7 Months, Adding Food & Routine Change

[kristeno]

My LO is 7 months. He is BF & eats BLW. Since adding solid foods & regular meals to his routine, we just can’t seem to get the timing of his meals right. The 4-Hour routine is based on his solid meals, right? I’m having the hardest time grasping the best time frame for food & how they fit between naps.

Plus, he only naps 1.5 hrs, twice a day. He wakes at 7, so that puts his bedtime at like, 530? I’m just confused about the routine switch & adding food & where that fits in.

Someone help!!

7: WU & BF
720: A
9: Nap
1030: BF
1050: A
12: Lunch
1: Nap
230: BF
245: A
5: Catnap 40 min  (he acts so tired & cranky at this time. But after reading the book again, it seems he should be done with a catnap at this point)
545: Bottle 6 oz
630: Dinner
7: Routine
730-8: Asleep

[*Ali*]

Please don't worry about trying to fit your baby into a routine in a book.  That's just a guide.  If what you're doing is working for you guys then stick with it for now.  It's recommended to feed on demand.

A 4hr EASY is more for a 4-6mo. It's based on breastfeeds. Many EBF babies don't make it 4hrs between feeds though and will have a second BF in the A time.
Once they start on solids and A times get longer you often have to be even more flexible to fit it all in as they're often asleep at the 4hr mark. It's common to offer solids an hour after the bf at the start of the first 3 A times.  Great if you can fit them in with the times you eat though.

As an example our routine at that age was something like:
7 BF
A
8 solids
10 nap til 11.30
11.30 BF
A
12.30 solids
2.30 - 4.30 nap
4.30 BF
A
5.30 dinner
A
7 BF and BT

[kristeno]

Thank you for that reminder. I have a very Type-A, schedule-oriented personality & I can sometimes get overwhelmed by go with the flow situations like this.

I think what you said helped so much. I just needed to see an example of a routine that works for his age. I kept feeling like what we were doing wasn’t working, but I didn’t know what to change to fit it. He’s been a mess for about a week. He hit a growth spurt that screwed up his routine & now he’s waking all night long - after the fact. I just knew it was sleep related because now that the growth spurt has happened, he isn’t eating as much. I will try to extend his wake times a little bit to see if that’s what he needs.

At this point, my main concern is the cat nap. Is there a point in which we should try to get rid of it or will it filter out as his wake time increases?

Thank you again!!

[*Ali*]

There is useful info about the catnap here https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=246541.0