Is your baby feeding a lot overnight
and not taking very much milk at all during the day?
If that's the case,
then your little one could be reverse cycling.
And while it's extremely tiring for you,
because you're up lots overnight feeding,
and then you can get frustrated during the day
because they're not feeding very well.
There are ways we can turn this around
and change it for the better.
Today, I'm answering your sleep question.
My baby is up at all hours of the night feeding
and won't feed well during the day.
How can I turn this around?
Hi, I'm Jen I'm Little Ones village team leader.
I'm a qualified pediatric sleep consultant
and mother to Carrick and to Heather.
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you'll know that Little Ones
have helped over 200,000 families across the world,
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which will relate to what we're discussing today
which is reverse cycling.
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Okay, let's start with the newborn age group.
So thinking about babies that are under three months old.
So why might they be up loads during the night to feed
and not feed very well during the day?
Well, a lot of our newborns when they're just born
and brand new in this world have what's called,
"day and night confusion."
So they can be sleeping away the day
and then they can be waking overnight.
And what also happens
when they're sleeping the day away
is that they're not feeding.
So if you find that your little one
that's under three months old
is feeding loads overnight,
not feeding very well during the day,
and is sleeping the day away,
the best thing to do is to start waking them from their naps
to encourage them to feed.
So we want to try and reverse the balance
and encourage them to get the majority of their calories
and their nutrition and their 12-hour day.
So that they're only up maybe two or three times
during the night for a feed,
which is much more manageable.
Let's think about another age group.
So there's loads of development
that happens between three and six months.
We know that, don't we?
We've got the 4 month regression
that crops up all the time
where sleep cycles change and mature.
This can affect sometimes the feeding pattern of things,
and I'll cover that a little bit more in a minute.
But also with this tremendous amount of development
we get complete distraction.
So actually, mom, I am not interested in taking that bottle.
I don't want your boob.
I want to see what's happening over there.
I want to look at my brother or my sister or the TV
and they can just be totally distracted doing that.
And then of course,
they start to wake up during the night
because they've got to make up
for the lack of the feeds during the day.
So a top tip,
if your little one is getting to that stage
where they're just hugely distracted
and don't want to feed
is to make it really boring.
So you might want to feed them directly
from their nap when they wake up.
So stay in the dark room,
keep the white noise on
and just pop them straight onto their feed
to make it as unstimulating as possible.
And when they're still a little bit sleepy after the nap,
they might latch on and take their feed a little bit better.
Another tip might be to distract them
but with something that's close to where they're feeding.
So a nice, big, chunky necklace that they can hold
and play with safely while they're feeding.
Sometimes that can help too.
Outside of the distraction phase,
we've also got,
as I mentioned, the 4 month regression
where sleep cycles mature.
So obviously, sometimes if your baby wakes overnight
you go, "Oh, I don't know,
are they hungry or are they just awake?
Or when should I feed?"
And you can question yourself,
totally natural to do that.
But if your baby has woken at 10 o'clock at night
and they're four months old,
they've taken a nice feel feed at 10 o'clock
and they wake up at 12 o'clock.
It's unlikely that two hours later
they're gonna be ready for a feed.
So you can try to resettle them at a week overnight
that's less than three hours from their last full feed
rather than getting into this sort of pattern,
of feeding them every time they wake.
And when this regression occurs
and sleep cycles mature at two hours overnight,
it can be quite easy to fall into the pattern
of feeding them at every week.
And then the knock on effect of that
is that during the day
they're not interested in their feeds.
So if that's what you can see is happening,
so we already sort of them
with feeding them every two hours
and during the day they're like,
"No, not interested."
But tonight I'm gonna have to feed
because now we're in the pattern of genuine hunger overnight
and really not being that hungry during the day.
We need to address that a bit more delicately
because we can't starve, obviously, our little ones.
So if that's the case,
we might want to look at a pattern where we offer them
a big full feed on their first week.
Then on their next week,
we start to reduce that feed down just a little bit
every other night.
Then a full feed on the following week.
Then a reduced feed on the next one.
And that way,
every other night,
you're just reducing some of the feeds slow and steady.
And in turn, you should see the pattern
of feeding in the day really improve.
Let's think about a six-month old.
So what happens around this age?
We start solids,
sometimes a little bit earlier.
Yes, if you're little one's ready for solids.
But usually at six months,
we need to be starting to offer our little ones, solid,
it becomes important for their health and their nutrition.
