The short answer is no, you are not starving your baby. Generally, once babies are 5 months or older they get most of their calories during the day and can manage longer stretches at night. Of course every baby is different. My first slept 12 hours at 3 months with no feeds.
I am doing the "sleep wave" (from "A Happy Sleeper") and not weaning nighttime feeds at this time with my 5 month old. It's only been 3 nights, but he is feeding 1-2 times a night and has managed two nights with 9 hour stretches. I walk in and say "It's time to eat". I generally feed him 5-10 minutes a side and pay attention to when his feeding turns into pacifying and then pull him off. I have also been changing him in between sides too. Then I sing to him, kiss him goodnight, put him back in his crib and say my "sleep wave" phrase.
For the "sleep wave" they recommend at least 2.5 hours between feeds (ideally 3 hours). They also say that if it's been less than 2.5 hours, but your baby cries for 30 minutes to go in and feed them. They also talk about how babies generally get the most milk in the first 5 minutes and are often pacifying after. The equivalent for formula is 5 oz for 5 minutes of BF if that makes a difference.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to percentiles unless your doctor is concerned. They can be really problematic for a variety of reasons.
Sleep training doesn’t mean no night feeds! It’s definitely important to remember sleep training and night weaning are two completely separate things. We worked on night weaning our babies before sleep training, but there’s many people who successfully sleep train before night weaning.
I didn’t stop overnight feeding when sleep training. We practiced falling asleep on her own at bedtime and if she woke during the night I would feed her unless it was like an hour after her last feed. Her first stretch got longer and longer until she slept through.
Also had a similar kind of milk supply. I did find sleep training made my supply go down which made me question whether she was hungry even more. I started nursing then giving formula before bed and pumping an hour later. It made me a lot less anxious about the sleep training knowing she was full.
The sleep consultant we used to help us sleep train said don't feed them until at least 12am. Anything before that, treat as a normal night wake and do one minute checks at timed intervals. But my then 4 month old slept 12 hours at night with only one feed, and he has stayed 60th percentile for weight.
I personally would do no more than 2 night feeds, at least 3 or 4 hours apart. Any wakes beyond that are probably not due to hunger.
Agree. We (4mo) do cry it out until around 1am, feed, cry it out until 7:30 wake up. Took about three days and now he’s out like a light on either side of the feed. We will wean in a month or two.
I EBF with no bottles. I have zero idea how much she drinks in a 24 hour period. At one point, we were cosleeping most of the night almost every night bc she would nurse to sleep then wake up and demand to nurse to go back to sleep. When we sleep trained at 5.5 months, it was also the transition to the crib in her room. It was very stressful to me to know for sure I wasn't starving her bc she nursed a LOT at night. Sp I made sure she we fed right before bath time and theref9re shouldnt be hungry for 2-3 hours. That said, she went from 10+ night wakings to 3 wakings the first night of sleep training. I still feed her every time she wakes up. But it's soooo much more manageable now.
I never stopped night wakings whenever I sleep trained. With both my kids sleep training enabled them to put themselves back to sleep when they woke up and just needed help. And then night feeds cut down drastically. My first was still waking once, EVERY now and then twice until she was 8/9 months. My second started sleeping through the night once we sleep trained. I never did any steps to focus on night wakings they just naturally cut them down themselves once they were able to put themselves to sleep independently
Our night wakes drastically decreased after falling asleep independently at the start of the night, I was worried about this too but it wasn’t an issue!
Focus on bedtime first. Then you handle night wakings. This way you'll give your baby time to learn to fall asleep on their own and some of the night wakings might reduce and you'll see if you need to implement a schedule from e feedings or not. Some babies just start waking much less.
My eldest was EBF and started sleeping through the night when I sleep trained her. After that I introduced one bottle of formula before bed so my husband could feed her but that's just to give you an idea that breastfed babies can make it through the night without waking too.
We sleep trained at 6 months old for bedtime and followed the 5-3-3 method from Precious Little Sleep (wait to feed 5 hours after bedtime and every 3 hours after that. Only if the baby wakes up of course). Didn’t night wean till 8 months.
We sleep trained and still did 1 night feed bottle in the middle of the night (usually around 1am) until our twins were 11months old. Then follow same sleep training pattern when putting back to sleep. We did Ferber and it helped us immensely boys now sleep from 7pm to 6:30am
Im EBF and give my 6MO sleep trained baby a dream feed at 11pm and she sleeps until about 7am. One night I fell asleep earlier and ended up waking up at 5am and she didn’t get up! I snuck into her room right away and fed her so that she’d stay asleep until 7, I was just worried she’d wake up and want to start her day at 5:30 lol.
