It's 2:36 am, I'm in the baby room in the glider chair in the dark, waiting for Evan to drift deeper off to sleep. It's the second night in a row that I'm not feeding him during the middle-of-the-night, in training him to skip it entirely. He has for quite a while been used to feeding at around 9pm - 11pm and then would wake up around 1 am - 3am. In the past, we would give him a feeding and he would fall back asleep very quickly. The pediatrician and many other sources indicate that once the babies are fairly developed (>11/12 pounds), they really don't need this feeding and are doing so more out of habit. So if we (adults) wanted to get more sleep during the night, we could train him to sleep through without a 2am meal. It would be better for Evan as sleep for longer continuously.
Yesterday when I first got up to his soft cries at 1:00 am or so, I first changed his diaper which was pretty full. I hoped he would then feel much more comfortable and would drift back to sleep quickly, but that was not to be. He was used to a feeding at this time and asking him to skip that habit was not going to be easily accepted. He cried loudly for a minute or two, found his fingers and calmed down. Then he cried loudly again just when I thought he had managed to fall asleep. It took considerable effort to not pick him up or even just comfort him by patting him within the crib. It took a good 45 minutes or so before he finally fell asleep soundly. He cried maybe 5 total minutes within this period and struggled and protested quite a bit by kicking and knocking the mattress with his arms; not in anger or anything but just an expression of trying to adapt to a new habit being introduced to him. I ended up sleeping in his room for the next few hours to make sure he did not awake in panic or otherwise. He woke up later around 6am when I did feed him finally. He had gone about 7.5 hours without a feeding.
Tonight he has struggled to fall back asleep as well, but nowhere as strongly as yesterday. He cried 3 to 4 times but fairly quickly calmed himself down by sucking on his fingers each time. It's still taking him well over 35 minutes to fall back into deeper sleep but his fussiness tonight is perhaps just 30% of last night. Now I know he can definitely handle going 7-8 hrs without a feeding, the next few nights I'll see if he can fall back asleep without my picking him up for a diaper change at all. Evan has been really good at accepting new routines we establish, it is probably harder on us than on him, as hearing him cry with tears isn't easy to do. Luckily, he has rarely cried that hard for any prolonged time, we're so fortunate!
Ok, let's see what time he'll wake up this morning. Hopefully no earlier than 6am, which would mean he would've gone 8.5 hrs since the last feeding. We'll see....
(Update 9:54 am. Evan slept till 7am for a total of 9.5 hrs since the previous meal. I gave him a bottle at this time and then he slept for a few more hours soundly. He's just starting to wake up now...)
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