If they start taking solids too much, too soon,
we can start to impact daytime milk feeds.
So they're filling up in solids.
They're not interested in their milk.
And remember that very much between six and eight months,
and earlier if you weened before six months onto solids,
milk is still the primary source of nutrition.
So we always want to be offering milk before
we offer solids.
But if they're still really keen on solids
and they're eating more than half a cup of solids
at breakfast, lunch, dinner,
it might be time to think about scaling back
the amount of solids
if you found they're refusing milk during the day
and then waking up for more milk overnight.
If your baby,
and it's probably quite important to see this.
If your little one
is still taking full milk feeds during the day
and eating solids or not
and they're waking overnight for one or two feeds
then that's not necessarily reverse cycling,
that's probably normal hunger overnight.
So a good indication
of whether your child's milk feeds overnight are needed
is the breakfast milk feed at seven o'clock in the morning
or whenever your morning week time is with little one.
If they take a couple of feeds during the night
and they're still really hungry
for their seven o'clock breakfast milk feed,
they probably need those feeds overnight.
And until they're really established in solids
one or two feeds overnight can be absolutely fine,
absolutely natural,
and there is no problem there at all.
It's different, of course,
if they refuse their seven o'clock breakfast milk.
if they're not interested in that,
that's given as a little indication
that they're having a bit too much milk overnight.
And like we might have done
if they were waking two hour early,
and we've reduced every other feed,
what we can do,
if they're only waking up for one or two feeds overnight
just start to reduce their second feed slow and steady.
A little bit less every two nights
until they start to be interested again
in their seven o'clock breakfast milk feed
or their breakfast milk feed at whatever time of the day
you start your day.
That way, you're addressing the balance back.
So we've got the majority of the milk in the day again
and just what they need overnight.
So the breakfast milk is a good indication
of whether they need a milk feed
or as much milk overnight.
But reverse cycling really
is referring to them taking
the majority of their milk overnight
and really not much across the entirety of the day.
If your little one is going to be starting
a daycare environment,
where you go back to work
or spending a bit of time with another career,
you might want to put a wee bit
of groundwork in before you go.
And that might mean
that if you haven't introduced them to a bottle
and they're gonna need to take a bottle,
maybe try introducing that before
you actually do go back to work.
Try doing it at the same time every day,
make the milk nice and warm,
breast milk itself is around the temperature of a spa,
which is pretty hot.
Obviously, err on the side of caution
and follow all safe recommendations
in terms of health and hygiene.
But yeah, it is pretty warm.
And if you offer it at a time for a feed
that they're really keen,
maybe after their big, long lunch nap,
all these different things can help.
There's lots of different bottles
and teats that you can try,
but try not to change things too much.
So if you're offering a bottle,
maybe at least stick with it for a good few days
before you decide actually,
this one's not for my little one
and they might also need a faster flow teat
than you expect if they've been used to breastfeeding.
They've usually got a pretty strong suck and swallow.
So a stage one teat might not be fast enough for them.
But, yeah, a few things to think about,
but maybe trying introducing a feed
or somebody else doing a feed before
you actually go back to work
and they enter that different environment
is a really good idea.
But again, just patience and time
and that should rectify itself.
But certainly, if they are slightly off their feeds
when they're with somebody else,
then it's natural to think,
that overnight, they might wake again for an additional feed
but it should rectify itself
as they go through a wee period of adjustment.
I hope that that has given you some guidance
as to how you can help if your little one
is reverse cycling.
Remember, though,
that often one or two feeds overnight really, really normal.
It's really only reverse cycling
if they're taking the majority of their milk feeds overnight
and really low during the day.
But a good indication
of whether they need as much milk overnight
is their breakfast milk feed.
If that's a pure feed,
we can think about reducing the last feed
before their morning breakfast milk feed.
Your little ones will go through different ages
and different stages as we know.
There's so much growing
and so much development
and things can change.
But if you find things sort of running away from you,
there's more overnight weeks,
there's more feeding than you think is normal,
don't hesitate to reach out.
At Little Ones, that's what we are here to help you with.
So all things sleeping
and all things feeding.
And like I said,
back at the start,
you can find more about our app at www.littleones.co.
So that link and the link to different blogs
that I think will help you with reverse cycling in general
are all in the description below.
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consider subscribing to the channel if you haven't,
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Tell us about your journey
if you've had one with reverse cycling
and how you've managed to rectify that
or if you're struggling right now in the comments below.
I look forward to seeing you the next time
and thanks so much for listening.