Hungry baby at night

October 29, 2009 2:09 AM

Why is my baby still waking up hungry twice a night?

Our baby boy is nearly six months old and wonderful in every respect, except one - sleeping.

He goes to bed at 7.30pm as part of a well-established bedtime routine: bath, feed, story, bed.

He goes to sleep without much fuss, but invariably wakes up around 12.30 pm and 5 am. He appears to be hungry. He's always screaming (he hardly ever does that unless he's hungry) and always drains 8oz of formula both times.

He's a big boy for his age, and we've started him on solid foods - baby rice, pureed carrots, broccoli - that kind of stuff.

As he approaches six months, we think it's about time he slept through the night.

Should we start reducing the volume of his night feeds to get him out of the habit?

Any suggestions gratefully received!

posted by Blackwatch to Human Relations (26 answers total)

Does he have a dummy or pacifier? Is he losing that and that's why he's crying?
(Get rid of the bloody thing if he has one. They're wonderful in the beginning but murder to get rid of later. It takes two or three days to wean a six month old from them. It's much kinder to the baby to take it away now than when they're older, I promise.)

You can try to resettle him... leaving him in the cot at the 12.30am but patting him and shooshing him. (Shooshing must be REALLY ridiculously loud.)

But, I"m sorry to say, 5.00am could well be his wake up for the day time.

I suggest trying to resettle him at 12.30 with minimal light and talking (just say "Mummy's here, go to sleep." ) and no nappy changing... unless it's a poo. Do that for at least a week.

Do the minimal thing all throughout the night... and anytime after 6.00am will be his start of the day.

Some babies who are early risers have a bottle and then go back to sleep for a while and then have breakfast around 8.30am or so. I didn't like that plan. I preferred up at 6.00am-ish for a breastfeed, then breakfast and a bit of a play then back down to bed around 9.00 in the morning which gave me a nice window of wakefulness around lunch time. Then an afternoon nap around 1pm when I would nap too.

And you're right to be doing this now. Most baby books agree that from 6 months of age babies are not waking from hunger, but from habit. And I agree.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.
posted by taff at 2:53 AM on October 29, 2009

Oh... and are you using the Avent bottles? He should have progressed to the soft, white, spouty attachment by six months. (Babies love to comfort-suck on teats and will drink a lot lot lot more from a bottle teat than a spout. They will drink more than they need-be warned.)

Depending upon how much he's getting during the day... and only when he has turned six months... you could give him water during the night if you're worried about him drying out. He'll soon work out that there's nothing to be gained by waking in the night.

But don't do anything till he is six months.

More good luck..
posted by taff at 3:03 AM on October 29, 2009

Sorry to flood your question but I have to clarify my second comment (still got Mummy-brain really badly) .

Depending upon how much FORMULA he's getting during the day you can give him water during the night.
posted by taff at 3:08 AM on October 29, 2009

My son finally started sleeping for 10 hours at a stretch at 18 months old. (He's a skinny little guy, so that may be part of his problem.) But every kid is different, and there's no sure-fire way to get them to sleep through the night. Yes, people will swear by this method or that one but at the end of the day, it's all anecdotal evidence so take it all with a grain of salt.

My experience: A while back he was waking up twice to eat and we started partially waking him up at 11 or so to do a "dream feeding". He would eat, go back to sleep and then only wake up once (at 5 or so). It meant that I would get 5 or 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, which felt absolutely amazing. The down side was having to stay up until 11 to feed him.

Also, you can reduce the amount you're giving him during those night feedings. He's going to have to learn to sleep "a little bit hungry".

(I like gentle transitions, though I'm sure just cutting him off completely would work too.)
posted by wallaby at 3:13 AM on October 29, 2009

When our boy was around that age, he always got a last bottle milk feeding around midnight, when he woke up hungry. To ensure a night's sleep, I always spiked his bottle with a spoon or two of rice flour. (Don't forget to use a dummy with a bigger hole).

