When did the night feeding stop for you?

DS is almost 14mths old. He is still waking up twice a night, every night. By the time I get up, go to the toilet and then get to his room, he can be quite upset.

I pick him up and give him a feed every time. Its the fastest and easiest way to comfort and settle him. He has a decent drink too.

He used to go back to sleep after the feed (I'd pop him straight back in the cot), unless he was sick or teething. However, he is going through a phase where he won't go back to sleep so easily. I need to hold him or rock him for a little while (sometimes quite a while!) until he dozes off again.

Getting more than 3 (sometimes 4) hours sleep is a distant memory for me. I'm kind of hoping he will grow out of this soon?? What were other people's experiences? Did you do anything to encourage sleeping longer (I have read and followed the Pantley NCSS book - we can't get past the feeding/rocking). I don't want to force him into anything or do anything that makes him upset...

I can sympathise with you on this one. My DS was a 2 hourly feeder. When he was 3 months old, he was up every half hour for 2 weeks, including day sleeps! There were a couple of occassions where we had a big sleep, and for about 2 weeks, he started sleeping 4 hours at a time. He was also a baby that had to be fed to sleep. If he was even the slightest bit awake, we wouldn't get him down.

When he was 14 months old, he dropped his last BF of a night time, and stretched out to 4 hour sleeps, then about 6 hours. Now he sleeps for anywhere from 2- 4 hours, wakes, has a bottle, then gets put back into bed and sleeps for anywhere from 6-8 hours. BUT, the best part is, I can put him into bed and 99% of the time he will self settle :dance:

We tried heaps of things to try to get DS to sleep longer. We tried the massaging, bath before bedtime, bath in the later afternoon. Music played through the ipod, we even purchased a baby metallica album (think they are called Rockabye) as he seemed to enjoy Metallica and Nickelback. His car song is Nickelback's Animals, which settles him when he is screaming and puts him to sleep. We got a lamb that has the heartbeat sounds along with the ocean, whale and... rain i think?? We darkened the room a bit with some light window tinting, and a blind on one window (DH yet to put up the second blind!) He has a air con, which drowns a lot of outside noise, and we do believe this is the biggest helper of all. When we go away, he has trouble settling without that background hum.

We even got a baby hammock when DS was little, with the hope it would help....it didn't :(
I did work out that in winter, even with his reverse cycle air con, he was getting out from under the covers and feeling a little cool. I got a few baby sleeping bags, and that stretched his sleeping out a wee bit longer (maybe half an hour?) Just recently I noticed that DS would sometimes whinge a little when I put him down for a nap, BUT as soon as he was covered with a blanket, he would stop! I would walk out of the room, close the door and he wouldn't scream or cry, but self settle..

I don't know if anything I have said is helpful to you? Just could not read and not reply :hug: I hope you can all start getting some solid sleep soon.

Thanks Nic for your reply.

Hearing your story gives me hope! :D

I'd love to know how you got your little one to self settle - I'm still rocking or feeding to sleep. I often wonder if that is why he wakes so often.

I've tried a lot of the things you've mentioned. DS seems to sleep a bit better when its colder (he doesn't seem to like the heat much). He's a sleeping bag boy as he can't keep covers on!

We currently play him 'Music for Dreaming' - maybe I need to try something new (maybe just white noise, although I'll look up the Baby metallica and Nickleback).

Anyway, thanks again for your reply and hug - appreciate it! :)

I didn't really do anything to help him self settle. :redface: He had just weaned and was taking cow's milk in a bottle, and one night he kept spitting the bottle out, I was at my wits end with him that day and said, "Ok, its bed time not time to play" and put him in his cot, waiting for the screaming to start, and he went to sleep :o

That's interesting that you mentioned white noise. I have a friend whose bubba would only go to sleep with white noise, so definately worth a try

hope you find the magic "it" thing to help you all get a little bit more sleep soon :)