TO FEED OR NOT TO FEED, THAT IS THE QUESTION?

[mom2liam]

My DS has been waking in the night and I'm not sure wether to feed or not.

Here are the times he has been waking..........
MON - 5AM
TUE - 3.40AM
WED - 3.15AM
THUR - SLEPT TO 6.35AM
FRI - 3.30AM
SUN - 4.30AM
MON - 5.30AM

When he wakes I am only giving him 3oz...........

Once fed he then keeps waking, so we brought him into bed with us (I know a definate no no)and he goes straight back to sleep and then I have to wake him at 7/7.15am every morning....

Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
Wendy

[courtneyandmiles]

[quote
My DS has been waking in the night and I'm not sure wether to feed or not.

Once fed he then keeps waking, so we brought him into bed with us (I know a definate no no)and he goes straight back to sleep and then I have to wake him at 7/7.15am every morning....

Yes, a definite no-no!  It's time to be proactive and help him sleep through.  The co-sleeping sounds like a bandaid solution.  You need a long-lasting solution.

Funny, but it looks like your lo is smirking in that photo. . .Does he take a paci?  If so, it's a good way to tell if lo is REALLY hungry.  That worked for my Dd.  Since you can't really not feed a hungry baby, your focus should be tanking up:  cluster feeding and dream feeding.  Do you practice those?  Those wakings sound like my Dd did for a while.  Now she's 7 mos. 1 wk., and we just got rid of the df:  last night she went from 7:30-7:  no waking at all (that I know of).  So it is possible for lo to go all night w/ some hard work. 

In addition to tanking up, I also did wake-to-sleep, but it's interesting that the night I didn't wake to sleep, she slept through!  (with a df at 11, she could go 'til 7).  But she didn't sleep through 'til 6 mos.  It wasn't even that I was feeding her, she just woke out of her swaddle or w/ her paci.  I'd have to redo both, then hope it wouldn't happen again.  Weaning her of both at 6 mos. helped a lot.  My friend didn't swaddle or pacify her baby, and she slept through from 4 mos! HOpe this helps!

-court

[teezee]

could you post your lo's routine..if lo is waking early and only taking a small amount than chances are he is not hungry and i wouldn't feed as it would just reinforce a habit to start kwim?

[mom2liam]

I think he would take more when I feed him in the night, as once he has finished the 3oz he crys but I give him the pacifier, he then goes back to sleep until I wake him at 7am......His general routine is as follows

7am - Wake up
7.15am - Feed
9am - Nap for 45 mins
10.45 - 1TBSP Cereal
11am - Feed
12pm - Nap for 45 mins
May be a catnap in between, before next feed
3pm - Feed
Catnap
6.30pm - 1TBSP Cereal
7.15pm - Feed

I didn't put how many oz he takes at each feed as it vaires between 4oz and 8oz!!!! He also takes about 1 hour to feed. I tried changing to the next nipple size but it came out to fast, and he doesn't seem to get frustrated with the nipple he has now. One thing I did want to mention is, I let him go as long as he likes before I burp him, is this wrong? he's 4 months and burps himself most of the time?

Thanks for your help
Wendy

[teezee]

i think your lo need to be on a 4 hr routine - that is very important at this age - and really 3 naps - 2 longer ones and a catnap is enough.  you will have to work on extending the naps through shh/pat, pu/pd or wake to sleep. it could also be that lo isn't quite tired enough to sleep past 45 min. maybe you would want to try extending A time by 15 min and see if that helps at all - as if you are moving to a 4 hr routine you will need to extend slowly anyway.

you are doing the right thing by waking lo at the same time every morning. how is his morning feed in comparisson to the rest of the feedings during the day? he is a little young to be on cereal and that could be affecting the amount of calories through milk/formula that he is getting - as he doesn't NEED the cereal calories nearly as much (if at all) as he needs the other calories...and that could be causing him to wake for it at night. i wonder if you cut out the cereal if lo would take in more formula/milk?

as long as he doesn't have any gastro/or burping/gas probelms i think that the burping thing is fine.

[mom2liam]

I thought I was doing a 4 hour routine? The only feed that is earlier is the 11am as I feed him cereal and 7pm to feed him the cereal. The doctor said to try him on the cereal 2 times per day, not to replace a bottle but just to get him used to the texture and food???.

I've tried extending his naps by every means possible (I did post on the naps board many times), and because I am going back to work, I resigned myself to the fact that he is a short napper. After many weeks of trying nothing worked and it was making me miserable. Hence why he his taking more naps in a day. He does have 2 hours of A time between each nap, do you think I should push it longer?
Thanks for your advice
Wendy

[teezee]

your feeding is every four hrs but naps and A time should also coincide kwim? as i said four naps is too many and not quality sleep to get lo properly rested enough kwim? two longer ones and catnap is sufficient at this age. instead of giving lo an 'extra' fourth nap - i would opt to put lo to bed earlier instead.

could the early start on cereal but a little hard on his digestive system? that caused night wakings when i took the advice of my dr and family and started dd early - filling her belly more caused many more problems i didn't have any clue how to solve. at 6 months lo's have plenty of time to get used to textures etc. i also listened to an 'old school' dr and it didn't do anything but create MORE problems than the ones i already had on my hands at that point. not to take anything away from dr's but sometimes they take things from books or what they were taught many yrs ago and don't take their info from any hands on experience. the world health organization advises that parents wait until 6 months to introduce and type of solids or cereals b/c lo's digestive systems more times than not cannot properly digest foods as of yet.

what have you tried to extend naps? is lo possibly too tired and not able to make it through sleep cycles b/c of it? or is it that lo is not tired enough? every lo is different and i can't possibly be able to tell you that answer - but you should have a better idea and just adjust accordingly.

[Kimberly®]

another way to extend your naps is to put him down 10-15 minutes earlier.
Also if your LO's wakings are new its possible its the cereal. It can cause cramping and gas. Try dropping the solids for the time being, move naps up 10-15 minutes, use PU/PD to settle and try not to bring him into bed with you as that may be becoming a prop. When you feed him at night let him eat as much as he can and try not to give the paci as it may also be becoming a prop.

HTH

[brightside]

Wendy, I could have writte your exact post about 2 weeks ago. In fact I probably did in some form or another!  DS was exactly the same. We had 4x 45 minute naps all day with occasionally one long nap. DS was generally ok with 45 minute naps so I didn't push extending them any more. We also had several night wakings. Teezee gave me pretty much the same advice and so we have been working on extending A time. DS used to get a bit fussy at the 2 hour mark and so I just used to put him down then. However, I then started to take him up to the Nursery and extend a bit longer. He now goes nearly 2.5 hours!  I never thought he could go that long. We are now getting 3 naps. 2 short and one long one around lunch. Night wakings are very few too. Might be coincidence but is working nonetheless! Might be worth a try. Good luck!