7 month NW--not sure what to do!

[Andrew's Mom]

Hello!

I don't know what to do with my LO who is still waking in the night.  At around 6 months he slept through **3** times, and that was the end of that.  We just turned the 7 month corner and I don't know what to do next.

He is a very active spirited baby who is teething, sitting and crawling, and most recently, pulling himself up to stand.  Yes, all at once.  He started commando crawling at 5 months.  He has reflux which is generally under control, and has been on solids since 4 months.  He goes to sleep independently (so long as he is tired), sometimes with a pacifier (sometimes he refuses the paci and goes down without it).  We switched to formula exclusively around 6 months when he refused to nurse anymore (he is on Alimentum for MPSI/dairy intolerance). 

We always did a dream feed and night feed until he started taking 8oz bottles throughout the day, and would projectile spit his last bottle before bed or the dream feed.  Some days he would go up to or over 32 oz in a day between all the feeds so we backed off.  When he is focused he will suck down 8 oz in just a few minutes.  Other days he will only take a few oz, so we try again later.  Depending on how he is doing for his bottles, he will have a pre-dinner bottle and a post-dinner bottle, but that was sometimes resulting in an overfilled baby spewing massive quantities of formula on me.  Gross. 

He seemed to be bothered by the dream feed and would wake up more than he would stay asleep, so we started just setting up a night bottle and gave that as needed (4-6oz max) unless he was light on formula for the day (then we give him the dream feed too).  Sometimes he would want it at night, sometimes not.

Anyhow, the night wakings.  He often will wake 45m-1hr after going to sleep, fuss but sometimes puts himself back to sleep without help or just a replug.  Then we get a midnight-3am wake.  Recently, more often than not, he is having party time and it takes 1-2 hrs to get him back to sleep with significant help.  When I try to sit with him, he wants to play on the mommy jungle gym.  He yells at daddy, but DH has been more successful at getting him back to sleep than I have been.

We dropped the catnap a few weeks ago, and he has always been a 3-hour+ awake before bed kind of guy.  Maybe his naps need adjusting to get rid of party time?  Awake time tweak?  I don't know what to do.

Here's yesterday:

5:30 wake
7:00 solids
8:10 8 oz bottle
8:40-10:40 nap (help at 30)
12:05 solids
1:50 8 oz bottle
2:00-4:00 nap
5:10 solids
7:00 bottle
7:15 in the crib for bedtime--didn't settle in until 9ish (up and down, lots of complaining in the crib but ok if held)

Back up at 11:40, didn't settle in until bottle + 1 am.  Slept till I woke him up at 6:40 this morning.

I was hoping that 2-hour naps would help him not be exhausted at bedtime, but that backfired and he was not tired for bedtime or night sleeping.

The day before we ended up with 2x 1.5 hr naps (he woke himself up) and an early bedtime.  Did a dream feed since he was light on formula for the day, still woke around 1 am but went back to sleep with just a little help. That was our best night in weeks.

Looked like this:

5:45 wake
6:00 3 oz bottle
7:00 solids
8:55 8 oz bottle
9:10-10:35 nap
12:00 solids
1:15 8 oz bottle
1:45-3:10 nap
4:00 3 oz bottle
5:25 solids
6:30 6 oz bottle
6:45 sleep

NW 8:10-8:50, DF 10:30 (4 oz), NW 1:25-1:35.

He was exhausted at bedtime and couldn't make it until 7, his normal bedtime.

We are trying for 3:15ish awake times, but what do I do with these naps!  1:30 each and wake him up?  Let him short/long nap for the first and hope for the best and wake him up to get a long enough awake time before bed?  More awake time?  Feed him more? or less?  Grin and bear it because he is teething/crawling/sitting/bouncing off the walls and such is life?

[ZacsMumme]

I think your best day in ages, looks pretty good. The day before was too long really.
I would try to cap both naps at 1.5 hrs, and stick with the 3hr15 A times. this will make your day a bit shorter as well.

Is there areas on your feeding closer to 3 hrs than 4 ATM? Is it to minimize the vomiting?

