Night Feedings At 7 Months Old

Tiffini - posted on 09/19/2010

it is common for nursing baby to decide that they want to eat a copple of time a night and sleep throught the night the next! my seven mounth old wakes more when she did not eat that good of a dinner she will eat a hole stage 2 jar of food with ceral about half a jar of meat or some soldids like soft pasta or soft veggies! mabe you should try giving your little one a little more at night! i do suge a bottle if your felling fustrated with getting up so many time but this is a faze and your little one will work though it! i know it feels like their starving but it is still a confort thing!

Kristy - posted on 09/17/2010

My babe wants boob no matter how much i fed him. And frankly, im getting tired. My husband wouldn't have any idea what i go through at night!!!!

Dani - posted on 09/16/2010

you may need to give your baby a meal not just a taster of food... my little girl is nearly 7 months old and has 3 meals a day and 2-3 bottles and sleeps from 8pm to between 8-10am and i have never had her waking up in the night like this... she may just be telling you she is ready for proper food? i also tried some baby rice in her bottles when she was longer and that helped her sleep through.

Melissa - posted on 09/15/2010

Untill babies are 1 year old their tummys don't have capacity to hold enough food to get them through night, especially during a growth spurt. So it's very important that you continue to feed her and don't let her cry. Have you ever been woken up by your hunger? Do you remember how bad your tummy HURT, trust me you don't want to do that to your daughter and cupel that with the feeling of abandonment and it's very hard on a baby.

Anyways about my son, from about 5 weeks to 10 weeks my son slept through the night every night, however it was taking about 2 to 4 hours of feeding, rocking, paceing, driveing, and everything else to get him to sleep in the first place so we started co-sleeping (best decision of my life) and he started waking up twice a night to eat, that's when I realized how important it was for him to eat during the night and his colic stopped almost immediately.

The past few weeks I have felt like he was waking more so the last two nights I looked at the clock every time he woke up and I kid you not after falling asleep at 1 it was: 2-3-4-6-7 and the alarm went off at 8. So count you lucky stars that your daughters not doing that! But in all seriousness, our babies are only babies for a short time and haven't the past 7 months Flown by? Doesn't it feel like just yesterday you where holding a bran new pink wriggly baby and you look at her now and want to cry cuz she's so big already? Well the next 7 will just the same and before you know it she will be 7 YEARS old and you will miss the day she needed you for everything. So yes we are so exhausted and think we may die tomorrow if we don't get some sleep tonight!! But we made it this far right? I feel as moms we owe it to our kids to (however trying it may be) take care of their needs and help them grow up healthy :) you will be glad you did, this isn't forever...

Good Luck Be Strong

Christine - posted on 09/15/2010

My little girl is almost 7 months and has also started to wake up alot at night for extra feeds. some nights are good and some bad, what I have started to do though is to give her a bottle of tea and she seems to go back to sleep if she crys alot I give her a bottle (my little one is on the bottle I tryed for 4 months to breast feed but wasn't successfull)

Corinne - posted on 09/14/2010

mackenzie has breakfast, lunch and dinner with a snack like a bisquits or puffs around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. starts her bedtime routine at 7pm. she has dinner, oatmeal or rice cereal, a veggie and a fruit, then she has her bath and then pj's and a bottle. she'll stay asleep until the next morning. everyonce in a while she'll wake up in the middle of the night but I dont feed her I just comfort her back to sleep. When it comes to dinnertime i dont give her a set amount. I'll let her eat until she doesnt want anymore, this way I know that she'll be full all night.

Terri - posted on 09/13/2010

My babies 7 months old and she has never slept threw..not once! count yourself lucky.
As long as she goes to bed full theres not much else u can so if she wakes up she wakes up

Jessyka - posted on 09/12/2010

my son is seven months tomorrow, and still has not slept through the night at all, so i'm jealous that you are only getting up at 12 and 3!

remember that sleeping through the night is actually only a five hour stretch.

i co-sleep with my baby and when he wakes up i nurse him back to sleep while i drift back off to sleep. i am more well-rested than some of my friends whose babies sleep longer than my son.

breastmilk has more calories than cereal/other foods, however it is digested quicker. rice cereal, though, really has no nutritional value (see Dr. Jack Newman's website for more information). if your daughter has been a good sleeper, this is probably just a growth spurt. i've read that doing CIO can be damaging if done before one year, and i would certainly steer away from it if you know she is hungry. if you are comfortable/have room/can be safe, try bringing her to your bed for the rest of the growth spurt. if not, can you lay with her on a mattress in her room until she falls asleep and then get up and go back to bed. if you do choose either of those options, make sure you do some research on safe co-sleeping.

good luck, momma!

