My Baby Eats More at Night and Hardly Wants to Nurse During the Day, Help!

As far as the solids, your milk should be primary til he's 1, so nurse first and then offer solid foods. He'll probably hit a growth spurt soon the extra solids may help you keep up with him.

My daughter woke in the night for a long time. I honestly can't remember when it ended. I tried a dream feed but she would still wake around 3 and be hungry. If I nursed her, it took 15 minutes and we were both back in our beds. If I sent her father to soothe her, she screamed and woke the house up. I decided that if she really needed to nurse at 3 AM at 6 mo. old, I could live with that.

You might also want to look up reverse cycling. It usually refers to working moms whose babies nurse all night, but maybe some tips will help you, too.

Hang in there. Honestly these days fly by so fast and you hardly remember all the middle of the nights. I have fond memories, just snippets, of sitting in the semi-darkness with her in those small hours. Try to remember that it's temporary.

He probably nurses better at night because he's drowsy and less likely to be distracted. He just wants the comfort of nursing so he can go back to sleep. (You're actually lucky he goes right back to sleep at night!)

Or he may actually be nursing efficiently during the day, while he's alert. He may be getting plenty of milk during those feedings. And as other posters have suggested, he shouldn't be getting much cereal at a feeding, and it should come only after he's had enough milk first.

Because you refer to an "eat/wake/sleep" routine, I wonder if you're trying to incorporate a "babywise" approach. If so, be warned that that approach guarantees frustration, confusion and despair for the many, many moms whose babies don't take to the proposed schedule. Some babies do, and they are held up as the "successes" by which all other moms measure their failures. Babies are just too individual in their needs, personalities and patterns to expect them all to be "trainable" to the same schedule.

This sounds like a fairly normal schedule for an sixth month old baby to me...sounds like you're averaging a feeding every 3-4 hours.

I think it just comes as a shock when all of a sudden, instead of being at your breast all day long, baby finds out there is a world beyond the boob! Seriously, he is probably just discovering how many great things there are to check out.

My eight month old (who eats food well at each meal) never really nurses for more than ten minutes at a time during the day, except right before her nap, and she still gets up at night every 3-4 hours to nurse...

So I would say, don't sweat it! They eat when they are hungry, and he just may be more interested right now in learning about his environment. Don't try to feed him until he seems a little fussy; you no longer have to keep him on a strict schedule! :)

Try to think of how great it is, instead!

Since he is now on solids:
Per our Pediatrician... ALWAYS nurse FIRST. Before solids. Do not replace nursings with solids. Feed solids AFTER nursings.... like half an hour to an hour later.

For the 1st year of life, breastmilk/Formula is a baby's PRIMARY source of nutrition. Not solids and not other liquids.

Maybe he does not nurse a lot during the day because he is getting solids first????
Also, at this age, there is no need to feed solids 3 times a day. For the 1at year, solids is only an introduction to foods... NOT their primary source of eating.

How often are you giving him solids per day???

At this age for example, I was only giving my kids solids once a day. In the morning.

BUT, a baby this age, also DOES wake at night to feed. It is normal. Some say dont' feed, but for us and per our Pediatrician, for the 1st year of life I nursed on-demand, 24/7, day and night. This is a building-block period for a baby. It is important.

My son, had a GINORMOUS appetite... all darn day. And at night, he'd wake up every 2-3 hours at the least. AND more often, when "cluster-feeding" and when hitting growth-spurts.

My daughter is now 13-months-old, but right around 6 months she started to do the same thing. Your son doesn't necessarily have to nurse every three hours. The reason he's being so picky and nursing more at night is because he isn't getting enough during the day. Don't freak out! He's not getting enough during the day because food (i.e. breastmilk) isn't really his "stay" anymore. He's ready to explore and so he's more interested in the world around him than he is in boring old breastfeeding. My daughter started to wake a little bit more at night at this stage. She went from waking up once in the night to 3 times! I felt as though we were back at square one!

Everyone is different, but I actually let it go on until she was about 7 1/2 months old and then I said enough is enough. I tried weaning her to sleeping the full 12 hours, but even after doing sleep training and trying to cut out all feedings. She still persisted and woke up once in the night to nurse. At that point, I figured if she was that adamant about it then perhaps I should nurse her - so I did. Until she was about 11 or 12 months old, I allowed her to nurse at least once in the night. She went to bed around 7 and woke up anywhere from 330 to 530 to nurse and then went back down until about 7 or 730.

Some people might advise against this because they say it will confuse him, but you need to do what is best for you. Rice cereal is fine. You can also start to give him other solids. I did sweet potatoes first because they are sweet (as is breastmilk), but not as sweet as the fruits. Again, everyone is different so not saying that my way is the best or 100% right, but I didn't give my girl any fruit until she was about 7 1/2 months old. Peas were the second vegetable. I made my own and I didn't strain them (mainly because I didn't know that you were supposed to), but the food processor chopped them up and mashed them so well that the skins were as small as the rest of it and she never choked or anything.

I guess all this to say if he wants to eat at three hours during the day then let him. If he wants to go a little longer then let him. He's doing better with nursing at night because a)he's tired and b) he knows it's nighttime and it's hard to explore the world in the dark. You're doing awesome! Don't worry about him. He'll make sure that he gets what he needs. It's human nature.