6 month old waking 3rd hourly

Hi!

I am a mother to a 6 month old boy. He is a wonderful baby and in a lovely feed, play sleep, play routine. He is fully breastfed and I have started introducing solids in the last couple of weeks. During the day he is breastfed between 2-3 hourly. However, at night seems to want to continue this pattern. He feeds from both breasts, empting both completly. He is having baby rice for breakfast, fruit for lunch and 2 vege for dinner. His usual routine is to go to bed at 6, and from then feeds at 9, 12, 3 and then 5 which is when we tend to get up for the day. I do not not mind attending to him overnight, however as most mums do, I too, am a little fatigued. Can you suggest something to help him sleep a little longer. Many Thanks.

Hi,

At 6months babies should be able to sleep through the night with out a feed. You will find that if you were to cut out the overnight feeding that he would eat even more solids during the day. I would suggest that you give him the 9 pm feed and resettle without a feed at 12 and 3 using settling techniques if you need to.

You would all benefit from the full night sleep and more day feeding.

Good luck, Maree

I could really relate to this when I read it!!! My almost 5mth old is doing the same thing... We started on solids about one month ago in the hope that it would help with the night-time sleeping but to no avail. Our daughter is breastfed 3-4 hourly during the day as well as being offered solids in the evening, I am wary of offerring the solids more regularly as she does not always feed from both sides and I do not wish to wean her yet. She is eating the solids well and has progressed from rice cereal to veges with no problems but it does not seem to help the sleep patterns! Like the mother of this other message both my husband and I are feeling very fatigued as we have a toddler waking us up at night too, please help....

Hi Again Maree,

Just a further question. I have had supply troubles since my son was a couple of months old due to some oral candida. I have tried expressing after every feed for the last 4 months, increasing feeds during the day, fenugreek tablets, rose leaf tables, spirulina (just for the protein), camolmile tea, dandelion tea and metoclopramide tablets tds for about 1.5 weeks. Everything has helped just that little bit, but still my breasts do not fill up and are still supple. My son has only doubled his birth weight in 6.5 months. Though my husband and I are only small people this doesn't phase me to much, though my lack of supply is probably why he is waking during the night for feeds. I have tried your suggesions and he is now waking at 2am rather than 12, but is despretely hungry for the breast. Can you suggest anything else that would help increase my supply so that I can totally elimate these night feeds. He is also taking more food during the day, and I have now introduced meat into his afternoon feed.