Ashley - posted on 09/11/2010

My baby wakes up like crazy now.. She started sleeping through the night early on, so I know she can do it, but she wakes up now, just to wake up. We've tried giving her a bottle at night lately since she started teething so doesn't drink her bottles like she used to so she gets about 10 oz less a day than she did before. So I figured she was waking up from being hungry, but she only takes about 2 oz, so she must not be that hungry. She is 7 months old now and we give her plenty of food to make up for her not drinking her bottles. About 6 tbsp of oatmeal at 9:30am, 1 jar (stage 2) of fruit at 12:30, and then 2 jars, 1 fruit and 1 veggie at 6:30 for dinner and she chows down on it. We also put cereal in her bottle at night and her morning bottle since she was about 3 months old since that is when she really started sleeping all the way thru the night for about 11 hours! So I guess I was spoiled with that since now she is up at least 3 times a night and we haven't started to let her cry it out yet.. just give her the paci and patting her back down. So good luck! just see if you can get her to eat more during the day so she isn't waking up because she's hungry and hopefully that helps some! Good Luck. You do what you can do :)

Kelsi - posted on 09/11/2010

Hey Laura my daughter went through the same thing so I gradually increased the amount of food she was having. She will be 7 months on Wednesday and she is eating 3 full jars a day + rice cereal and she will sleep from 7pm to 7am no problems and she will not wake up crying so maybe if you just increased the amount of food by maybe another couple of spoonfuls she may not wake up as much during the night.

Christina - posted on 09/10/2010

Does she take a pacifier? Does she wake up & you can tell she's hungry or does she just eat to be soothed? Our 7 month old uses a pacifier & sometimes he'll wake up if he loses it & usually we give him his pacifier & he goes right back to sleep.

Sabrina - posted on 09/10/2010

i think that twice a night is not bad my lil xavier does a flip flop of 2nite feedings to no feedens to know he wakes up at 649ish and sleeps most the night. I do however have loads of fun getten him to sleep I do not stay and hold his bottle though he holds his bottle up all by hisself when he is done he puts it aside and I go get it I have a mont cam so I can see him. If shes hungry try and increase the food i read tbsps xavier is eaten on like 2 jars of food and the apple rice mixed cereal kind and he even eats soft food items like lil bittie pieces of bread and the swashed up meltables and noddles very small smushie amounts though... If shes hungry gove her a bottle though a night or your gonna have yourself one very long nite I cant sleep if hes cryen I have to get him fixed and asleep if he dont sleep i got lay on the couch and let him belly pull crawl untile he worn then give him and 8ounce bottle and he goes right to sleep hes also sleepen in his baby bed as well. remember babys are small they need love and moma and dada is the ones who can comfort them they wont be lil like this long guys love every min of it and I am shure she will be sleepen fine soon:)

Megan - posted on 09/09/2010

My little boy still wakes in the night, has done for a while. He sometimes wants to be fed and other times doesn't. Depending on the tone of his cry depends on whether we feed him or just give him a cuddle and put hiim back down again. If Scott drinks a 200ml bottle first thing in the morning and a feed at night then I know he is hungry, if he isn't really interested in his morning bottle then I know he didn't really need the night fed. Trust your instincts, they will guide you in what is best for you and your little girl. Also you need to be comfortable with what you are doing, else they will pick up on your mood and react appropriately. Good luck.

Keisha - posted on 09/09/2010

My 7 month old does the same sometimes every 3 hrs. You may want to try more solids during the day I notice this helps. My daughter is eating any where from 2 bowls of cereal and 4-5 jars of food. She just loves to eat. When she wakes in the night its usually around 430 -5 but she wil go back to sleep until 9am . It may have been a growth spurt and then she fell into the routine . Good luck.

Lois - posted on 09/08/2010

My boy has been sleeping through the night for about the past 4 weeks, he is just over 6 months old. We did it through a combination of getting rid of his dummy, and giving water at night if he wakes. I never let him cry it out, just went in and comforted him plus water if he didn't settle. I'm still dream feeding him at about 11pm and I'm not going to drop that feed for a bit longer just to make sure he keeps sleeping through. I have stopped breastfeeding now as I'm back at work, but even when I was we gave a bottle of expressed milk at the 11pm feed. That really helped as it meant that (a) he knew how to take a bottle, and (b) he could take more whilst still remaining really sleepy rather than having to be really awake and sucking hard. We are gradually increasing his solids. He still wakes occasionally but I don't feed him as I know he's not really hungry, usually just wanting a cuddle, cold/hot, or wet. Usually once he's had a cuddle and a nappy change and I've made sure the room temperature is OK he settles nicely. He gets that every time he wakes (rather than crying) and I think that helps him to settle as he knows I'll go in to him if he needs me to.

