The Number One Internal Problem — Hunger
If your baby is past the age at which she wakes up for night feedings, she might be unexpectedly hungry. If she no longer wakes up hungry at night, you may not think at first of feeding her when she wakes up, yet she might be hungry. She may simply not have eaten enough food or had enough milk at her last feeding. She may be growing enough so that she now needs more food or milk than what she's used to getting. It could just be a night on which she's particularly hungry.
Since the number one reason babies wake up at night is presumably hunger, it would make sense that you'd want to do anything you could to keep your baby from getting hungry during the night or at least from getting hungry as often. Wouldn't it be good if he weren't hungry and he didn't wake up to nurse or take a bottle? Even if you can't totally prevent his waking to feed during the night, anything you can do to minimize the number of times he does get hungry at night would be helpful. Let's look at the options.
Breast versus Bottle
Are you breastfeeding your baby or feeding him an iron-fortified infant formula? If you're breastfeeding him, you may find that he wakes up more frequently during the night (as well as wanting to nurse more often during the day) as compared with the child of your friend who is formula-feeding. Breastfed babies tend to get hungry more often than formula-fed babies because breast milk, being such a natural product for your baby, is more easily digested and passes out of his stomach more quickly than formula. But you shouldn't let that discourage you from nursing. Breast milk is very healthy, very natural, and very good for your baby.
The advantages of breastfeeding are many, including:
Breastfeeding conveys a certain amount of immunity to the baby.
Breastfeeding brings the child closer to his mom emotionally.
Breastfeeding brings the mom closer to her child emotionally.
Babies are very unlikely to have an intolerance to breast milk.
Breast milk is easier to digest than formula.
There may be times when you'll want to give him a bottle instead of breastfeeding him. For instance, if Mom and Dad take turns getting up for the baby at night and it's Dad's turn or a babysitter is watching the baby, obviously nursing the baby is out of the question.
There is, of course, a way to give your baby breast milk even when it's Dad's (or Grandma's or the babysitter's) turn to feed: If Mom manually expresses some breast milk into a bottle at some point before bedtime or going out for the evening or uses a breast pump and then leaves the bottle of breast milk in the fridge, the baby can be fed breast milk from a bottle. Leaving some breast milk in a bottle will obviate the need to feed him formula.
Solid Foods
One popular belief is that a baby who has eaten some solid food, rather than just drinking milk, will have a fuller stomach and will sleep longer. Is this true or false? Should you feed your baby a strained food or, for very young babies (around three months), some rice cereal for dinner just before bedtime with the hope that he'll sleep longer as a result?
The answer to that question depends on whom you ask. Doctors and other experts are divided in their opinions, and while some say it works, some say it doesn't. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is strongly positioned against giving cereal before an infant reaches the age of four to six months old.
Alert!
The younger a baby is when he starts solid foods, the more likely it is that he might develop food allergies. So wisdom suggests you not start too early. If you're in doubt, check with your pediatrician before introducing cereal or strained food into your baby's diet for the first time, whether you're doing it in an effort to help him sleep longer or just for general nutrition purposes.
The age at which your baby can go for longer stretches without feeding often coincides with the age at which solid foods such as rice cereal are introduced to his diet. Some experts who don't believe that solid foods help a baby sleep longer believe that coincidence explains the theory they debunk. Because a baby reaches the age of being able to eat rice cereal at about the time his stomach grows, the two events coincide and appear to be related. But actually, the baby would go for a longer time without awakening whether he's fed rice cereal for dinner or not. Nature alone takes care of the problem and allows him to sleep for longer periods, regardless of whether he's fed solid food or simply given milk.
Solid food (which, for your baby, means cereal or strained foods, as opposed to breast milk, cow's milk, or formula) is more easily digested when the body is awake than when the body is asleep. This is true for adults, and it's true for babies, too. For this reason, a baby old enough to eat food other than milk should not be put to bed right after dinner. You can still give your baby a bottle before sleep, but give it at least an hour after he has had his cereal or pureed carrots. Not only will allowing an hour between dinner and bedtime give him a chance to digest his dinner more easily and completely, but it also will minimize the chance of his having tummy troubles thereafter.
