...basically no normal, healthy full-term babies still require a nighttime feeding when they are five months old, and you can certainly insist on stopping them altogether if you want to.Bubbers is 5 1/2 months old (and normal and healthy and all that), so we decided to "insist on stopping them altogether".
Now, I have loved Dr. Ferber's book through and through. He didn't make me want to bang my head against a wall or chuck him out the window to feed the squirrels in my backyard like another book which shall remain nameless. But the thing is, he didn't really explain how to "insist on stopping them altogether". Usually he's really good about that, but not so much for this issue.
So, I was visiting teaching last week and I asked my partner (a mother of three) and the woman we were visiting (a mother of one) how they stopped. They both said, "Cry it out."
We have tried, but we just don't get Bubbers. He's completely unpredictable. On Sunday morning, he slept 11 hours and had to be woken up for church. We patted ourselves on the back, thinking we had this thing down pat. Then he slept only 7 hours, but only cried for 20 minutes. Then last night he slept only 6 hours and then cried for 2 1/2 hours (on and off), before I decided, "That's enough." (Poor Charming couldn't sleep (I should have given him a pair of earplugs), so he got up and watched a Cosby episode on DVD and ate some cereal).
To help us, I've been diligently charting his sleep habits on Dr. Ferber's little chart, but can't see any pattern of why he's unpredictable (hence the use of the word: unpredictable). Then I get to wondering about possible teething or growth spurts or alien invasions. Should I just give up? No, I think we can do it...
So, now I'd like to ask more moms out there what did you do to get your babies to give up their last nighttime feeding??
I've heard many moms swear that rice cereal does the trick. Currently, Bubbers is breastfed full-time and we prefer to wait until 6 months to start solids, but I'm willing to try it, if that's what he needs (heck, it's only a couple weeks off anyways). I only ask that if that is your recommendation, please give me specifics, because I am clueless as to how to do that. (For example, How much do you give exactly? When do you give it--the absolute last thing before bed? Or do you do rice cereal and then nurse? Or nurse and then rice cereal?)
Poor little Bubbers has always been such a good sleeper for us, I feel badly that I'm messing him all up now. But hopefully I'll get an answer to my prayers soon... Thank you!!
