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Am I expecting too much?

Hi,

My LO is 14 weeks now and is still feeding every 3 hours, even throught the night. I am EBF. The thing is, I'm starting to get really tired. I have a 3 year old too so daytime naps are out of the question. He slept through from about this age, but she seems to be showing no sign whatsoever. I know I could use controlled crying but don't feel all that comfortable with that, particularly as it may wake my 3 yr old up.
She is still in our room and to be fair when she wakes up she just has a feed and goes straight back to sleep. I'm not convinced she's all that hungry, its just for comfort/out of habit. My Husband has offered to take over a feed in the night but I hate using the breast pump so I haven't taken him up on it so far.
I suppose my question is... will she just drop a feed by herself or do I need to do something about it?

Replies

  • Hi,

    I still feed my LO every 3-4 hours and he is over 7 months, so to me that sounds pretty normal. However if you think she is just sucking for comfort maybe you could try using a dummy? That might help.

    C image
  • Hiya - we are having this discussion over in Born in April. My LO is 16 weeks and doing the same - I am so, so tired! xxx
  • at about this time we had a major growth spurt (its usually at about 4 months and a long one) which was really hard, it does get better though, we found LO dropped his night feeds when we fed more often in the day, we offered 3 hourly feeds which ment for us LO didnt need a feed between 8pm and 7am, bliss!

    if you think she is not hungry and you dont want to offer a dummy i would maybe just pick her up give her a cuddle and put her back down, this is hard work but if you think its habit might be worth a try x
  • My lo is 7 months, he dropped a 2 am feed on his own. But restarted wanting to feed around 4am a few weeks later, which I think started off as a growth spurt then became habit. But because he would take a decent amount I carried on. It gradually moved to a bit later with a combination of him, and me shhhing him back to sleep at that time. Now he wakes somewhere between 5.30 and 7 for that morning bottle.

    So if you think you can appease to move/lose the feed then give it a go. It might take a few nights to work out something that works. You just need to be sure lo isn't actually hungry, as they are still quite young. I've jut mostly gone from James' lead. xx
  • Thank you all for your advice. We did try the dummy before, but she just kept spitting it out. I'm going to check out the other thread too.
  • Same story here. My LO is getting on for 5 months and wakes about every 3 hours. If she's like my first LO am not expecting her to sleep through or even drop feeds until she's on 3 meals a day at at least 6 months. Tiring but it's for such a short period of your life if you put it into perspective. In your shoes I would just go with the flow rather than engineer a feed drop.

    Hope you manage to catch up on some sleep soon.
  • Pink toothbrush... you have kind of hit the nail on the head. On the one hand I am really tired, yet i am very conscious that she is still so tiny and I should just ride it out. I might just have to take hubby up on the offer of doing a feed. X
  • hey mrs me too my ds is 5 months is weaned and most nights will sleep about 730 to 5 but about every 3rd will still wake of a 230 feed im hoping closer to 6 months this will naturally drop *crosses all fingers and toes!*
  • I know exactly how you feel, my lo's 17 months now and is sleeping through but fed every 2-3 hours until he was weaned at 6 months then he would do a 6 hour stretch but still woke for a couple of feeds until he was 12 months old. Sorry if that sounds really depressing! At 14 weeks I'd say it's definately still hunger. I can't imagine how exhausted your feeling especially with a 3 year old to look after. The endless night feeds are already a distant memory for me though, i do remember thinking that id never survive it and after 6 months i constantly felt like death warmed up but I'm so glad I stuck with it, you're doing a fab thing for your lo, when ever I was feeling really tired and emotional I'd read up the benefits of breastfeeding which would give me the lift I needed (not trying to start a debate but lots of people advised formula to help lo sleep, he wouldn't take a bottle so it wasn't an option and in hindsight it wouldn't have made much difference anyway-some babies just take alot longer than others to get the hang of sleeping!).

    Xx
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