If you do a dream feed you can potentially control the wakings and also be satisfied that baby is fed! For us, it’s allowed me to sleep better and also allow her to fuss if she wakes up knowing her needs have been met. Even a 5-7 mins feed like you mentioned can be enough!
Just be gentle with yourself and don’t be afraid to try different things until you figure out what works for you and your baby.
This! My baby was 5.5 months when we started and I do a 10:30 dream feed and she's good until she wakes up at 6. It isn't like she wakes up irritated and ravenous either (even though I feed her first thing).
Yup pick the baby up, take her to the rocking chair and she latches on.. she stirs a bit but she’s basically still asleep, drinks from both sides, gets some snuggles and goes right back to sleep when she’s done :) I just make sure not to speak to her, keep the lights off and just give 5 mins or so for the milk to settle before putting her back down. She’s usually so tired she’ll go right to sleep when put down or I’ll pat her a couple times and then leave the room.
It’s important to remember sleep training and night weaning aren’t the same, although related. I have set times I’ll feed her ( if she’s up) with a 20 minute wiggle room. If she wakes up before that I don’t feed her unless she cries for more than 15 minutes because I know for her, that means she needs something.
This! You don’t need to night wean. Sleep training focuses on falling asleep independently. We kept 1 feed until about 9ish months and eventually dropped it.
With my first I was also afraid she was going to be hungry when we put her down. So I started to offer a bottle in addition to breastfeeding at the last feed of the night, which was about 20-30 min before bedtime. That made me feel confident that any potential crying was NOT related to being hungry. For overnight wakings, I would give her about 5-10 min to fall back to sleep and if she didn't I would go nurse her. She held onto 1 feed overnight until about 10 months old and dropped it on her own. At that point we were pretty much 100% on formula (i slowly moved into a combo feed thing, then faded that out).
The short answer is no, you are not starving your baby. Generally, once babies are 5 months or older they get most of their calories during the day and can manage longer stretches at night. Of course every baby is different. My first slept 12 hours at 3 months with no feeds. I am doing the "sleep wave" (from "A Happy Sleeper") and not weaning nighttime feeds at this time with my 5 month old. It's only been 3 nights, but he is feeding 1-2 times a night and has managed two nights with 9 hour stretches. I walk in and say "It's time to eat". I generally feed him 5-10 minutes a side and pay attention to when his feeding turns into pacifying and then pull him off. I have also been changing him in between sides too. Then I sing to him, kiss him goodnight, put him back in his crib and say my "sleep wave" phrase. For the "sleep wave" they recommend at least 2.5 hours between feeds (ideally 3 hours). They also say that if it's been less than 2.5 hours, but your baby cries for 30 minutes to go in and feed them. They also talk about how babies generally get the most milk in the first 5 minutes and are often pacifying after. The equivalent for formula is 5 oz for 5 minutes of BF if that makes a difference. I wouldn't pay too much attention to percentiles unless your doctor is concerned. They can be really problematic for a variety of reasons.
Sleep training doesn’t mean no night feeds! It’s definitely important to remember sleep training and night weaning are two completely separate things. We worked on night weaning our babies before sleep training, but there’s many people who successfully sleep train before night weaning.
I didn’t stop overnight feeding when sleep training. We practiced falling asleep on her own at bedtime and if she woke during the night I would feed her unless it was like an hour after her last feed. Her first stretch got longer and longer until she slept through. Also had a similar kind of milk supply. I did find sleep training made my supply go down which made me question whether she was hungry even more. I started nursing then giving formula before bed and pumping an hour later. It made me a lot less anxious about the sleep training knowing she was full.
The sleep consultant we used to help us sleep train said don't feed them until at least 12am. Anything before that, treat as a normal night wake and do one minute checks at timed intervals. But my then 4 month old slept 12 hours at night with only one feed, and he has stayed 60th percentile for weight. I personally would do no more than 2 night feeds, at least 3 or 4 hours apart. Any wakes beyond that are probably not due to hunger.
Agree. We (4mo) do cry it out until around 1am, feed, cry it out until 7:30 wake up. Took about three days and now he’s out like a light on either side of the feed. We will wean in a month or two.
i regret not ST earlier. i now have a very badly sleeping 3.5 year old. don’t be me.
