night feeding advice

[tamalama]

hey all.
thanks for all the helpful advice. my little guy is now eating three small-to-med size meals a day, with lots of variety. he is on yoghurt, which he loves. he is almost 8 months old. he is breastfed upon waking, after morning and afternoon naps and at bedtime. however, his best feeding is in night wake up--somewhere between 3-5am. any advice on how to manage eliminating or lessening this and moving those calories to the daytime? he eats really small breast meals in the day. he is also teething (constant, no?)
thanks,
mommy to makobe.

[@llli*bygrace]

i Feel ya! Night waking is rough! How many times does he nurse during the night? First off, remember that every lo is different as far as when they are ready to go "all night" and you should definitely take it slow. I tried a couple things a couple of times, but my lo obviously wasnt ready. we are finally at 10 months actually getting somewhere. You can try, but your lo may or may not be ready. ok, so that was all my disclaimers! So, now this is my experience with this! My lo is also a quick nurser during the day, but a few weeks ago, we decided we really wanted to night wean so I knew we had to increase the day time calories in order to eliminate the night ones. So we started offering ALOT more during the day. and then we started with a block of 5 hours we would not nurse (12-5). I would nurse him around 11:30 or 11:45 and then again when he woke first around 5 and then 6. after about 2 weeks, the last 2 nights we have dropped the last feeding and are trying for 8:30 to 6. he still is waking once, but we get him back to sleep w/out nursing this is what we are doing . . . just offer a lot more during the day, and maybe try a dream feed before you go to bed, if you can. Good Luck (wow this was long! Sorry!!!)

[@llli*jadonsmom]

So we started offering ALOT more during the day. and then we started with a block of 5 hours we would not nurse (12-5).

When you stated you didn't nurse from 12-5..did your LO CIO? My LO sometimes wont fall back asleep without the boob...what did you do? Currently, my LO is waking up every 2 hours..and he has always done that since birth.

[@llli*bygrace]

When you stated you didn't nurse from 12-5..did your LO CIO? My LO sometimes wont fall back asleep without the boob...what did you do? Currently, my LO is waking up every 2 hours..and he has always done that since birth.

a couple of things you should know:
my lo goes down to sleep awake and has since about 5-6 months (we worked on this)
He sometimes will go back to sleep on their own
I am not really a CIOer. I will allow him to cry a few minutes if I think that is what he needs, but we offer everything else first. What we do is dh goes in first rocks him (sometimes around 20 minutes) then when he gives up I go in and rock him to sleep. at this point I lay him down. sometimes he stays asleep and sometimes he will cry. if he cries i either give him a couple of minutes, or start over.

If your lo is still waking every 2 hours, i would only try dropping one feed at a time.

Good luck!