Abbey - posted on 09/07/2010

With my munchkin it's was his up twice a night until two nights ago when he decided to start sleeping through the night. My advice to you is keep the bottle with water in it for one feeding to start with then when she cuts that one out go for the other one. You will have a frustated baby but if you turn the monitor down so that you can only hear if she's crying hysterically then it will help your sanity as well.

Dawn - posted on 09/06/2010

Remeber too that although baby may sometimes sleep through the night that is not the norm....lol my son who is now three only recently started to really sleep through the night... and he never did once until he was 13months old. so as much as we would like our babies to do it all the time as soon as they start to do it it wont likely happen right away.
Hugs and it will get better. my daughter is almost 7 months now and wont sleep through the night and is normally up for two feedings but sometimes three. it all depends on baby . Good luck

Emma - posted on 09/04/2010

hang in there breastfed babies have at large a span of 6-7 hrs at night time at this age UNFORTUNATE for us (im in the same boat too!!)
have you tried dream feeding ?>
this has been good at our house have 7-8 hrs since ive been doing this at 9/10 and moved her bedtime earlier 6/ 7 it was around 8 before
there is hope when they get mobile they tire and sleep 7-9 hour streches
WHATEVER YOU DO IS THE BEST FOR YOU AND YOUR BABY GOOD LUCK YOUR DOING A FAB JOB (hope you get some well earnt sleep soon )

Emily - posted on 09/02/2010

Laura u r not alone. My 7 month old wakes 2-3 times a night to b nursed. Although i am exhausted most of the time i kind of enjoy it. I give her 3 meals a day. She is easily distracted in the day when i nurse her but i try her every couple of hours to keep her topped up if u know what i mean. I bottle fed my 1st child so it was slightly easier to fill him up. Your baby is normal. Mayb offer your baby water at one of the night feeds to see if they are actually hungry. Ive not tried this though because my baby wont take a bottle and it would just make her angry, but since yours takes a bottle its worth a try. Good luck.

Danielle - posted on 09/02/2010

My twins started about the same time your child start waking up. It most likely is a growth spurt. One of my girls were waking up alot more then yours. I finally started nursed her laying down. she could nurse and i could still get sleep since with twins I dont get much sleep. you could also try nursing her more in the daytime, cut down nap time just alittle. i know you said you feed her 'food' but they gets more calories from you milk. i hope this helps.

Gena - posted on 09/02/2010

when my son started waking back up during the night at around 6 months I had to change some thing to get him to go back to sleep. I got him a brighter night light because you can imagine it's scary for them to wake up in the dark. I also sleep with or lay with his blanket here & there so it smells like me. Does she share a room with you? My son also started sleeping way better when I moved him out of my room. I knew he was a light sleeper but I didn't realize my movements (and probably snoring!!) were waking him up. Keep trying mama you'll figure it out :)

Laura - posted on 09/01/2010

Hi Gina - Like I replied to Cathy: I have been giving Kylie "food" for the last month. She gets about 2-3 tblsp of rice or oatmeal cereal and 1-2 tblsp of a fruit and a veggie for lunch (around 11-12) and dinner (around 6-7pm).



I think I'll add that bit of info to my post for clarification. :)



I agree with you that I don't want her to cry it out if she is hungry, but I feel like I'm feeding her plenty during the day. (Often a little more than books and internet info have recommended.) Also I know that she CAN sleep through the night as she has sporadically through this time.

Gena - posted on 09/01/2010

I agree with the other moms, if she is that hungry she needs a little more than breast milk. I do not think you should use the cry it out method when you know your child is hungry. That is more a technique to teach them to put themselves back to sleep on their own because it's normal for babies to wake up several times during the night.

Laura - posted on 09/01/2010

Hi Cathy - I have been giving Kylie "food" for the last month. She gets about 2-3 tblsp of rice or oatmeal cereal and 1-2 tblsp of a fruit and a veggie for lunch (around 11-12) and dinner (around 6-7pm). How late do you give your little one cereal?

Cathy - posted on 09/01/2010

i went through the same thing. each baby has their growth spurt differently. thats when i decided to start giving baby cereal in morning and night, then she slept like a baby all night, she was trying to show me she was ready and needed more, try that.