How and when to remove middle of the night feeds
Would you like to learn how to remove middle of the night feeds using gentle, parent-present methods?
If you’re reading this blog post you’re likely ready to start reducing your child’s middle of the night feeds to encourage your little one to sleep longer stretches overnight. Before we can get into the core of this topic, there are a few important details to discuss.
Young babies still need middle of the night feeds to meet their daily caloric intake. If your child is under the age of 4 months or weighs less than 13-15 pounds, your child will likely still need 1-2 middle of the night feeds to meet their daily caloric intake. Every child is different and it’s very important to consult with your doctor before starting the process of removing middle of the night feeds.
Whether your child is only up once overnight or is up eight times, the methods included in this blog post will help reduce your child’s middle of the night wake ups and help your family get the sleep you all need!
There are two main reasons a child will
wake for a feed in the middle of the night:
1: Comfort
2: Genuine Hunger
1: Comfort (The feed-sleep association)
If your child is waking looking for comfort in the middle of the night, your child likely has a feed-sleep association. The feed-sleep association is where a child uses a breast or a bottle while feeding to become drowsy or fall asleep completely. A child with a feed-sleep association will often have difficulty falling asleep independently and will wake more frequently overnight looking to feed back to sleep again. Here are the best ways to gently and responsively remove this association.
1: Encourage your child to stay fully awake for all feeds, day and night. The best way to do this is to move your child’s feeds to the beginning of their wake windows to prevent any drowsiness from occurring.
2: Move your child’s feed to the beginning of their bedtime routine and offer your child’s feed in a well lit space. It’s important your child is fully awake for their bedtime feed to prevent any micro naps prior to bed and to remove any lingering feed-sleep association. Here is what I recommend for bedtime routine:
Feed (encourage your child to stay fully awake and offer this feed in a well lit space)
Bath
Diaper, lotion, PJs
Book
Sleep sack
Sound machine on
Key phrase (“goodnight, I love you”)
Place child in crib
Lights out
3: Encourage your child to stay fully awake for all middle of the night feeds. Here is the routine I suggest you follow in the middle of the night:
Pause, Listen, Watch (before rushing to your child, make sure they are fully awake before intervening)
Lamp on
Change your child’s diaper and remove their sleep sack
Feed (focus on your child staying 100% awake)
Put your child back into their sleep sack
Place your child back in their sleep space, fully awake.
2: Genuine Hunger
Even if you remove the feed-sleep association, your child may continue to wake throughout the night because your child is genuinely hungry. This genuine hunger in the middle of the night usually means your child is relying on nighttime calories because your child is not getting enough daytime calories. Start by focusing on increasing your child’s daytime calories before reducing and removing night feeds. Next, you’ll start to decrease the amount of milk your child is getting in the middle of the night, while continuing to increase your child’s daytime calories. Of course this looks rather different depending on if your child is bottle feeding or breastfeeding. Here’s a break-down of what to expect depending of how you feed your child.
BOTTLE FEEDING: If you’re bottle feeding your child it’s easier to know how many ounces your child is getting overnight. I suggest you start by reducing your child’s bottles by 1 ounce every 1-2 nights. Any ounces you remove from your child’s nighttime feeds need to be added back into your child’s daytime bottles. For example, if you reduce two of your child’s bottles overnight, for a total of 2 ounces, those 2 ounces need to be added to your child’s daytime bottles.
BREASTFEEDING: If breastfeeding, it’s a little harder to know how many ounces your child is getting overnight. I suggest you start by reducing the amount of time you nurse for in the middle of the night. For example, if you normally nurse your child for 10 minutes at each overnight feed, you can start by reducing to only 8 minutes at each overnight feed, then to 6 minutes, then to 4 minutes, and so on. While removing overnight feeds it’s important your child is getting enough calories throughout the day. I suggest adding 1 extra feed into your child’s day when you begin removing overnight calories. If your child is getting more than 12-15 minutes of nursing overnight, I suggest you add 2 extra daytime feeds.
Parent FAQs
Here are two common FAQs from previous clients to help guide you through this transition:
Q: My child only knows how to fall asleep nursing, how do I get my child to sleep now?
A: I suggest you start with rocking your child to sleep while you are removing the feed-sleep association and moving calories from nighttime to daytime. After you’re confident that the feed-sleep association has been removed and the calories have been successfully transferred, you can move on to teaching independent sleep.
Q: What do I do if my child falls asleep as soon as I begin offering a feed?
A: Try to gain your child’s attention by talking to your child, tickling your child or holding a toy for your child to look at. If nothing is working to keep your child awake and engaged during their feed, go ahead and put your child back to bed. A child who is genuinely hungry is going to feed for at least 3-4 minutes before getting drowsy. A child who has a feed-sleep association is going to want to get drowsy during their feed in order to fall back to sleep.
