6 month old waking before DF and at least once more

[~ Vik ~]

Hi and (((hugs)))

Not sure how much help I'll be but wanted to pop on!  At 7mo we were still doing a dream feed and one night feed, and kept doing this until we dropped the dream feed around 9mo   And, TBH, even after we dropped the dream feed we still did one night feed until ds was about 1yo!  I never actively dropped any night feeds (except the dream feed) - I truly believed that ds would drop them on his own when he was ready.  And he did, though certainly not as soon as I would have liked

Does he take full feeds at both times?  Is the first waking at a specific time (i.e., habitual)?  When he has short naps, do you bring bedtime any earlier to compensate? 

Here are a couple of links that you might find helpful, just in case you haven't seen them already: 
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=98183.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=65750.0 ***

***  Just had a thought, you could use the technique described in dropping the dreamfeed to help deal with the earlier waking.  If he's always waking between 1030-11, you could offer a feed at 1030, and then follow the plan in the FAQ and bring the feed earlier and earlier until you drop it completely.  Not sure if that would work, just a thought since it's right around that dream feed time.

[Tay]

I'm sorry to hear things are going quite as you expected. But Vikki is right, some babies just need the night feeds a bit longer than others. DD, by the time she was 12 weeks, she was sleeping 7hr stretches and just got better from there. DS is another story....

I'm cutting back his night feeds to 10 minutes per side, and thinking in another couple of days I'll try maybe 7 minutes, then 5, etc. Not sure how it will all work, I'd love suggestions.

I done exactly that with DS, I'm not really sure when exactly, but I think he was around 5/6months and it did work. We were discussing it in a thread and myself and a couple of mums tried with our LOs. It worked beatifully with DS - he started taking less and less, until he was feeding on only one side. Then he started feeding more during the day and sometimes not waking until 4/5am. (Around that time I also started giving a bottle of EBM for his last feed).
Having said that other mums on the thread found that their LOs were having none of it, they would just demand the full feed!
So I think it's  worth a try.
xxx

[ElsMom]

We've made no progress here. I had a better attitude and was just going with the flow for a couple of weeks but the exhaustion has taken back over and I want to fix it again! I've started pumping and giving him an 8 oz bottle at his first NW (usually have to add 2 oz formula to what I pump to get 8 oz). He takes anywhere from 5-7.5 oz anytime between 9:45 and 11:45 pm. The nice thing is it only takes him 5-10 minutes to drink a bottle, so I'm getting a bit more sleep there. I started this about a week ago. One night he lasted from that bottle until 4:00 am, but otherwise it's been between 1 and 2 am. I have a hard time believing that he could take 7 oz at 10:30 pm and then be hungry again at 1 am - but he'll nurse for 30 minutes. I haven't had any luck decreasing the time he nurses to less than 10 minutes per side, and he's been having EWs (5:30 - 6 am) about half of the time, so I wonder if he eats more at the 2nd NW then maybe he'll last longer before waking in the morning. At his 7 am feeding, he usually only wants one side for no more than 10 minutes, so he's not starving!! Not sure what I should be doing - just keep doing the same thing or make some sort of change. The other issue is the swaddle. I've tried to wean it several times and always end up wrapping him back up. Now he's able to get out of it, though, and he can't go back to sleep once he's unwrapped, so I've got a little problem!! The other night he was extra feisty and kept getting his arms out, so I was in with him about 5 times to wrap him back up. He doesn't BF to sleep (he's awake but calm when I put him down after nursing), but he gets so upset and determined to nurse. That night he was up 5 times, I nursed him every time to calm him back down. I know that's not going to get me any more sleep, but when I give him the paci, he either refuses to take it or he will take it and then be back up 10 minutes later. Should I just readjust my attitude again and assume he needs to eat twice a night? Start doing the DF again, but around 10 pm and with the bottle (instead of waiting for him to wake)? Or focus on weaning the swaddle, which I recognize I'll need to do one day, I just don't know when! (I have tried leaving one arm out lots of times, and it always results in short naps, early NWs).

