The 10pm feed

Many babies continue to need a feed at 10pm to get them through the night until solids are well established. If your baby is following the Contented Little Baby (CLB) routines during the day and sleeping through from 11pm to 7am, with only a small feed at 10/10.30pm, then introducing solids and weaning him off this feed should be fairly simple. As the amount of solids he takes at teatime increases, then the amount he wants at the late feed should decrease. If he does not cut back automatically, as long as he is sleeping through to 7am I would suggest that you gradually reduce the amount he is taking. For breast-fed babies you can reduce the feed by a few minutes, and for formula-fed babies you should reduce the amount he takes by 30ml (1oz). Provided he sleeps through, you can continue to reduce this feed by those amounts every three nights. Once you reach a stage where he has slept through for several nights on a very short breast-feed of around five minutes or a formula-feed of a couple ounces, you should safely be able to cut the feed out altogether, without worrying about him waking up hungry earlier.

With babies who are taking a full breast-feed or formula-feed it could take at least 3–4 weeks to eliminate the late feed. There is no benefit to reducing it too quickly and having your baby waking up earlier. Many babies will take a full feed at 10pm, then wake up and only take a small milk feed at breakfast time – they then demand a big milk feed at 11am and refuse solids at this time. They then proceed to demand a further big feed at 2.30pm. When this situation occurs it can be very tempting just to cut out the 10pm feed altogether so that the baby wakes up and takes a full feed at 7am. However, this can lead to the problem of the baby waking up earlier, which in turn throws the whole day out. If you find your baby still needs a full feed at 10/10.30pm to get through the night, I would suggest that you continue with this, but look at his overall daily milk intake, to see where else in the day you can reduce his milk intake to make the introduction of solids easier, and to get him on to three full milk feeds between 7am and 7pm.

In my experience the simplest way to do this is to accept that, for a couple of weeks, your baby needs more at 10pm, but look to cut down the amount of milk he has at 11am and 2.30pm quite severely. This will encourage him to eat more solids after the 11am milk feed, and be more ready for solids in the evening. Once he starts to take a reasonable amount of solids at this time, you can then start to decrease the amount of milk he is taking at 10pm, using the method already described above. As this feed decreases, you should see an increase in the 7am milk feed. You should continue to decrease the 11am milk feed as suggested in the feeding plan, but once he is only taking a very small amount at this time, you would need to increase the 2/2.30pm milk feed, so that he is starting to take most of his daily intake between the 7am, 2/2.30pm and the 6.30pm feed.

Whilst doing it this way may take longer to eliminate the 10/10.30pm feed, it will ensure that you do not end up with your baby waking at 5am and genuinely needing to feed.

Once he is increasing the amount of solids he is taking during the day, and taking near enough the amounts of milk at the recommended times in the feeding plan you can then gradually start to reduce the amount of milk he is taking at 10pm using the method already described, without worrying about the risk of him waking earlier.

 

Introducing solid food

• When to wean
• Early weaning
• Which foods?
• Preparing and cooking food for your baby
• First stage weaning
• Weaning guidelines
• Early weaning at 4-5 months
• Introducing protein at 6 months
• Introducing solids at 6 months
• The 10pm feed
• Introducing solids at 11am
• Introducing solids in the evening
• Weaning plan at 4-5 months (Download PDF)
• Weaning plan at 5-6 months (Download PDF)
• Weaning plan at 6-7 months (Download PDF)

Quick links to important information