(God I miss watching watching midnight wrestling on tv, with a hot and farting baby on my lap)
posted by ouke at 3:18 AM on October 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

It gets a lot of hate from some camps, but we really, really liked Ferber's book on sleep, and have successfully used it to shift our 6mo from a miserable 11:30/2:30/6 schedule to a single wakeup at 5AM. There's a whole chapter devoted to problems arising from poorly-timed or excessive nighttime feeding, which basically boils down to:

1. Babies sometimes get hungry at particular times just from habit (the way you or I might train ourselves to be hungry at 12PM lunchtime, but later on adjust to a 1PM instead), so it can be helpful to slowly push undesired feedings forward or backward by 1/2-hr increments until they occur at more reasonable hours.

2. Too much food at night can actually promote wakefulness, by keeping baby's systems up and running when they should be dormant.

Based on that, maybe try (1) fading the 12:30 PM wakeup backwards a bit, maybe via a dreamfeed, until it merges with the bedtime meal, and (2) gradually diminishing the amount of formula he gets during middle-of-the-night feeds?
posted by Bardolph at 3:32 AM on October 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Realistic expectations are key...

"Sleep: what is normal at six months?

Only 16% slept through the night at six months old -- 84% were not sleeping through the night at 6 months
17% woke more than once per night, ranging from twice to eight times
5% woke once every night
9% woke most nights
50% woke occasionally
16% of six-month-olds had no regular sleeping pattern"

via

Those Ferber (etc) hijinx are not well researched and adding starch is not a good idea.
posted by kmennie at 5:04 AM on October 29, 2009 [3 favorites]

Best answer: we think it's about time he slept through the night.

He disagrees.

He appears to be hungry. He's always screaming (he hardly ever does that unless he's hungry) and always drains 8oz of formula both times.

He's hungry.

Should we start reducing the volume of his night feeds to get him out of the habit?

No.

He'll start sleeping through the night when he's ready. Trust your feelings.
posted by col at 6:04 AM on October 29, 2009 [12 favorites]

I'm with col. While you may want your baby to sleep through the night at 6 months it's not really the norm.

I think trying to control this too much is going to lead to frustration on your part and some unhappiness for your baby.

And with babies - in 2 weeks it might be a totally different story. They are tricksy.
posted by gomichild at 6:30 AM on October 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

Just wanted to say that my daughter is 5.5 months old, and is on the exact same schedule as your son. Most nights I roll with it, but sometimes I get frustrated and feel that she should NOT NEED TO EAT AGAIN, DAMNIT. My pediatrician says that if she is still eating twice a night at her six month appointment, we'll talk about how to try and scale that back to once, but that becuase she goes right back to sleep after she eats, she's probably actually hungry and not just messing around with us. (She only eats 6 oz at a time, though, wonder if we should try and bump her to seven.....)
posted by dpx.mfx at 7:58 AM on October 29, 2009

Sorry to burst your bubble, but our ten and a half month old doesn't sleep through the night either.

We live through it by not expecting him to do it. If he's waking up because he's hungry, then he won't go back to sleep until he eats. If he's waking up and he's not hungry, then you may be able to try some back patting and head stroking.

Has he shown interest in mobility? Is he learning to crawl, pushing himself into sitting positions, pulling himself up yet? Some babies do some of that at six months, some don't. But I can tell you that once the mobility increases, so does the food intake. We had a period shortly after our son learned to crawl with his belly up (at about eight months old) when he went from waking once a night for a few months to waking three or four times again. Then he went back to one for awhile. Now he's back to two or three since he just learned to walk.

Development isn't linear. It's more like a spiral. He may have a few very heavenly nights of not waking up here and there (we get those occasionally where just a diaper change suffices, and oh is it ever sweeeeeeeeet!), but I think it's more normal that you'll see him cut down on the night wakings and then increase them and then cut down on them again and that it will possibly coincide with other developmental gains.
posted by zizzle at 8:04 AM on October 29, 2009

We used to do something which is called a "dream feed" as alluded to above. At first we would wake our baby up partially which was completely wrong for her.