[Tay]

((hugs)) You must be exhausted! Sometimes I think it's harder than those first few days with the baby when the LO is a bit older (accumulated tiredness as DH says).
I think to start with you need to get some rest. Can you swap around and BF him on the 1st NW and get someone else to take the 2nd NW for you with the bottle of EBM for a few days? I'm thinking that if your LO does still need the night feeds (which seems to be the case) at least you're resting up.

Should I just readjust my attitude again and assume he needs to eat twice a night? Start doing the DF again, but around 10 pm and with the bottle (instead of waiting for him to wake)?

That would work too if you went to sleep at the same time he does - at least for a few days.

I have a hard time believing that he could take 7 oz at 10:30 pm and then be hungry again at 1 am - but he'll nurse for 30 minutes.

After reading that I just had a thought... See if this was during the day, you would probably be trying to delay the feed and start stretching the gap between feeds to a 4hr (or as close to it as you could) wouldn't you?
If it's always around the same time he's waking up for that 1am feed, why don't you try to delay the feed by 5min, or 10min? Then do the same the next day and so on.
(DD only stopped her last NW when I went back to work so that feed was a bottle feed - which meant she had to wait until it was prepared- I'm convinced the wait was the reason she started to drop that feed. But myabe I'm wrong...)

How is he getting on with the solids? Any improvements?

xxx

[ElsMom]

We had a better few nights and then went back to the old pattern - I'm stumped. For 3 nights early this week, he made it from 7 pm to 12:30/1:00 am for his bottle, was drinking about 7 oz, and then slept until 5/5:30 am, nursed on one side for 15 minutes, and went back down until 7. It really felt like progress! But then he woke at 10:30 the last 3 nights, drank 6 or 7 oz, and woke the 2nd time around 2:30 am - exactly like he was doing before. I tried to only give him one side at the 2:30 am waking, and he threw a little fit!! I think this answers what I was wondering about doing a DF at 10 pm, though - it seems if he takes that bottle earlier in the night, his 2nd NW is going to be earlier too. If I could get the first NW stretched later, maybe he could make it to 7 am without a 2nd one. I don't have anyone to help me with the NFs, so catching up on sleep doesn't seem to be in my immediate future! I generally feel ok, I just know that I'm shorter on patience than I should be.

I really think a big part of this, other than the habit part, is that he won't nurse during the day unless he's going to sleep. He's recently started crying to nurse before his first nap, and I haven't let him because then he'd be feeding before every sleep period, and I don't need another bad habit! But here's what his E looks like - if I could fix this, I feel like I could at least work to decrease the 2nd NF.

7:00 am - nurse 5 min at most, usually just about 2 min
8:30 am - solids - eating well most days, getting excited about finger foods
9:30 am - nap, cries to nurse, can't really be too hungry because sleeps til 11:15 without it
11:30 am - nurse about 2 min, cries and fusses if try to get him to eat more
12:45 pm - solids, eats well
2:10 - nurse about 20 minutes (then immediately naps)
4:00 - nurse 0-2 minutes
5:30 - solids, eats well
6:30 - nurse 30 minutes (then immediately sleeps)
1st NW - drinks 6-7.5 oz bottle in 5-10 minutes
2nd NW - nurses 15-30 minutes

If I try to get him to nurse more, he yells and fights and squirms away. On the days he has a bottle (rarely), he'll take about 5 oz at 11:00 am and 4 oz at 4:00 pm. So I think he's just too excited to see the world, and you can't really look around when you're nursing, but you can when you're drinking a bottle. During the day, he looks all over the place and dawdles with the bottle, but he'll take it a bit at a time. I'm pumping as much as I can right now, so I don't really want to stop nursing for a daytime feed - I'd have to use more formula and I'd rather not do that. I realized the other day that he's getting 4 good liquid meals, they're just at the "wrong" times. At this age, DD was only having 4 liquid meals, but they were all during the day (and a DF). So should I move the daytime feeds around? Make his solids correspond better to our meals? I was thinking about changing to this --

7:00 am solids
9:00 am BF
11:00 am solids
2:00 pm BF
5:30 solids
6:30 BF

But that doesn't seem like enough? I know I need to get him to nurse more during the day, and for longer so he'll get the better milk. Should I ask this question on the BFing board? Thanks so much!

[Tay]

Do post on the BF board, maybe some other mums can come up with other ideas for you.
xxx