The fact that a baby is close to the parents at night to be fed when he asks is the most normal thing in the world, because everyone assumes that a child has to eat both day and night. The one made by an older baby, for example nine months, is already more complicated, because there are those who consider that it is something normal and there are those who explain that it can be counterproductive.
As sure that there are many fathers and mothers who have (have had or will have) babies between the ages of six and fifteen, to narrow down a little, who ask for food at night, we will try to explain what is there to do When we see that the child grows, he keeps asking and we receive as professional advice that we take away the night's shot.
How long is it normal for children to order food at night?
Some health professionals talk about already at six months A child has to sleep all the time, which follows that he no longer has to eat anything. Others accept that at that age there are children left who may still be asking for a bottle or tit and suggest that they be fed, but that every day it takes a little longer to do it, so that they eventually fall asleep before feeding them.
Other professionals, on the other hand, do not give so much importance to the matter (I position myself here), because they understand that if a child asks for milk at night it is a reason that he is hungry and, consequently, that he needs to eat. It is very strange that a baby sucks or takes a bottle for the day every 2-3 hours and then suddenly, at night, spend up to 12 hours without taking anything.
I do not want to say with this that it is not possible, because some baby will have to follow these rhythms, but pretending that all babies do it seems quite difficult, precisely because the most logical thing is that everyone asks for something during the night.
By this I mean that, from my point of view, it is normal for a child to order food at night until he stops asking for it.
How did our ancestors do it?
To answer many of the current questions I like to imagine how our ancestors did, those who lived in caves. I imagine them sleeping close to each other and, honestly, I can hardly imagine the mother of a baby letting some time pass when the child cries to go back to sleep without eating, because someone has told him that it is better that Don't eat and cry a little. It's hard for me because I also imagine that mother with chest pain that your baby should have emptied Waiting, precisely, for your child to wake up so that he may take what he did not take hours ago.
As it is an exercise in imagination, let's make it more real by looking at how babies who drink breast milk do, who eat the same thing our ancestors ate and, consequently, act the same (bottle-makers take another food and in another presentation , so they don't serve as a reference).
Well, children who drink breast milk wake up at night several times to eat and some not to. That is, some awakenings are from hunger, and they suck for a while, and others are simple awakenings, falling asleep at four "chupaditas" because at that time they prefer to sleep than to eat. If this is what they do now, surely this is what they did thousands of years ago and, logically, this is what we should consider usual and normal.
The rare, as I see it, is that Children who drink artificial milk do not wake up more often, as all children have done over the centuries and millennia.
What do i do then?
Some mothers explain to me (in the nursing office) that their children are already nine, twelve, fifteen, or I know how many months and still wake up at night to eat. I ask how much they eat and sometimes they tell me that "they are having a good time sucking" or that "they put a bottle of 210 ml". Given these answers it is clear that the child is hungry at night, so the only thing I do is say "if you eat so much, a sign that you are hungry, you must continue giving it."
I imagine that they explain it to me as if it were a problem because they have read, heard or known the existence of babies who sleep all night or perhaps the advice of someone who has told them that this is not good and that you have to eliminate the night shots. As, I repeat, I do not think that in the caves the mothers eliminated night shots, I do not see why it will be necessary to do it now, so the first thing to be clear is that you cannot solve a problem that does not exist.
Children stop asking for food at night when they no longer need it, which can happen at two years, maybe at three, maybe before or maybe later. In my personal experience, my children stopped asking for food for two and a half years, basically because it was the age at which they stopped breastfeeding. From that moment on they asked for water and about 4-5 years old, not even that.
