Excessive night feeds = poor milk quality?

[Mrs P]

I'm probably clutching at straws here, but here goes.

DS is 20 weeks old and still wakes 4-5 times a night for feeds. He is demand fed during the day, and as he only does 40 minute naps this happens 2-3 hourly, with 2-3 feeds between 5-8pm. So this means he has around 6-7 day feeds and about 4 night feeds. So 10-11 per 24 hours.

He has one side per feed (mucks around if I offer the second). For the last week his first night feed has been a bottle of formula given by DH to enable me to at least get 4 hrs straight sleep (I'm not able to express for this feed as I also have a 3 year old and I just do not have any time during the day, plus DS is always feeding anyway). The formula (he drinks about 180-200ml) has made no difference to his sleep, he still wakes 2-2.5 hours later and is "starving".
He's had solids the past 2 days and that made no difference.
I've been eating lactation cookies the past 3 days and that made no difference.

I guess to me it seems like maybe he's not waking for food as the extra (formula and solids) hasn't made him sleep more. But there's always that doubt as to whether my milk is enough for him.

Anyway - how many feeds "should" a 5 month old be having? I'm really suffering from lack of sleep and it's really starting to affect my mental state. (At this age DD only woke once a night).

Once this weekend is over (we have family staying) we are going to start resettling him when he wakes rather than feeding him. At this stage I don't mind doing two night feeds (and ditching the formula feed), I know he's not one of those babies who is going to sleep through any time soon.

Any advice or wisdom would be great...

Edit to add that for the past two months he's only gained 400 grams a month, he's currently 6.4kg. Hence my concern at milk quality given the frequency of feeds.

[Arimeh]

DD3 was still feeding about that many times during the night at that age, I gave up counting in the end, and had her in bed with me so I just have to whip it out, attach and fall back asleep.

I know at 9 months of age she was still having about 8-9 feeds in 24 hours and she always had a lot overnight, but my supply was fine, she never gained more than 80g a week either - but nobody ever said anything to me. Her nappies were fine, and she was still growing.

She has put on a lot of weight though in the last 6 months since she weaned though (she weaned at 23 months) but I think thats just because she's eating more.

[onthefly]

Hi
An exclusively breastfed baby will feed 8-12 times in 24 hours, on average, though it does vary. Adding in other foods or formula doesn't necessarily mean they'll have fewer feeds, though they will take less milk from the breast overall.

Breastmilk is the perfect, complete food for infants, providing everything a healthy, full-term baby needs for *at least* six months, and remains the most important source of nutrition till 12 months or thereabouts. And in fact it remains an excellent source of nutrition into the second year of life and beyond.

Breastmilk is the best source of nutrition, providing more calories and nutrition than most solid foods for young babies. Sometimes adding in solids early means babies actually get less than they would if they were still exclusively breastfed, as the solid food displaces breast milk from the diet.

Solids and formula will decrease the amount of breastmilk that your baby takes, but may make no difference whatsoever to sleeping.

400g in a month is a good weight gain at this age

It is really hard being up and down all night. What are your sleeping arrangements like at the moment? It's great that you have help from your partner - even one decent stretch of sleep can make such a big difference.

[Arcadia]

Sounds exactly like my ds. He fed two hourly 24/7 for months, so yeah I never went anywhere longer than 1.5 hours or slept longer than two hours for a loooong time.

He is currently two and eats me out of home and is the size of my four year old.

Don't doubt your milk. You just have a hungry baby. He will probably be a big man, and remember he is biologically programmed to demand the milk he needs you to make for him, so he needs to feed regularly so tomorrow you have the milk to keep up with him.

It's tiring. For us solids made no difference but eventually he stretched out to three then four hourly feeds (he was over one though at that point).

Do you cosleep? I would say that's the only way to survive a hungry baby.

[luna moth]

He just might not be a terribly efficient feeder. It happens. 4 night feeds is quite normal and common for a 5 month old. Hang in there, co-sleep if you can, do what it takes to make your life easier. I haven't slept a 4 hour stretch for months, but by co-sleeping at least the disruption is mostly minimal.

[Mrs P]

Thanks girls. He sleeps in his cot in our room. I'm lucky my DH is very supportive - he has no problem getting up to do the bottle feed (I'd prefer it was EBM but I have to recognize my limits and trying to express is just not possible right now, but I figure after 5 months exclusive breast milk that one bottle a day can't hurt him).
I'm not sure how I feel about co-sleeping but it certainly may come to that if he doesn't start sleeping a bit more.
We still use a nipple shield to feed too. I've tried to wean him off that but it hasn't worked.