We found we could do the 11pm dream feed just by coming in with the bottle and putting the nipple gently on/near her mouth and she would do what she would need to do with no muss or fuss.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 8:27 AM on October 29, 2009

Col is right.
This is part of having a baby.

My 11-month-old (big for his age too) also eats at 1amish and again in the early morning.
posted by k8t at 8:52 AM on October 29, 2009

PS, those suggesting rice cereal or something to "fill baby's tummy" are IMHO wrong. Other people agree.
posted by k8t at 8:55 AM on October 29, 2009

My mother told me that I didn't sleep through the night until I was 12. That's years, not months. Your child may simply not be a sound sleeper. Sorry.
posted by decathecting at 9:08 AM on October 29, 2009

My 11 month old just started sleeping through the night, but he gets up quite early (~4:45 or 5am). We let him cry out his 11pm feeding, and he was over it in a couple of nights, although he reclaimed it when he got sick; same strategy applied for letting him sleep through it when he was better.

Take everyone's advice with a grain of salt, each baby is different! We decided to wait a little longer with our boy because he genuinely seemed hungry. We then worked on phasing out each feeding one at a time, until eventually he was getting longer sleeps. Hopefully you find something that works for you. :)
posted by swrittenb at 9:37 AM on October 29, 2009

Like many have suggested, it might be that you're baby isn't ready to sleep through the night or is indeed hungry, but just in case, investigate other possible causes. My good sleeper started waking up every night, and it took a while to figure out that he was just cold. A cozy sleep sack and he's sleeping through again. I don't think that gulping down a bottle necessarily means that baby is waking up from hunger. My son is always happy to nurse in the middle of the night even though I know he doesn't need to.
posted by rebeccabeagle at 9:41 AM on October 29, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for all your input - I'm getting the message that maybe we shouldn't be imposing artificial deadlines on his development.

We do count our blessings - he's an absolute joy.

Thanks again.
posted by Blackwatch at 10:01 AM on October 29, 2009

bardolph and I agree and I have a 16 month old who has been happily sleeping from 7pm to 6am since she was 4 months old as my proof. We did some very mild sleep training, as it is called, and it worked like a charm. I am firmly of the belief that most, but probably not all, kids past 6 months or so wake up at night because that behavior is reinforced through feeding. They don't need to eat but have been conditioned to do so.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 11:57 AM on October 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the follow-up -- I agree with those suggesting it's a little early to expect through-the-night sleep, and I'd add that with a 7:30 bedtime, I'd call this one nighttime waking, and an early waketime (5 a.m.) due to the early-ish bedtime, especially given that the baby is probably still taking 2 naps and getting 3.5 hours or so of daytime sleep. You might try moving the bedtime back gradually, to 8:30 or so.
posted by palliser at 12:01 PM on October 29, 2009

Only you can tell whether or not he's ready to sleep through the night so, please, take everyone else's opinion (including mine) for exactly what it is: the opinion of a complete stranger to your child (although not strangers to children of their own).

My 4.5 month old started sleeping through the night at 2 months. We didn't know what to do with ourselves... She would fuss a few times a night, but usually a bit of patting and shushing would settle her back down and we'd be golden.

Then she started teething and eating less during the day. And so she started waking up at night. We knew/know that she was hungry but we also know that she's capable of sleeping the whole night through.

We're trying not to create a habit out of her waking up and feeding at exact times (I completely agree that if they're used to getting fed every night at 2 and 5, they're going to expect that feed). We're also trying to make sure she gets a full tummy of milk every day and we do our best to settle her before we resort to the bottle. Last night, for example, she only fed once, at 3am. But, she'd woken up at 1 and 2 and could have taken the bottle if we'd given it to her, but we managed to settle her although I could tell from the way she was fussing that she wasn't going to make it through the whole night.

