habit that gets them up in the middle of the night. Our DD sleep well and then all of a sudden started waking in the night. We also had some bad habits around putting her down for the night wherein it took over an hour sometimes to get her to go down and when she fussed, we went in to get her.
In desperation, when the middle of the night wakings started we would feed her because it was the quickest way to get her to go back down and because we thought she must be hungry because she ate it. It just made it worse for us and I couldn't see how it was ever going to end. She needs to sleep through the night again eventually-and I felt we were making it worse/prolonging the day. We did a modified version of CIO. Now, she sleeps wonderfully-as does the whole family.
Like I said, every kid is different and this just worked for us.
Message edited 11/7/2008 8:39:45 AM.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 8:38 AM |
| |
|
dpli
Daylight savings :)
Member since 5/05 13973 total posts
Name:
D
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by lululu
Posted by LisaI
He is definitely hungry. I would feed him and maybe during the day introduce more finger foods to him. He may not be interested in baby food/bottle. Try other things. He's old enough. good luck ann!
Thanks! he is having some eating issues, which may be part of the problem i think. he doesn't do finger foods. won't even eat puffs when i put them on his high chair. he will eat them if i put them in his mouth but i stopped doing that because he was gagging. I also can't move him to stage 3 foods because he gags and vomits those as well.
I feel for you, this is rough. I wanted to tell you though, that I decided to skip the stage 3 foods altogether and just try more finger food in smaller pieces. DS was OK with some finger foods, but gags horribly on the Stage 3 food. I think he gets confused by them. I think what happens is they taste like his stage 2 dinners, but then he gets to the chunky pieces and gags on them. We tried Pastina and he vomited. So I try very small pieces of something new. If he seems to do OK with it, I try slightly larger pieces, if not, I shelve that food for a while and plan on trying again. Last night I tried bowtie pasta. He put it in his mouth, tasted it and then threw it on the floor, along with all the other pieces on his tray, LOL. So I think pasta might be out for us for a while.
Can you try giving him 2 smaller bottles before bed - like 3 to 4 oz. bottles spaced out a bit? Do you think he would be able to finish both before going down for the night?
Good luck, it's so hard to get them to do something new sometimes.
Message edited 11/7/2008 9:07:23 AM.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 9:05 AM |
| |
|
JChia
Mom of 2 Princesses
Member since 9/07 2540 total posts
Name:
Jen
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
I watched a DVD on baby sleep habits from the Jericho library a few weeks ago and they mentioned the habitual night feeding and how to ween the baby from doing this.
It involved setting your alarm to wake up an hour before the earliest time he typically will cry and feeding him, but an ounce less than what he normally takes. Keep doing this, each night giving one ounce less until they are down to one ounce and then let them cry it out. It allows him to adjust by taking more during the day. If you want the name of the video I can find out (FM me) , but I don’t remember off the top of my head…
Also, DD was a horrible eater – never finishing the bottle. I would make 7 oz bottles for her grandmothers to give her (who watch her during the day) but they were never able to get her to finish them. Then the grandmothers couldn’t watch her as often and so she had to go to daycare 4 days a week. Well I noticed that the Daycare staff could get her to finish almost all of her bottles (once in a while she would leave an ounce) and she would sleep better the nights she went to daycare. So I watched how they fed the babies and they hold onto to them tight! –and make sure they don’t wiggle away. Really, DD was just so distracted by other things going on, but once I started implementing the firm hold, she finished the bottle. I had to show DH and now he can get her to finish the bottles he gives her. And now the grandmas know about the firm hold too. Four weeks ago, she was waking up at 4 every night, but now that she finishes all her bottles during the day, I never hear a peep! FYI – DD is 7 months old.
Good luck!
Message edited 11/7/2008 9:56:54 AM.
|
| Posted 11/7/08 9:53 AM |
| |
|
lululu
LIF Adult
Member since 7/05 9511 total posts
Name:
|
Re: To feed or not to feed? Night waking problem
Posted by dpli
I feel for you, this is rough. I wanted to tell you though, that I decided to skip the stage 3 foods altogether and just try more finger food in smaller pieces. DS was OK with some finger foods, but gags horribly on the Stage 3 food. I think he gets confused by them. I think what happens is they taste like his stage 2 dinners, but then he gets to the chunky pieces and gags on them. We tried Pastina and he vomited. So I try very small pieces of something new. If he seems to do OK with it, I try slightly larger pieces, if not, I shelve that food for a while and plan on trying again. Last night I tried bowtie pasta. He put it in his mouth, tasted it and then threw it on the floor, along with all the other pieces on his tray, LOL. So I think pasta might be out for us for a while.
Can you tell me what kind of finger foods you are giving him? I need some ideas!
|
| Posted 11/7/08 10:03 AM |
| |
|
