Changing routine 3 to 4 hr for 4m.old

[smellysocks]

Hi,
i am trying to implement the 4hr routine but am struggling a bit.  I have a girl 18 weeks.

She is currently on 3 1/2 feeding routine but she is usually crying loads by 3 hours and it doesnt seem to be getting easier, she has been on this transition for 4 days and the question i want to ask is how much to feed her???

I have bottlefed her for about a month now and have been giving her 5oz every 3 hrs, so when i started the transition i upped it to 6oz every 3 !/2 hrs but i was still feeding her in the night so it meant she was consuming 36oz a day, which i was concerned was a bit too much.  She is a big baby at 17 weeks she was 18lb3, which was 10 days ago....she does empty most bottles and i have been wondering if it might be time to start weaning, but im going to concentrate on trying to stick the 4hr routine first.

So i know i have to work on her daytime naps which sometimes can be 45mins and sometimes 2hrs, shall i continue to use ssh/pat or use the pu/pd tool to extend her daytime naps

Yesterdays day went like this...
3.20am     feed (5oz)
5.30am     woke and shh to sleep     
8.00am     woke     
8.30am     feed (5oz)     
9.30am     sleep     
11.25am    woke   
12.00       feed (5oz)
12.55pm    sleep     
1.50pm     woke     
3.20pm      sleep     
3.50pm     woke (she was grumpy and i should of extended earlier nap)   
4.00pm     feed (5oz)
4.30pm     went for walk     
5.30pm     came home     
5.50pm     sleep     
6.25pm     woke     
7.00pm     bath     
7.30pm     feed (5oz)     
8.00pm     sleep
9.00pm     woke and ssh/pat to sleep
11.00pm    Dreamfeed (5oz) (which she actually woke for)
 
She wakes quite a bit in the night which is why im looking at her routine, but i havent been consistent at what time i feed her so from last night i am making her wait until 5am...so last night she woke at 2.20 3.20 3.40 4.00 5.00 (when i went to make her bottle my husband had got her to sleep) so she woke at 5.30am and i fed her 4oz just to see her through till 8.00.... i dont know what people think about me starting the day at 8am and moving bw routine an hour later???  But it suits us all....  When she wakes in night i use a dummy (which she spits out after about 1min...but it does stop her crying) and then ssh/pat until she is in a deep sleep...this works sucessfully everytime, i dont think the dummy has become a prop.  Shall i continue this for her night wakings or use pu/pd?


What i would like to know is when i make the transition from 3 1/2 hr to 4hr routine shall i up the bottle to 6oz?  And am i doing the right thing in the nights feeding her at 5am...she is then getting a 6 hr stretch from 11pm till 5am???

Oh and another thing, she always wakes after an hour when i put her to bed at night, sometimes she gets herself back to sleep, sometimes i have to ssh/pat to help her, any ideas on this??

Thanks so much in advance, i hope you can understand this !!

[Yazzie]

Hey there hun, this stage ca be really tricky, just hang in there:)

Can't help much with respect to the feeds, as didn't bottle feed, but as for the routine, I had a look at what you posted and think that the waking at 1 hr after is due to a possible OT at bedtime.

Judging by the first part of the day, it looks like 1.5 hrs A time is the magic number for you. She was up @ 08.00, down at 09.30 and slept for almost 2 hrs, so I'd try to maintain that amount of A time through the day, as the following naps, look like they were really all UT.

As for sleep training, at this age sh/pat is recommended rather than pu/pd which is recommended for tots who are at least 6 months old. Sh/pat really does work wonders:)

HTH

[Lolly]

From a bottle feeding point of view I would first of all increase her bottle size. If she is draining bottles you need to add more. There should be enough in the bottles so that she can finish because she is full and not just because the bottle is empty. At the breast this is what they do - and she could have been taking more than that at a feed.

Don't worry about how much she is taking unless she is vomiting feeds back up. Babies are really good at self regulating and 4 months is big growth spurt time so she really does need those calories. What you should find is that if she is taking bigger bottles in the day she won't need so much at night although a dreamfeed and one night feed is totally normal at this age. There will be a period when she is adjusting to the new routine, but if you increase the bottles she will go longer between feeds and it will all settle down. A 5oz feed is a smallish feed for a formula fed baby at this age, most will be on around 7oz.

HTH!

Laura

[smellysocks]

Thank you lolly, i was thinking it was a smallish amount too, thanks for your advice, its funny cos last night she woke again for her dreamfeed at 11pm, she screamed for it and i mean screamed!!  She took 7oz, was starving poor thing and then she slept throught till 5am...so will increase feeds, especially last feed and dreamfeed!

Thanks Yazzie for taking time to look at my routine, i think you are right about ot at bedtime, she is usually up for 2hrs and with bath etc it is way too much, she is such a big baby i forget how young she really is!!  Ssh pat really is good, used it since 4 weeks old, but now a little concerned that when she stirs instead of getting herself back off to sleep she is waking me for the comfort of dummy....are they that clever or am i thinking too much into it......it does make things so much easier, for her and me but i dont want her to get dependent on it

Thanks guys

Thanks guys

[Yazzie]

Yay for a good night

You are approaching the age where you may want to consider dropping the paci, as it may be entering the stage of becoming a prop. That said we never really stopped the paci, and eventually ds got the hang of replugging it.