Don't believe that line of thought for a second! It depends on the baby. I am a FOD mum, and so they got fed at night. Lyta, Sam and Haz all slept through since 3m. Course, then Sam got to 3yo and only slept 4 hours out of every 24 for something like a year and a half, which was when sleep deprivation *really* kicked in. Compared to that, waking up for a top up feed seems easy, lol. Ask me again in a few months though, haha!
A neat trick I developed though - turn the clock around. Don't look at the time. If you can't see it then you dont know how much (or how little) sleep you have had. I don't feel as tired when I don't know the amount of sleep I haven't had! Napping during the day while baby is also isn't a crime. I have some neat tricks for getting two kids to have their afternoon nap at the same time too!
It's funny a few of you mention not looking at the clock overnight. We didn't have a clock in the bedroom for the first few months and I found the nights long and disorientating. Since I bought a clock radio I've been so much happier at night as I can quickly see the time and reassure myself I have had an hour sleep or hopefully even 4 hours rather than the 5 minutes it often feels like.
Ren I am like you, I need that clock otherwise I am really disorientated. even when I realise its not even midnight I like to know what time it is. It also helps me not get so frustrated and cranky if I know i've been asleep for 3 hours, even when it only feels like 5 minutes like you said!
Leash, to make you feel better, I honestly think the way you are responding to her now will make her a better sleeper/settler as she moves into toddlerhood. My baby slept very well, and I got the shock of my life when at 16 mths she started waking several hours a night and wanted bby! We fitted in with her demands and she is a very happy sleeper now, confident in her own room.
I have been thinking about this too since madam has decided that mummy has been getting altogether too much sleep!
I wonder if a 7 month old is capable of understanding the concept of reward.... I think it's more like "I'm awake, I need mummy so I can go back to sleep". And if you think about the flip side, if feeding her is a reward for waking up, is not feeding her a punishment? Can a 7 month old understand the concept of punishment? I think most of us find that in the middle of the night we just have to do what works and preferably what works the quickest so everyone can get back to sleep. I know I tried for an hour last night to get her back to sleep every which way and in the end I had to put her on the BB.... and she fell asleep again... for a while!
I think as long as it is working for you, then do it! I used to feed back to sleep because even when DD was waking frequently, I could be back in bed within 10 minutes. That was until it stopped working! We started having sleep issues and it would often take 45mins to an hour to resettle her - even a feed wouldn't do it! And this woud be a minimum of 2x a night. So we had to change our settling habits, and how we put her to bed to begin with and now she is sleeping 7pm-4.30ish in her own cot, then when she wakes I bring her into bed with us for a feed and if we're lucky another hour or 2. DH never used to do the nighttime wakings, but he finally realised how bad it was for me (the sleep deprivation, plus sleep issues during the day left me in a teary mess and I would phone him in tears most days plus I think i told him i was thinknig of leaving because i barely had the energy to be a mum let alone worry about our relationship) and has started helping out - we made the rule that no feed before 2am so he will go in and pat back to sleep which takes 5-10mins and only happens maybe once a night now. We had to put in the rule because she would have a quick comfort suck (it was never a real feed) and then wake within the hour, or would sit there on my boob, pulling on and off for an hour and not settling. Not only did his helping out more mean I was less sleep deprived, it also put our relationship back on track thankfully. You have to do whatever works for you, and if its not broken don't fix it (I think thats the saying!).
But don't let anyone make you feel bad for doing it the way you are doing it - I swear its other people's comments about "you shouldn't do that, you have to do it this way" that made our sleeping issues 10x more stressful for me and DD.
hi leash: wondered where you had got too!! i came here looking for answers to your question! im up feedinf dd three/four sometimes five times a night!! its driving me crazy! and was thinking about ways of solving what i thought of as a problem, but reading what people have said here i guess its just one of those things and she still needs to be feeding that often.
hope , for both of us, it passes quickly as i know im starting to look a feel like the walking dead!!! big hugs
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I have some neat tricks for getting two kids to have their afternoon nap at the same time too!
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