By the way, medically speaking, apparently, 'sleeping through the night' is defined as 6 hours of continuous sleep, so you're doing okay! We define 'morning' as 6am (she goes down at about 8pm). So, sometimes I'm really dragging out her second awakening (at 5:30 or so) to try and just make it, psychologically, her first morning feed, rather than a second night feed.

Good luck. As gomichild says, in two weeks, this might have all changed.

Em, last point, I promise: when I eat a big meal before going to bed, I wake up hungry. But if I eat a big meal at lunch, that isn't the case. i.e. maybe you should load up on the solids in the middle of the day, and not just before bedtime. (I know you didn't say you were feeding the solids right before bedtime, but others suggested it.)
posted by HopStopDon'tShop at 12:04 PM on October 29, 2009

It took 8 months to our baby to sleep through the night. Before that, she'd wake up every 2-3 hours. We tried every miraculous trick from the stepmother and the internet strangers. Then, she slept. Hang in there, you're doing fine.
posted by ddaavviidd at 12:25 PM on October 29, 2009

I forgot to mention... in amongst my three long posts.... the trick to get them sleeping longer at night is to make sure they do NOT go for longer than four hours without food during the day.

Three hourly feeds till four months, then four hourly feeds. Then eventually three meals a day with bottles/breasts.

If you succumb to the temptation to let sleeping babies just sleep, sleep, sleep during the day and stretch them longer between feeds, they'll need to make it up during the night.

I absolutely do not agree that babies can't be "trained" at six months. And there is no need to let him be hungry or get distressed.

Many parents, who have kids that wake during the night, tell you that it must be that way and that it's normal and can happen till the child is three or four. Well, yes, that's true for them. But babies can sleep through, in terms of hunger, from a few weeks old. Mostly it's by about 5-6 kilograms though. I'm a firm believer in waking newborns during the day to feed them up so they do better at night.

As I said earlier, as a mother of three, nanny to newborns and night-nurse to premature triplets... no baby needs to wake at night after the age of six months if you get your day time routine sorted.

The dream feed may save your sanity for a few months. Waking your baby for a big top up at 10.00 or 11.00pm just before you go to bed and shooshing in the wee hours till 6.00am.

I suggest having it sorted in your mind before you go to bed... what you'll do if x happens... because if you just wing it in the middle of the night, you may be too tired to really think about what you're doing and how he might react. BUT, that being said, don't ever let a 6 month old baby cry unattended. They're just too little. If what you're trying is not working, you must always try something else. In this case, try shooshing, patting and then if that's still not working... then a bottle.

So... to wrap up my volumes of un-cohesive thoughts... push more bottles/food during the day and try other methods during the night before the bottle.

Lots of parents have kids that sleep through from very very young but we have learned not to talk about it because it really truly annoys other parents who have not had such an experience. They will tell you it's not possible and the rest of us will tell you it most likely is.


(Hope that wasn't too inflammatory)
posted by taff at 9:38 PM on October 29, 2009

Sleeping through the night is not actually a natural human behavior, it only happens in adults in the industrialized world where electric lighting is common. In medieval Europe, it was common for people to wake up in the middle of the night in a semi-conscious state, and they even had names for the sleeping periods: first sleep and second sleep.

This type of sleep is still the norm in pre-industrial cultures and common in other mammals, so unsurprisingly, it's quite hard to get babies to stop doing it.

Read more here.
posted by AlsoMike at 9:57 PM on October 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

2nd AlsoMike. Not normal and possibly not healthy (see #4).

And...nuts to 'development,' here. This isn't an exciting milestone, nothing worth bragging about. You can actually have a pretty good time getting up with a baby if you have the right mind-set. Good cuddles, good stuff for the memory bank, in the still of the night, just the two of you. If you're tired, get in the habit of an early bedtime for now.
posted by kmennie at 1:29 AM on October 30, 2009

Response by poster: My! What a fantastic response.

Thank you all once again. You've given us food for thought (excuse the pun) and we really appreciate you all taking the time to contribute.

All the best.
posted by Blackwatch at 2:42 AM on October 30, 2009