Core Night

The core night is a method to help your baby sleep longer at night that takes into account your baby's readiness and builds upon this.

Once your baby shows you that he can sleep a certain length of time through the night (his "core night") and does so for 3-4 nights in a row you
no longer feed him during this span of time.

Before you attempt the core night method:
  • Baby should be over 6 weeks old, weight 10 lbs and be gaining weight well each week.
  • Baby should be on a good daytime routine.
  • Make sure the last feed of the night is substantial enough to allow baby to sleep for the desired time
  • Ideally this method should be considered when your baby is still waking in the night looking for a feed but not feeding well at this feed or the morning feed.

When baby wakes during the core night hours Gina Ford suggests you leave baby for a few minutes to see if he will settle back to sleep himself. If he doesn't settle by himself then you can use other methods besides feeding, giving the minimum attention possible, to help settle him (e.g. pacifier, sip of water, shush-pat, p.u./p.d.). If these methods still don't settle baby (please give them some time to work!) then give the shortest feed possible to settle your baby.


7 comments:

  1. Has anyone tried this out? Would love to know if it works!

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  2. It's actually a method that has been around for years. Many sleeping books have methods similar to this although they don't usually say they are using the core method. Even the baby whisperer says to use a pacifier to help a baby drop a feeding. Anyway, I've heard of a lot of people having success with this method. Some kind of variation of this method seems to be the norm to help kids make it through the night.

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  3. Thank you Rachel for this information, very helpful.. and for taking the time to help me with my sleep issues.

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    Replies
    1. mcfly728,
      You are welcome. I hope it was helpful and you start to see some improvements in sleep!

      Rachel

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  4. I am unsure as to what this is but deciding to give up the dreamfeed as I didn't think it was working, my baby girl has woken almost like clockwork at 1am and 5am to be fed (she is fed at 6.30pm before bed). At 7am however, she is only taking very short feeds, sometimes as little as 5 minutes. She takes fairly standard night feeds (they have always been shorter than the days feeds by a good five to ten minutes but I think she gets loads in the first ten minutes anyway) and she seems really hungry at 5am when she starts to feed. She is 11 weeks old. Should I try and stretch the 1am feed in the hope that she then doesn't need feeding till 7am or the 5am feed or shall I just give her a couple more weeks given that she has made this progress already by herself? Thanks.

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  5. I am unsure as to what this is but deciding to give up the dreamfeed as I didn't think it was working, my baby girl has woken almost like clockwork at 1am and 5am to be fed (she is fed at 6.30pm before bed). At 7am however, she is only taking very short feeds, sometimes as little as 5 minutes. She takes fairly standard night feeds (they have always been shorter than the days feeds by a good five to ten minutes but I think she gets loads in the first ten minutes anyway) and she seems really hungry at 5am when she starts to feed. She is 11 weeks old. Should I try and stretch the 1am feed in the hope that she then doesn't need feeding till 7am or the 5am feed or shall I just give her a couple more weeks given that she has made this progress already by herself? Thanks.

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  6. In the Gina Ford book if you feed her at 6.30pm (ensure she doesn't feed after 3.15pm if she insists to feed give her water or a very small feed as this ensures she is really hungry at 6.30. Put her to sleep at 7 and wake her up at 10/10.30pm with lights on (to ensure she is fully awake so she feeds enough) and change her nappy and give her a feed. Put her to sleep.This feed shoukd be enough to get her to 2.30am/3am again change her nappy and feed and this should take her to 6.30am ish. Point is baby feeds small feeds as they are not awake enough. The older they get the more they feed the longer they sleep. I am currently working on dropping the 10.30pm feed. It's now a bottle feed. Good luck.
    Ps.... minimal eye contact /attention during night feeds and changes. I am still trying.

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