[Andrew's Mom]

We are still figuring out this bottle thing!  Ideally, he would have 1 bottle when he wakes up for the day, 1 mid-day (after nap 1), 1 after nap 2 and then a top-up before bed.  He has been VERY hard to feed because he has ants in his pants and is on the move.  We have been trying to feed him whenever he is calm/willing to eat.  That seems to be shortly before he goes down to sleep (when he is finally tired enough to sit still). 

When we have 3 oz first thing in the AM, it is probably because he had a night feed.  Then we offer him a bottle after breakfast, and he can have whatever he wants (up to 8 oz), the goal being to get a full morning feed in before his nap.  Mid-day bottle is pretty consistent, after nap 2 he doesn't usually want a full bottle until right before bed. 

Do you have suggestions on how to deal with this?

Today he did 1:20 for his first nap and 1:45 for nap 2, and went to sleep at 7:15.  We will see what tonight brings!

[ZacsMumme]

Oh i remember the wriggly excited days when I struggled to feed my inquisitive boy! I would feeding straight after a nap in his room helped;)

How was your night? The naps look great...

[Andrew's Mom]

We will have to keep working on this bottle thing.  We started out trying to feed him right when he woke up, but he wouldn't take much (3 oz maybe) so we stopped.  Perhaps once we get in the groove and can do less in the night he will take more when he wakes up.

He is having a hard time settling in; last night he woke around 9:45 and took 40 mins to settle back to sleep even with a bottle, and was up again around 11 and 1.  Night before was pretty good, he made it through to 3 am and settled in ok with his night bottle.

He is also pretty regularly waking not too long after 9:30 if we don't get him his dream feed by 9:30.  What do you think about this?

He seems to be happy with 1:20 naps in the AM, and then a little longer in the PM to get him to a bedtime after 7.  We seem to run into more wake-ups when he falls asleep before 7.  Not sure why, but it is pretty consistent!

[ZacsMumme]

I have just noticed something, is he feeding 3 hrly during the day? (sorry just looking at your old EaSYs posted) If you aren't already he needs to be on a 4 hr EASY at least at this age.

I wonder if the bottle is becoming a NW prop....do you feed at every resettle? If not what are you doing? Your naps and A times look good

[Andrew's Mom]

The 3 bottles are something like 8 am, 1 pm and 6:30 pm, plus or minus (so more like a 5 hr EASY).  We get into these partial bottles when we were trying to do them earlier in the day--so a 3 oz bottle here and there because he wouldn't take a whole bottle starting with his first bottle, which throws everything off. 

I don't know if we have a night prop, I do really think that he is hungry.  We don't feed every time he wakes, just 1 dream feed (preferably while asleep!) and 1 night wake.  For the night feed, we don't offer it until he wakes up after 1 am (so 9:30 dream feed, 4 hrs from that would be 1:30).  Maybe the bottle is a prop?  I'm just not convinced that he doesn't need the calories.

Without the dream feed/night bottle he is only eating 3 bottles at 8 oz each, so 24 oz.  He is at the top of the growth chart for height, but the bottom for weight   Switching to formula has helped, but he is by no stretch chubby, and never stops all day.

Sometimes he will cry out but then put himself back to sleep with no help (we don't count that as a night wake).  If he leaves his head down but is doing more than a mantra cry, we don't do anything other than replug and he will go back to sleep (if he even needs that much help).  Again with his head down, we can shh/pat and he will settle back down.

What is happening though is that he gets himself all worked up, and then sits up and is wide awake (or is trying to climb out of the crib).  If he is happy, we leave him alone, but that isn't usually the case.  So then he is yelling and we pick him up, and sometimes he will just put his head on our shoulder and go back to sleep the second he gets picked up, so we put him right back down.  DH tends to like to wait for him to stop squirming when he goes in, because when he is squirmy he doesn't tend to stay asleep.

The problem has been when he is super fussy (teeth, reflux flare, whatever) or when it is party time and he just wants to climb all over me.  That's when it can take hours to go back to sleep.  We haven't had that the past few nights though, so that's good at least.  I think that the nap shortening has helped. 

We are starting to get in a good rhythm of 1:20 am nap, 1:40 (ish) pm nap (up by 3:30-4 the latest, only if he went down super late for some reason) and bedtime around 7.