I can't imagine continuing to feed this much for another year ha ha!

I checked his chart and he has dropped from the 50th to under the 25th percentile for weight. It's very hard not to second guess yourself, and also you always think you need to "fix" it. It's not helping that I know two people with boys the same age and both their babies sleep through the night. I know all babies are different of course, but sometimes the last thing you want to hear is how "good" someone else's baby is and how they slept 12 hours last night (when you were up 5 times).

Anyway I think I'm rambling now so will stop and try and enjoy a few mins rest while both kids are asleep...

[Barb Glare]

What you have here is “situation normal” - stop doubting yourself! Research has been done on milk from women all over the world, even when they are near starving - and pretty much the quality is the same. His weight is normal - most babies cross percentiles up or down. Normal. It’s not a race to the top, especially where obesity is one of the main problems in our society. There is no evidence that being on the 75th% percentile (for instance) is *better* than being on the 25th. In fact, the percentile chart is a chart of normal baby weights so if he makes an appearance on there he is normal. Other people’s bragging is very undermining - don’t listen. How much your baby sleeps is the commonest thing that mothers lie about. Your little one wants you - and is more connected and intelligent because of it. Not the food as your experiment has demonstrated. It won’t be like this for ever (I promise!)

[Saffy]

Mrs P my baby is the same, feeds frequently overnight, has never slept more than 4 hours straight ( currently waking 1-2 hrly but I only feed her every 3 hrs or so, just resettle the other times if I can) and also doesn't gain a lot of weight ( gone from 75th to 25th percentile), she is happy and healthy though. I have stopped stressing about her weight and the feeds overnight are what they are, she will eventually sleep through I guess- Im thinking in years not months lol.
What I'm trying to say is she sounds normal to me, they are all different with their sleeping. Depends on what you can handle I guess. But don't doubt your milk, my mchn kept trying to tell me my supply was a problem but i knew it wasn't, and now because DD has solids as well and still doesn't gain much weight, mchn has conceded it isn't my supply and DD is just naturally this size.

The longest i have slept in this 6 months is 3.5 hours - and that was a one off, usually its 1 or 2

[Mrs P]

Thanks Barb. I think I'm finding it a struggle because I also have my 3 year old to look after - so no daytime naps for me! I think a mother can tell when she has a baby that just likes to feed lots and not sleep much - I just need to get my head around that and accept it, and ignore the people in my life trying to "fix" him. I'm certainly planning to keep feeding him, I just don't want my exhaustion to be detrimental to the rest of my family, including my relationship with DH.

Saffy hun you are doing an amazing job!! I've managed a handful of 5-6 hr sleeps (thanks to DH) and now he's doing one feed a night I am getting at least one 4 hr sleep but it's all downhill from there. We had to start implementing that after I had a bit of a breakdown last week. I had insomnia during pregnancy so its been over a year now since i had a proper nights rest argh!
You are right, they will sleep through eventually, but hey I would settle for just doing 4-5 hours at a time!!

[Saffy]

yeah I don't know how people do it with other kids, you are doing good, would love a 4-5 hour stretch, we had a better night last night, so they surprise you sometimes too xx

[Pholi]

I found that the timing of dinner vs bedtime made a huge difference to DS's sleep in the first part of the night. If he has his dinner no later than 5pm, and bed at 7, he sleeps much, much better. He also sleeps better with a consistent bed time. It was somewhere around your DS's age that we started to say, 'it's quarter to seven, time for bed', instead of 'I think he's starting to get tired' (at whatever time that was between 6pm and 8pm.)

I have heard of babies who sleep in their own beds in the parent's room sleeping better when moved to their own room, which is presumably because your little disturbances and noises at night, and the smell of you in close proximity, doesn't wake them up. This made no difference for us, but it did mean that even with the monitor, it look me longer to wake up to his cries, and longer to get to him room, and sometimes, he would actually resettle himself. I realised that I had been going to him immediately on his waking, because I didn't want it to escalate and wake up DP. In fact, I was getting him up when he may well have resettled himself if left for even another 30 seconds. So when you get up to him, does he really need you? It might be that he just needs a minute to wriggle and make some noise, and then settle back down.

