Breastfed and Sleeping Through the Night?

Question

Breastfeeding Mamas - If your July 2016 baby is sleeping well at night, would you PLEASE give me an idea of what your baby's schedule is like? My 10 month old is waking 5 times per night and this mama can't take it anymore! Thanks so much 💛

Answer

My baby is a little over ten months and sleeping through the night. Her day goes like this:

6ish am: wakes up
6:30am: pick her up, first nursing session 
7ish am: breakfast
8:15am: offer to nurse again
8:30-10:00am: nap 1
11am: offer to nurse again
12:00ish pm: lunch
1:15ish: offer to nurse 
1:30-3:00ish pm: nap 2
4:00ish pm: offer to nurse 
5:30pm: dinner
6:15pm: start bedtime routine
7:00pm: nurse then put her down awake. She's usually asleep between 7-715.

This is our basic schedule. I try to keep solid food meal times and naps at the same time. Usually we're out between naps so sometimes I'll give her a small snack instead of nursing her. Generally she nursed 4-6x per day and has 3 solid meals. We did baby led weaning so her solid meals have basically been table food since the start and are quite filling.

She was waking up once a night to nurse until about 9.5 mos, which is also when she started to consistently eat her solids well at each meal. At that point she stopped waking up for that night nursing session.

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Answer

Your baby is using you as a self soothing technique and isn't actually hungry. Everyone stirs awake at night every hour or two, because he hasn't learned self soothing he stirs himself awake and depends on nursing to get back to sleep. I have 3 kids all ebf and I went through this with my first son.  You may need to try sleep training. I worked with a professional sleep trainer  (you can goggle the cradle coach she offers affordable phone sessions) it really helped. Once he learned how to soothe himself the night waking stopped.

Answer

My almost 11 month old wakes twice at most during the night. I am finally putting us on a bit of a schedule, for my sanity mostly.

8am wake up and nurse
9am breakfast
11am nurse and nap (usually passes out while nursing)
12:30ish offer nurse, sometimes she isn't interested
1:30 lunch 
3:30 nurse and nap
4:30 nap wake-up and offer nurse
4:45 snack
6/6:30pm dinner
7:30 start bedtime routine, bath at 7 if she needs one. Usually asleep around 8pm.

Her night wake ups are around 12:30 and 5:30 if she has two, 4:30 or 5 if only one. She'll nurse and fall back asleep in 15 mins.

The two biggest criteria for good sleep in my opinion is leaving a long enough period between the last nap and bedtime, and making sure they eat as much as they need to :) you can do it! Five wake ups is so brutal :(

Breastfed and Sleeping Through the Night?

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