How long does you bf baby sleep won't eating?

[sandandsea]

DS is almost 20 pounds and almost 6.5 months. We have started solids but he is otherwise ebf. How long should he be able to sleep at night without eating?

Lately he's been up every two hours to eat and I'm going to make him stop as we all need more sleep than that allows. Last night we started sleep training again and I made him wait four hours. I'm thinking he should go even longer so what's normal?

[greysonsmom]

Up until she hit six months DD was sleeping 11-12 hours. Right now she will sleep 6-7 hours sometimes eat and then go back. We are working on eliminating that nursing session again.

[frecklesnbrains]

I think it's highly variable, but an EBF baby probably doesn't really need to eat that often. He may be doing it for comfort or out of habit. My DS was EBF until 6 months, and he started STTN at about 3 months, first 6-7 hours, had a brief 4 month regression and then gradually worked his way up to 10-11 hours. But I also recognize that he's an unusually good sleeper. I think you'll find you're not alone in having a baby who wakes up every 2 hours overnight to feed.

Good luck!

[titania]

We were doing every two hours not too long ago. Now we can go 4-5hrs. But there are still nights when I feed her more frequently. We are working on not feeding her if it has been less then 5hrs but it is going slowly.

Eta - DD is 8 months (today!) and was just under 15lbs at 7.5 months.

[mladerri]

Ds1 slept through the night (10+ hours) by 7 months. Ds2 wakes up every few hours.

[sandandsea]

Alright that's it! I'm going to make him starve for at least 5 hours now and work it up to 6 hopefully. He may think he is starving anyway! Ds1 is an awful sleeper so we can't have two!

[titania]

Jan 12, 2017 18:37:19 GMT -5 sandandsea said:

Alright that's it! I'm going to make him starve for at least 5 hours now and work it up to 6 hopefully. He may think he is starving anyway! Ds1 is an awful sleeper so we can't have two!

Good luck!

[Stringy]

I'm right there with you. Around 5-6 months we were at every hour or two. Though then a tooth popped. Did some light sleep training and am up to every 4 hours now which feels like heaven. Need to get over the next hurdle though. See the sleep training thread. I think that's here.

[txmommy14]

DD is so exhausting from barely napping most days. Last night she was up every few hours, but usually she will do 7-5ish, nurse, and then go back down off an hour or so.

[Kevinmac]

DS usually goes 8:30-somewhere between 3:30 and 5:30. I try to let him figure it out on his own before 3am.

[packerfan4life]

Good luck! We're up every 2-3 hrs, but have gotten as long as 5-6 hr stretches. I'm fully aware that she doesn't need to eat that often but it gets us both to sleep more quickly and keeps DD1 from waking up. I will fully regret this when we decide to sleep train but for now it works for us.

[athn64]

She can go up to 9-10 hours but lately we're at 6-7 hours. I'm working on dropping that first feed but it's alow going right now. We just got our third tooth which messed us up

[nymama917]

Our most recent trend is nursing to sleep around 8:30 then staying asleep until somewhere between 1-3am (so roughly 6 hours), nursing, and then back to sleep until around 8am (roughly 6 hours). Sometimes she's up again around 6 but isn't crying for food. If there are other wake-ups (and often there are) pacifier usually works for us. I always try pacifier first but if she doesn't lay her head down immediately with it then it's not going to work. I don't want her to wake the toddler "working it out" so we just feed to make it as quiet and painless as possible. I'm sure I will regret this at some point but DD2 is such a better sleeper than DD1 ever was I'm not super worried.

[ArgyleEnigma]

C goes down around 7:30 and is up twice--around 11-12, and around 3-4. Occasionally he'll skip a wake-up but it's rare for him to add one.

[microworm]

He usually sleeps from 7:30 to sometime between 3 and 5, and occasionally goes until 6 or 7. Teething has made the wake up time somewhat variable but he never wakes up more than once.

[GOmamab15]

How did it go sandandsea?

We just had our pedi appointment and she said at 6 months he should be able to sleep through the night, that he won't starve and has enough nutrition for it to not be a problem. Not sure what her definition of through the night is, 8 hrs? But I had her repeat it right to my baby so he heard it from her and now we can tell him to do as his doctor says. We'll see.

[sandandsea]

It's been going pretty well. He's down to one wake up a night which is amazing. So he will go about 5 hours. Which is fine by me. He eats and falls right back asleep.

We did cio the real version. 5 min and 10 min intervals. Tonight he fell asleep in 4 minutes. The worst was the second night (fri) when he was up from 1-1:45am. I let him cry in 5 minute intervals and would go in and soothe and help him find his paci. He hasn't taken more than 15 mins to go to sleep at night but has been going to bed late and is tired. And aside from the one night the motn hasn't been bad.

[sandandsea]

Oh and I will say he is much less determined/stubborn than ds1. We tried the same with ds1 and it failed miserably. Ds2 just has a more mellow personality and is more of a "typical" baby. Ds1 was much harder. So I firmly believe it works or it doesn't depending on the kid.

[manybellsdown]

Jan 17, 2017 0:06:23 GMT -5 GOmamab15 said:

How did it go sandandsea?

We just had our pedi appointment and she said at 6 months he should be able to sleep through the night, that he won't starve and has enough nutrition for it to not be a problem. Not sure what her definition of through the night is, 8 hrs? But I had her repeat it right to my baby so he heard it from her and now we can tell him to do as his doctor says. We'll see.

I really hate statements like that from pediatricians. Like, okay, they "should" be, and I'm failing if they're not? Will you come over MOTN, doc, when the baby is screaming and you know the boob will help comfort them at least but you'll withhold for a "should"?