[Mrs P]

Pholi we try to resettle him if he's not due for a feed. But it doesn't always work. Last night he fed at 1045 then after a feed at 2 (asleep again around 240) he woke at 4. I tried to resettle him and he started just chatting to himself so I got back into bed. 10 minutes later he arced up again so DH settled him and then 10 minutes later he woke up again, by that stage it was 445 so I just got up and fed him. He woke again at 615!

We had moved him to his own room about a month ago but it didn't help so after a few weeks we moved him back. Don't want him waking his sister during the night (especially when we are trying to resettle him) so we moved the cot to our room (he was in our room originally in basinet then moved to his room to start sleeping in the cot). I remember saying "well we don't want to move the cot to our room" - ha!

[forshelby]

Co sleeping is my best friend. I've done it from birth for both babies and it really helps my sanity. DS1 was still a pretty shocking sleeper... still is. But DS2 has been easier. When he does wake it's not for long because there's boob right there. At the same age DS1 was waking up to 10 times. DS2 has woken 2-4 max. Goes to show how different each baby can be.

What helped me most was to just give in to the situation as it was, and take measures to increase the quality of the rest I did get. Acceptance can do wonders for your state of mind. And coffee lol! I do get a bit tense about my newbie waking my toddler. .. as DS1 is still such a crap sleeper. I find co sleeping keeps DS2 quiet as he feels safer in my arms. And that makes sense to me! Instead of crying to wake me, he wiggles and kicks me. Hmm.. just like old times lol.

Hang in there! As you know, this too shall pass. And give co sleeping a try. DS2 goes in his bassinet from 7-10 or 12. Then we snuggle all night.

[Pholi]

Don't want him waking his sister during the night

Yeah, we don't have the issue of another sibling.


I think theoretically, it's worth trying to resettle if it's not that long since he fed. But for us, in practise, it's me that gets up to DS, not DP, and the way DS wants to be settled by me is to have a nipple in his mouth. Even if he's not hungry, he's more likely to wind down and get back to sleep sooner if I 'feed' him than if I just cuddle. if DP happens to go in, DS will happily be cuddled back to sleep.

[Saffy]

Pholi thats exactly the same with us, if I want to resettle DD it takes double the amount of time to rock her etc than stick a nipple in for a minute and she falls straight asleep. They won't always resettle without it thats for sure.

[onthefly]

My personal rule of thumb is to just do what works best and is easiest, particularly when you're not getting much sleep. They *always* grow out of feeding to sleep, and then you're stuck having to do something else (that usually takes longer). Lots of people will tell you that if you stop feeding to sleep then they'll sleep better, because, yanno, you've screwed up by doing something so completely natural and normal. I'm open to the possibility that this works for some babies, but I think on average it just makes more work for the parents.
For reference sake, at 12 months of age roughly 60% of babies still wake in the night for at least one feed (and possibly more often without feeding), and that's bottle fed babies, too. A third of kids still need a parent's help to resettle in the night at age 4.

[Mrs P]

My parents have just taken DD to their place (300km away) for the next 3 nights so we are going to *try* and stretch his feeds out overnight. I'm happy to feed him 1-2 times a night at this age, I'm certainly not expecting him to sleep through as he's just not one of those babies.

So tonight's plan is DH will dreamfeed him at 10pm and if he wakes before midnight or maybe 1am he gets resettled. Next wake up I will feed him and then not again for at least 3 hours so any wake ups in that time he will get resettled. We've also moved his cot back to his room (while his sister is away) so that whoever is not resettling can at least try and sleep as opposed to last night where both of us had to listen to his crying (he wouldn't settle even after feeds last night).

I'm actually feeling so tired and rundown it's like I've been out drinking for a month nonstop!

[dusty]

You sound exhausted! My DS is almost 7 months and last month I started resettling between 10-3/4am and found he is not after feeds as much as comfort. But like Saffy said sometimes its just quicker to feed them than resettling shenanigans and disruption that can go on for an hour +. I'd go with your gut instincts as you will know if he needs a feed or not by now. Many times DH has said to me 'just feed him' and it has been a lack lustre feed when I knew he wasn't that interested but DH was stressed it was hunger causing him to be unsettled. Also going to bed early and leaving DH to put our toddler to bed has helped me get some well needed zzzzs.
Good luck!