Sleep Training When Baby is Hungry?

Question

My LO wakes up three times a night and takes a bottle every time. He'll eat anywhere from 3-7 ounces each time. 
My husband and I are considering sleep training (maybe Ferber?), but I don't want my LO to feel abandoned and hungry.  I'm not sure what to do. Help?

Answer

Sleep training and night weaning do NOT have to be done at the same time if you do not want to.
We sleep trained last week, knowing I wasn't ready to give up night feeds for him just yet. For us it was more about training him to fall asleep independently at bedtime and again after each feed. Now I know that if he wakes up during the night and doesn't fall back asleep within the first few minutes he actually is hungry, so I feed him. He has seemed to naturally go from 3 to 2 night feeds with the sleep training though! I think before I was feeding him every time he woke up but he wasn't actually hungry every time.

Answer

I worked with a professional sleep trainer. She said that if it's been 2 or 3 hours since their last feeding, they can legitimately be hungry, and you should feed the baby. This was wonderful to hear because the pediatrician said baby can and should go all night without eating by 6 months. But I find that crappy considering they're on basically a liquid diet! Yes some babies can sleep that long, but of my 4 kids, 3 still needed night feedings for quite awhile. The sleep trainer recommended feeding baby and then do sleep training once baby is fed and clean. Once baby is older, you can try to reduce the feedings by eliminating 1 minute per feed,  then a few days later eliminate 1 more minute, until it slowly gets shorter. Then once one feed is eliminated, start the next feed. If you just fed the baby 45 mins ago and they wake up again, that's not legitimate hunger, that's a soothing issue.  That seemed more gentle to me than just letting a hungry baby cry. Once the started soft table foods, I noticed that they slept much better.

Answer

You know their feeding routine, do ferber and if its around the time they eat you feed them, if not you use the method, that's what worked for us. He ended up dropping the middle night feed anyway so now he just sleeps through. They are smart and catch on to what's happening.

Answer

Like others have said, pick set times for night feeds and feed baby at those times if they wake up, and if they wake up at other times use your sleep training method. It’s can totally be done! We kept a feed in at first but then my son weened himself after 2-3 weeks and now sleeps 11-12 hours through the night 🙌🏻

Answer

I sleep trained and if it had been more than 2 hours since he ate last; I assumed he was hungry and fed him. He dropped them on his own quite quickly. Within 2 weeks he was sleeping 12 hours and I never did anything different :) I’m a firm believer that they will drop them when they are ready

Sleep Training When Baby is Hungry?

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