Waking during the night

I thought this was normal for a lot of babies until they were quite a bit older?

Plunket has told us that our girl shouldn't be waking up anymore, and she is 3.5 months old now...
She wakes generally 1-2 times a night still. One a good night she will sleep from 7pm until 3am and 3.15am until 6-6.30am. I'm OK with that.
Sometimes she is up at 1am and then at 4am, but that is happening a bit less often now.

Apparently we need to feed her more?? She is fed expressed breast-milk at the moment (hoping to go back to breast, but we'll see) and will drink 170-180mls. Plunket has said she SHOULD be having 200mls...but no way will she take that much, I've tried but I'm not going to force feed her till she pukes just to (possibly!) get a bit more sleep. She is still a 3 hourly feeder during the day.

I've never tried the dream feed thing, feeding at 10pm. I've been too scared to in case she won't go back to sleep, lol. I'm going to give it a try tonight, to at least see what happens.

When did your babies sleep through? Surely it's not that strange that a 3.5 month old is still waking 1-2 times a night? I really don't have any issue getting up in the night, and I really thought (and still think) that it's normal.

Hi, my bubs was sleeping thru from about 10 weeks but has started waking some nights again, this has started with me settling her into daycare (it will be interesting next week as I'm returning to work to see how we go).

I'm with you on the force feeding - unfortunately I followed Plunket's advice and ended up in hospital with bubs when she was about 3 and a half months old as I was forcing her to eat to hit that 200mls per fed!!! She went from a happy baby to arching her back and refusing to eat, luckily the hospital had us sorted out quite quickly and now I'm following my insticts rather than listing to Plunket and following the rules to a T.

I fed every 4 hours and do 5 feds a day (7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm). Plunket has said she is getting enough during day and because she isn't really eating at the 11pm not to get her up anymore. We have never really done the dream feed as I can't stand the thought of her in a wet nappy all night long, we are lucky though that she goes back to sleep very quickly after that fed. Some nights when she wakes I leave her and she goes back to sleep as I don't want her to get into the habit of thinking she is getting food during the night again (as I find the 7am fed she won't eat if I do fed her during the night).

All babies are different and will do things when they are ready!!! Just like you can't make your child drink - you can't make them sleep!



Edited by hannibal

my son didnt sleep through the night until 6months. And also if your interested he will only drink 100mls of expressed breastmilk all hes ever drunk. He was feeding 3hourly day and night but now feeds breakfast lunch and dinner and if hes having expressed will only have 100mls. Feed until your baby is full and don't worry about what plunket thinks your baby SHOULD be doing. they put way too much pressure on parents. Every baby is different and unless your bub is underweight or not gaining weight i would keep feeding the same amount

Leah didn't sleep through until 9 months. She never liked the dreamfeed thing and her biggest sleep was from 7pm - 3/4am.

Joel has slept through from 11 weeks 7pm - 7am most nights and we didn't dreamfeed him either.

Neither of them drank more than 200mls, 180 is/was about our limit even though I always made up more than that.