Full extinction parents - what do your night wakings look like and what do you do for them?

[introspectivemuse]

@nanipardhu 2 feeds a night at 6mo still seems reasonable to me.

I STed at 4mo and below was my approach to night feeds (as advised by our sleep consultant). With this approach we went from baby waking hourly and wanting to nurse back to sleep, to 3 feeds over the course of a 12 hour night, dropping to 2 then 1 then 0 by time they were 9mo.

For night feeds, we chose a feeding interval that we felt was appropriate for our baby's age and feeding schedule. In our case we chose 2.5hours. So if baby woke and cried and it had been MORE than 2.5 hours since their last feed, we went in promptly (gave it a few minutes to make sure it was a true wake and not just grousing) and fed him. If it had been less than 2.5hours we used our chosen ST method. The key is to stick with your chosen course of action. So if baby wakes at 2 hours and is still crying at 2.5hours, you do not go in and feed them - that just teaches if they cry long enough they'll get attention/fed. Truthfully this situation only happened maybe once or twice for us anyway

 

[nanipardhu]

@introspectivemuse Our feed windows when starting sleep training at 5 months were 11pm-1am and 3-5am. When it was 1030 and he’d start to cry, we would wait until 11 to feed, but often times he would cry up until then and I do think he was learning to cry more to get fed. That is what our sleep consultant said too but her suggestion was to give him a 30 min grace period and feed him right away even if that meant 1030. I feel like when we did this, he would wake more at night. So we have been deviating from the plan and now here we are lol

There was also one night where he woke at 1015 and this was so close to our “grace period” we ended up feeding bc he has a history of crying for well over 30-60 minutes after first wake up without going in. I didn’t like the grace period bc he started to wake earlier and earlier for the 1st feeding.

So let’s say he wakes at 1030 and is crying and it’s 11:15., so officially in our feed window. Do you think we should wait until he stops and falls asleep before feeding him? What if he cries for more than an hour? I’m so lost on what to do

 

[introspectivemuse]

@nanipardhu Personally, I either fed relatively promptly (I would give it 2-4 minutes to make sure it was a true wake and not just grumbling between sleep cycles) when baby woke or I didn't feed at all. It's my view that letting them cry for an extended period and then feeding them was just confusing and counter productive. There were certainly occasions when I fed a little earlier than my "usual" 2.5 hour window because.maybe, for example, they had been fussy at their last feed and didn't take in as much. But I would always make that call quickly.

It is very difficult to know what to do, I totally sympathise. For my black and white brain I found it easier to manage when I had black and white rules!

 

[ajack1993]

@nanipardhu We did extinction but still kept night feeds until very recently. Our babe is almost 7 months old, and we dropped her last dream feed three day ago. (So far so good!)

ST is not the same as night weaning. And ST methods shouldn't matter too much. I recommend following 5/3/3 to start for night feeds. This is also what we did until our babe naturally dropped down to one feed at about 5 months, at which point we shifted that into a dream feed at around 11 pm because that works better for our schedule.

When she used to wake at night, if it was not time to eat yet (per 5/3/3), we would leave her until the desired time. This very very rarely happened, and only at the very beginning when we applied 5/3/3. If it was time to eat, we would go in, keep lights low/off, feed, then put her right back to bed. Sometimes she falls asleep at the breast, sometimes she's still awake when we put her back in bed, but she'll always go back to sleep immediately.

If your babe stays awake for an hour even after being fed, you may want to look at his schedule.

 

[mak33]

@nanipardhu I did Ferber so not exactly CIO but i still have a night feed for my 7.5 month old. We followed 5/3/3 when he was having two night feedings and he dropped himself to one night feeding soon after we did the sleep training

 

[coffeecake67]

@nanipardhu We did CIO at 4m but I refuse to night wean. I have a weird anxieties with my LO being hungry. At 6m he when from 3 wakings (12,3,5) to 2 wakings (12,5). At 7.5m we went down to 1 waking (5a). Now at 8.5m he's waking up later and later. This morning was 5:45, I fed him and he went back to sleep until 7a (DWT). This doesn't bother me. I go to sleep at 10p, so it's 7.5hrs a sleep a night, more than enough after months of 5s and 6s haha. He'll eventually STTN.

Sounds like your situation might be a scheduling problem NOT a feeding problem.

 

[nickel]

@nanipardhu We hired a sleep consultant at 7 months because we had tried not going in for night wakings before and always gave in after an hour. She said give it 3 nights of not going in until 6am. First night was awful, over 2 hours for the first wake. After that, she made it to at least 5. We settled on a snooze button feed post 4am and kept that for as long as it worked. Around 9/10 months, she stopped going down after, and we fought EMWs.

The night wakings have really not been an issue after the initial rip the bandaid off night. My sleep consultant said to prepare for 2 hours, but that 2.5 is usually the most she sees. I was genuinely concerned that she would cry until we got her at 6am, even if she woke at 2am. She said she's never seen that happen, which really was the encouragement I needed to go for it.

 

[irishamerican4christ]

@nanipardhu I did CIO at 4.5 months old and didn't night wean until 7.5 months. I followed 5/3/3 guidelines for overnight feeds and just let him CIO if he woke up and it wasn't time for a feed (there was some flexibility there - if he woke up at 4.5 hours I would go in and feed, didn't make him wait until 5 hours exactly). That being said, my baby never cried for longer than 20-30 mins for night wakes at that age, and he didn't have a feed to sleep association. Is the last feed at least 30 min before bedtime?