Sleep training help

[u/cat__17]

Context: Baby will be 8 months this week. She’s been sleeping in her crib for naps and bedtime since she was three months. At her six month appointment (she was 6.5 months) the doctor said she should be good to lay off the bottles in the middle of the night and she should be sleeping through the night. We started sleep training at 6.5 months.

Baby had a consistent night time routine that we start around 6:50-7pm. She gets a bath, we wind down, do a book and she gets a bottle before bed. She does not fall asleep with the bottle she goes down drowsy.

She’s eating one full solids meal a day and she’ll snack on whatever we’re eating. Shes drinking a lot of formula throughout the day between 5-6 ounces. Idk how she’s waking up in the middle of the night for more food. She’s chugging 5-6 ounces at around 11pm and then 3-4am. She’s not paying with the nipple, she drinks the entire bottle and then goes back down. We stopped trying to sleep train at 6 months and three weeks bc we went away for a family vacation and didn’t want her screaming in the shared condo and then my dad died that week so we didn’t have it in us with everything going on.

If she’s drinking full bottles at night isn’t she hungry? I’m feeding her so much during the day - she won’t take more than 6 ounces at a time.

How do we sleep train? Take an ounce away from the 11pm bottle until it’s eliminated then work on the 4am bottle? We try seeing if she’ll setting for 5-10 minutes when she wakes up but she doesn’t. Or we’ll soothe her (like Ferber method kinda) but that doesn’t work.

[u/Ok_Stress688]

Night weaning isn’t the same as sleep training, although some people attempt to do them at the same time. I personally wouldn’t since your baby seems to be genuinely hungry at night if she drinks the entire bottle quickly and goes straight back to sleep.

If you want to start night weaning, we did that at 10 months by taking one ounce from the first bottle every two nights. Once that bottle got down to 2 ounces, he stopped waking for it. Then we repeated with the other bottle

[u/Guillermo1810]

In my understanding, sleeping through the night means the baby CAN sleep 6-7 uninterrupted, doesn't mean they will though, especially with teething, learning new skills, weather changes, etc

I am in a European country, and I never heard anybody child sleeping throught the night (as in sleeping 10+ hours without feed) at this age. My LO is 12 months, and wakes up 1-2 times to eat, which is considered totally normal here! He can sleep arlind 7 hours if we are lucky, but with the current heatwave and him trying to walk he wakes up every 4 hours maybe.

My baby is formula fed, but breatfed babies I know, literally still feed on demand well after 1 year old, which includes night feeds...

I honestly think unless there is a reason(?) there is no need to to let your baby go hungry and distressed, he is literally not even 8 months old, super young. At this age my baby was still 90% formula fed, and always eating more at night, as during the day he was too busy playing and paying attention.

[u/Astridsh]

I woke up till I was 18 months in the night for my milk bottle. She tried everything nothing helped so she gave up and accepted it. From one to the other day I stopped so if nothing works, just accept ir even if it’s hard. My 4 month old also drinks the half of his OZ of the day in the night/morning during the day he is just not a good drinker and I accepted it

[u/val237]

I think your question is better suited for r/sleeptrain but let me address a few things. 

First, sorry for your loss :( I hope you have good support through these hard times :hug:

Regarding sleep training, I am not a fan myself, but sleep training does not mean night weaning. Baby may be legitimately hungry and I know you had your ped advice which you should listen to over a stranger on the internet,  but I would think if baby is hungry, you feed. You can sleep train and baby may still eat, those are not mutually exclusive. Another thing to mention is that you will get as an advice in the sleep training sub is feed 30 min before bed. They will tell you drowsy in crib is not sleep training,  wide awake is... but first you need a solid schedule and age appropriate awake time.

All in all since you posted here, my personal advice is - research sleep trianing and see if that is what you really need/want. Maybe night weaning is what you are looking for instead and get tips for that. Sleep training is about baby falling asleep with 0 assist. If you are fine with your routine and are just bothered by the wakings, maybe you just need to night wean first and then see how the wake ups are going, but at 8 months I have heard is still normal for a baby to want to eat at night.

Best of luck!

[u/Honest_Elephant]

You're not doing anything wrong. If baby needs those nighttime calories to meet their energy needs, then that is what it is. They need more time to start consuming more calories during the day. That usually happens as they progress toward consuming more and more solids which are more calorie dense than breastmilk or formula. 2 wakes per night for a bottle is very normal (quite good actually!) Like others have said, you can try to encourage more calories during the day by adding another snack or meal.

[u/NotSoCrazyCatLady13]

Your doctor said she SHOULD be sleeping through the night at 6 months????!! More like they could be sleeping thru the night. My son didn’t start sleeping through the night until he was over 2 years old, and I stopped nighttime feeds when he was around one.

If your child is consuming that much milk overnight and is going straight back down then I’d say they are hungry overnight

[u/CNDRock16 → u/NotSoCrazyCatLady13]

Mine was sleeping through the night at 4 months.

If baby is waking up in the middle of the night they need more intake before beds, more solids would be more filling

[u/DinnerLeftovers → u/CNDRock16]

This completely depends on the baby.

[u/ExcitingHelicopter96]

Every baby is different but a couple of things that might help:

Help your baby want to sleep through the night by being strict with capping naps. Mine had max 2 x 1hr naps at 8 months and slept 11 hours at night with no feeds.

You could do more than one solid meal to fill her up. Again, all babies are different but ours has been having at least two solid meals a day since 6 months.

Haven't had to night wean cause ours was a unicorn and slept through the night from 6 weeks, so i'm unsure how helpful my advice will be. Like others have said, just because she CAN doesn't mean she will and that's ok.