Waking out of habit or actually hungry??

[tattoo_mama]

9 mnth old DD *used* to be a decent sleeper (ok, in relation to other babies she is quite good), having 3 1-1.5hr naps during the day and from 7pm to 6am overnight, sometimes with a bottle at around 3-4am, other times straight thru.

For about the last 4 weeks she has been sleeping fine during the day but waking at about 10pm, then 2-3am, and then 6am, chugging full bottles each time.

at first i thought ok growth spurt, but now i think she might be waking out of habit and thinking 'oh i am actually abit hungry' and not settling til i give her a bottle (i know this probably sounds stupid but kwim?)

ive tried just going in and putting her dummy in and its worked once out of the whole 4 weeks, so im thinking, she must be hungry, but its too long for a growth spurt, and i stuff her full of bottles and solids during the day...

any idea ladies, please? (and yes i realise she may sleep longer than your babies, but i guess its all relative, i have PND and struggle to get to sleep before 11pm so waking at 3am then 6am is really killing me so any advice is appreciated)
TIA

[~Kaz~]

I'm sorry I don't have any advice except to ride it out. Not very helpful I know. I do know what you're going through cause DS was never that good a sleeper to start with and he is waking heaps atm too.

I wonder if she's about to make some kind of developmental leap, like crawl or something? Often sleep goes out the window before a major milestone is reached. If she's already crawling it could be that she actually needs the extra food overnight, even though you're getting heaps in during the day too.

Have you got a good mate or family member that could stay over one night a week and get up to do those feeds for you so you get at least one full nights sleep? I dunno mate but I hope you start to get more unbroken sleep soon

[onthefly]

If she's guzzling whole bottles then I'd guess she's hungry. Probably a good proportion of 9 month olds do need milk during the night still, so it's not that strange.

Maybe you could try to fill her with longer-lasting, low-gi type foods... I dunno, DS needed to eat during the night till 18months...

[Jellyfish]

has she just started crawling or walking along furniture? It could be that she is just working a whole lot more and needing some extra feeds. Hopefully it passes soon, have you tried water? She might be thirsty or if it is a habit then offering water might make waking up seem less attractive than a bottle if that makes sense?

[tattoo_mama]

thanks guys, no she isnt crawling yet, but since yesterday has just started rocking on all fours....XP has her 2 nites a week so i guess i really cant complain, just getting broken sleep drains me so much i cant do anything cept the basics (clean house, feed DD) all week