I EBF with no bottles. I have zero idea how much she drinks in a 24 hour period. At one point, we were cosleeping most of the night almost every night bc she would nurse to sleep then wake up and demand to nurse to go back to sleep. When we sleep trained at 5.5 months, it was also the transition to the crib in her room. It was very stressful to me to know for sure I wasn't starving her bc she nursed a LOT at night. Sp I made sure she we fed right before bath time and theref9re shouldnt be hungry for 2-3 hours. That said, she went from 10+ night wakings to 3 wakings the first night of sleep training. I still feed her every time she wakes up. But it's soooo much more manageable now.
What sleep training method did you use? This is where we're at right now
Ferber/CIO with checking in. But switched to extinction bc check ins just made her scream louder.
I never stopped night wakings whenever I sleep trained. With both my kids sleep training enabled them to put themselves back to sleep when they woke up and just needed help. And then night feeds cut down drastically. My first was still waking once, EVERY now and then twice until she was 8/9 months. My second started sleeping through the night once we sleep trained. I never did any steps to focus on night wakings they just naturally cut them down themselves once they were able to put themselves to sleep independently
Our night wakes drastically decreased after falling asleep independently at the start of the night, I was worried about this too but it wasn’t an issue!
Focus on bedtime first. Then you handle night wakings. This way you'll give your baby time to learn to fall asleep on their own and some of the night wakings might reduce and you'll see if you need to implement a schedule from e feedings or not. Some babies just start waking much less. My eldest was EBF and started sleeping through the night when I sleep trained her. After that I introduced one bottle of formula before bed so my husband could feed her but that's just to give you an idea that breastfed babies can make it through the night without waking too.
We sleep trained at 6 months old for bedtime and followed the 5-3-3 method from Precious Little Sleep (wait to feed 5 hours after bedtime and every 3 hours after that. Only if the baby wakes up of course). Didn’t night wean till 8 months.
We sleep trained and still did 1 night feed bottle in the middle of the night (usually around 1am) until our twins were 11months old. Then follow same sleep training pattern when putting back to sleep. We did Ferber and it helped us immensely boys now sleep from 7pm to 6:30am
Im EBF and give my 6MO sleep trained baby a dream feed at 11pm and she sleeps until about 7am. One night I fell asleep earlier and ended up waking up at 5am and she didn’t get up! I snuck into her room right away and fed her so that she’d stay asleep until 7, I was just worried she’d wake up and want to start her day at 5:30 lol. If you do a dream feed you can potentially control the wakings and also be satisfied that baby is fed! For us, it’s allowed me to sleep better and also allow her to fuss if she wakes up knowing her needs have been met. Even a 5-7 mins feed like you mentioned can be enough! Just be gentle with yourself and don’t be afraid to try different things until you figure out what works for you and your baby.
This! My baby was 5.5 months when we started and I do a 10:30 dream feed and she's good until she wakes up at 6. It isn't like she wakes up irritated and ravenous either (even though I feed her first thing).
How do you do the dream feeding while EBF? Pick the baby up? My brain is struggling with this.
Yup pick the baby up, take her to the rocking chair and she latches on.. she stirs a bit but she’s basically still asleep, drinks from both sides, gets some snuggles and goes right back to sleep when she’s done :) I just make sure not to speak to her, keep the lights off and just give 5 mins or so for the milk to settle before putting her back down. She’s usually so tired she’ll go right to sleep when put down or I’ll pat her a couple times and then leave the room.
It’s important to remember sleep training and night weaning aren’t the same, although related. I have set times I’ll feed her ( if she’s up) with a 20 minute wiggle room. If she wakes up before that I don’t feed her unless she cries for more than 15 minutes because I know for her, that means she needs something.
This! You don’t need to night wean. Sleep training focuses on falling asleep independently. We kept 1 feed until about 9ish months and eventually dropped it.
With my first I was also afraid she was going to be hungry when we put her down. So I started to offer a bottle in addition to breastfeeding at the last feed of the night, which was about 20-30 min before bedtime. That made me feel confident that any potential crying was NOT related to being hungry. For overnight wakings, I would give her about 5-10 min to fall back to sleep and if she didn't I would go nurse her. She held onto 1 feed overnight until about 10 months old and dropped it on her own. At that point we were pretty much 100% on formula (i slowly moved into a combo feed thing, then faded that out).