Not sure which routine to go with

[Steph G]

My LO is 18 weeks and we used to be on a really good 3 hour routine starting at 7am with a DF at 11pm and a night feed around 3-4am. With the ultimate aim of him sleeping from 7pm to 7am we dropped the DF to see how long he could go through the night and now he just feeds at 7pm and then again at about 5am which is fantastic.

We are now on a 3.5 hour routine and it looks something like this:

5.00-6.00am - Eat (BF) then back to sleep (sometimes in our bed which I know is naughty!)
9.00am - Eat (BF)
9.30am - Activity
10.30am - Sleep
12.30pm - Eat (BF)
1.00pm - Activity
2.00pm - Sleep
4.00pm - Eat (BF)
4.30pm - Activity
Sometime between 5pm & 6pm - catnap for about 1/2 an hour
6.30 - Bath
7.00pm Eat (Formula)
7.30pm Sleep

I am going back to work in 10 weeks and ideally I need to be on a 4 hour routine starting at 7am so this fits in with me getting to work (on time!!) and the nursery he is attending.

Should I continue with the above routine for a bit longer and hope he'll sleep til 7am and move to 4 hours?
Or should we try and break the habitual waking at 5am and get him to sleep until 7am and still do 5 feeds in the day?
Or still feed at 5am and go 4 hours in the day starting at 7am?

So confused - any advice much appreciated!!

[LŠuren]

If he is always going back to sleep after the 5am feed, you need to wake at 7am and start your day from there.

Either first feed will be a top up because he has taken a full feed at 5am or you can try and limit the feed at 5am (so it sees him through to 7am) and give a full feed at 7am.

Over the while you can try and go to a 3.75hr routine, so hopefully you will be on 4hr by the time you go back to work.

You at least have a couple of months to get him to 4hrs and the likelyhood is that he will probably want to do it himself anyway by then.

DS didn't stop his 5am feed until he was 5months.