I could be worked up because E has been in and out of various colds and teething spells since Thanksgiving, and nights can be rough. (Or not! I didn't answer the initial question but he's gone 8-11 hours--though with no predictability.) If I could get a decent week of health maybe I could figure out where we are with this "should" business.

[GOmamab15]

Jan 17, 2017 10:54:00 GMT -5 manybellsdown said:

Jan 17, 2017 0:06:23 GMT -5 GOmamab15 said:

How did it go sandandsea?

We just had our pedi appointment and she said at 6 months he should be able to sleep through the night, that he won't starve and has enough nutrition for it to not be a problem. Not sure what her definition of through the night is, 8 hrs? But I had her repeat it right to my baby so he heard it from her and now we can tell him to do as his doctor says. We'll see.

I really hate statements like that from pediatricians. Like, okay, they "should" be, and I'm failing if they're not? Will you come over MOTN, doc, when the baby is screaming and you know the boob will help comfort them at least but you'll withhold for a "should"?

I could be worked up because E has been in and out of various colds and teething spells since Thanksgiving, and nights can be rough. (Or not! I didn't answer the initial question but he's gone 8-11 hours--though with no predictability.) If I could get a decent week of health maybe I could figure out where we are with this "should" business.

I hear you. We're in a similar boat with the past ~2 months being rough but he's really never gone more than 3-4 hours so it just seems like it'll never happen. I'm more ok with it (him in our bed, me being his pacifier) than DH is. We didn't start sleep training tonight. I'm not ready. I don't know exactly what we'll do, but maybe 1st step will be to move him from starting out in the mini crib in our room to starting out in his crib in his own room. We'll see.

[titania]

GOmamab15, I hate statements like that as well! My coworker's wife is a pediatrician and she said that she used to say stuff like that until she tried CIO sleep training with her own son and was shocked by how hard it was and how that method didn't work for him. Now she says she is a lot more flexible and sympathetic with her patients. Do what is comfortable for you and YH!

[manybellsdown]

Jan 17, 2017 22:30:04 GMT -5 GOmamab15 said:

Jan 17, 2017 10:54:00 GMT -5 manybellsdown said:

I really hate statements like that from pediatricians. Like, okay, they "should" be, and I'm failing if they're not? Will you come over MOTN, doc, when the baby is screaming and you know the boob will help comfort them at least but you'll withhold for a "should"?

I could be worked up because E has been in and out of various colds and teething spells since Thanksgiving, and nights can be rough. (Or not! I didn't answer the initial question but he's gone 8-11 hours--though with no predictability.) If I could get a decent week of health maybe I could figure out where we are with this "should" business.

I hear you. We're in a similar boat with the past ~2 months being rough but he's really never gone more than 3-4 hours so it just seems like it'll never happen. I'm more ok with it (him in our bed, me being his pacifier) than DH is. We didn't start sleep training tonight. I'm not ready. I don't know exactly what we'll do, but maybe 1st step will be to move him from starting out in the mini crib in our room to starting out in his crib in his own room. We'll see.

GOmamab15 seems like the perfect first step to me. Though we have E in his own room, I'm in the same boat with my H. He is way more ready to try training than I am (hey, they're our boobs, right?!). Good luck to you! It will happen!

[Stringy]

sandandsea, glad things are looking a little better on the sleep front

GOmamab15,the best thing is what works for you and your family. We didn't sleep train our first because it wasn't what we wanted to do and we survived. This one - much more strict with it because we weren't surviving. I also agree that each kid is different and this one is more naturally prone to sleeping and self soothing. God bless the wubanub.

We are down to 2 wakeups in the last 3 nights. We are going away this weekend so I'll survive with that until next week and try to get it to one. Sometimes I miss her in the MOTN after long days away, so I can deal with one. Also the little chuckle she gives me when I'm getting my boob out and she is excited is so adorable. I had to pump the other night at 11 when she'd been asleep for four hours - thats how much she used to wake!

[manybellsdown]

Jan 18, 2017 14:42:27 GMT -5 Stringy said:

sandandsea, glad things are looking a little better on the sleep front

GOmamab15,the best thing is what works for you and your family. We didn't sleep train our first because it wasn't what we wanted to do and we survived. This one - much more strict with it because we weren't surviving. I also agree that each kid is different and this one is more naturally prone to sleeping and self soothing. God bless the wubanub.

We are down to 2 wakeups in the last 3 nights. We are going away this weekend so I'll survive with that until next week and try to get it to one. Sometimes I miss her in the MOTN after long days away, so I can deal with one. Also the little chuckle she gives me when I'm getting my boob out and she is excited is so adorable. I had to pump the other night at 11 when she'd been asleep for four hours - thats how much she used to wake!

+1 to this whole post but yesss the little noises of anticipation in that moment are the cutest. Cutest.

[GOmamab15]

Stringy I will totally miss him if/when he stops sleeping next to me or feeding throughout the night. I only get so many hours with him a day so I value our nights. It's just hard on me when I haven't gotten any decent chunks of sleep and it's 5:30am and I know I have to get up soon but really want some deep sleep. So in those moments I'm ready to sleep train but the rest of the time I'm pretty okay with how things are now.

[GOmamab15]

He slept in his crib in our room the whole night last night! No interest in sleeping next to me. Kinda sad but I'm sick so I could use some space. Of course I couldn't fall asleep all night!

[sandandsea]

So an update and hopefully I don't jinx myself. Ds has been going to sleep on his own between 9:30-10. I feed him just before, put him in his crib, and he falls asleep so nicely. He will sleep until 3:30 usually and then I feed him and he goes right back to sleep until after 6:30-7 when he wakes and eats again. It's soooo much better and manageable than where were were two weeks ago.

[pbandj714]

That's great news sandandsea!!

[bgkc4]

sandandsea,that's great news!!!!!!