Is My Baby Waking Because They’re Hungry?

When considering sleep training, we always want to set age-appropriate goals. What I mean by that is, if a parent of a 7-week old is reaching out for sleep support, we will absolutely not be cutting down night feedings, but instead we will implement routines, some form of structure, and we will focus on getting full feedings from the baby, rather than snack-y feeds.

Setting a goal of a 12-night sleep from a 4 month old is really reasonable, if we know that we might still be waking once or twice for a night feed, with an eventual goal of sleeping “through” the night.

When talking with a Registered Dietician about night feedings in particular, she said that most babies up until 7-8 months could still benefit from a night feeding.

So how do we know that your baby is waking in the night because they’re hungry and not for another reason?

• They can fall asleep independently - meaning they don’t require you to put them to sleep at bedtime or when they wake up in the night. This is an essential skill for babies to have in order for us to know if they’re waking up because they’re actually hungry instead of waking because they need the comfort of something/someone to fall back to sleep. Independent sleep also requires the use of self-soothing skills.
  These skills can look different for every baby, but the most common ones include:
  - Thumb-Sucking
  - Finger-Sucking
  - Rocking their head back and forth on the crib mattress
  - Whale Tail (lifting their legs up and slamming them down on the mattress)
  - Playing with their hair
  - Stroking their own face/Rubbing face or eyes
  - Rolling into a preferred sleep position
  Truthfully, we as adults also have ways that we comfort our own selves into sleep. When thinking about my own sleep habits, I know that I have to roll over into a few positions before finally settling into my preferred sleep position, on my side. I also have to have a fan or a white noise machine (preferably both lol!) playing while I sleep.

• They’re following their growth curve - When making goals of sleeping through the night, we have to make sure that it’s age-appropriate for your baby to be sleeping through the night, but we also want to make sure that you have your child’s Paediatrician’s approval too. Some kiddos are on the lower end of their growth curve, so keeping a night feeding makes sense for them. However, if your child is tracking on their growth curve and you have your Ped’s approval to cut night feedings, then we can set that as the goal.

• They aren’t ever falling asleep while eating - If your baby is falling asleep while eating at bedtime (or even just at night wakings), then it’s tricky to know if they’re eating out of comfort, or because they’re actually hungry. I recommend feeding your baby at the start of your bedtime routine instead of the end. That way your baby isn’t at the very end of their wake window while feeding, making it less tempting to fall asleep on you.

• The wake up isn’t happening at the exact same time every night - If your baby is waking up at the same time every single night, then I would like to assume that they’re waking out of habit, and not out of necessity. Babies are super smart and they like things to be predictable and consistent. If they’re consistently waking at the exact same time each night, then this is something that can be rectified by implementing a check-in strategy rather than responding with a feeding.

Night feedings are biologically normal and shouldn’t necessarily be treated as an annoyance, but there comes a time where your baby can safely sleep through the night without needing a feeding - and when that happens, it’s beautiful.

One of the best parts of having a sleep-trained baby who can independently self-soothe, is that once they know how to put themselves back to sleep in every sleep situation, then if/when they wake up in the night, you’ll know they’ve woken up because of something. Something being: sickness, teething pains, etc.

I know that if I hear one of my kids wake up in the night, it’s because they actually need some help - it’s not just another wake-up with them not knowing how to fall back to sleep without help. In fact, my 6-year old woke me up at 3am last week with a bloody nose. Once we got him cleaned up, he climbed right back into his bed and slept for the rest of the night without a hitch.

If you’re stuck in a pattern of unknowns - not knowing how to respond to your baby in the night and trying to cut out night-feedings and night-wakings, then consider booking a discovery call with me and we can chat about how sleep training might be a great fit for your family.