Maybe I'll try starting the day with a bottle again, and see if he will take more first thing in the morning (before solids).  Then maybe I can do an 8 oz when he wakes up from nap 2 and a top-up before bed--can't do that now since he is having his bottle shortly before going down for nap 2.  Any other thoughts on how to get more food into him during the day?

[ZacsMumme]

Okay I get it now re bottles!
I'll ask for some bottle eyes to give you some advice as I BF Z at that age.
Hugs with the long NW, we had these on and off with reflux/tummy pain etc until Z was 12 months! To some extent you may need to ride those ones out. But, hopefully the cot parties will disappear with these new shorter naps

Can you post today's EAS with solids and bottle and I'll get some more eyes

[Andrew's Mom]

DH had to hold down the fort yesterday while I was taking an exam.  He did a pretty good job--first awake time was a bit long because DS gave him a hard time about going to sleep, but it worked out. 

Here's yesterday:

5:30 wake up
6:45 solids
8:20 8 oz bottle
9:10-10:30 nap
12:00 solids
1:10 8 oz bottle
1:50-3:30 nap
5:10 solids
6:30 8 oz bottle
7:00 asleep

Replug/pat @ 8:15pm, dream feed @ 9:05, wake @ 3:55 am/bottle.

Overall, really great for him, almost like sleeping through.  Today life got in the way and messed up our naps, we will see what happens tonight. 

[Andrew's Mom]

So I tried moving the bottles to right when he woke up and ending the day with a before-bed top-off, and he puked all over again after taking less than one oz.  He definitely can't take any more food at this point!

[ZacsMumme]

I also noticed he is having solids before bottle...Is there a reason for this?
Does he puke on both WU and BT bottle or just BT?
HUGS

[Andrew's Mom]

Our ped had recommended solids first and bottle second.  We have been back and forth between solids or bottle first, but since he wouldn't take his bottle in the morning we decided that if he was going to not eat something, solids were better to offer and have him not eat. 

At this point it doesn't matter it seems, he took an 8 oz bottle yesterday and today when he woke up, which has been around 6:30 when I wake him.  Yesterday he fussed a little at 5:30 am but put himself back to sleep.  Today he was out cold.

He has only puked at BT.

Going to try sticking with bottles first for a bit (with no top-up) and see how that goes.  Last night he was up every hour or so in the evening, probably uncomfortable from puking.  Gave him some Tylenol and Maalox and then he settled in until 2 am-ish and then I had to wake him at 6:30.

[Lolly]

I think you need to gety rid of the night bottle. If he is having 3 x 8oz bottles and a DF and solids he really doesn't need that night bottle and it's probably a habitual hunger. The best way I found is to reduce the bottle by 1oz every 3 nights so they gradually get used to having less and less. This is what we did with my DD when she was 8 months (she didn't have a DF) and when the bottle got down to about 3oz she slept through one night so we just offered water after that. She didn't like it the firsr night but didn't take long to adapt and sleep instead of waking.

You DF is about an hour earlier than Tracy suggests so maybe moving it a bit later would also help if/when you reduce the night bottle. Then once the night bottle is gone you can look at dropping the DF.

What do you think?

Laura

[Andrew's Mom]

That's an interesting idea--the water bottle instead of a formula bottle.  He only took around 3 oz last night for his night feed, and we have been offering only 4 oz for that feed for a while now and he hasn't been sucking the bottle dry.  We will be travelling Fri-Sun. so life will be interrupting baby's routine, do you think it would be OK to try it tonight or should we wait until we get back?

We moved the DF from 10:30 to 9:30 because he started waking between 9:45 and 10:15, then chugging a bottle.  By moving the feed to 9:30, we were able to keep him asleep longer which we thought was more important at the time.  We were also so exhausted that, assuming he didn't wake up, we couldn't last until 10:30--which meant that we missed it more than once!  Thoughts on this?

[Lolly]

What happened on nights you missed the DF - did he wake or sleep through?

If he is only taking a few oz then it's really not hunger but habit/ prop so I would just try and re-settle first, offer water only if you think he needs it and not give a bottle of milk at all . You have got 3 nights until you go away so you could certainly try and see what happens.

Laura