DS prefers to snack and graze all day instead of eat all at once.

[NoonieP]

My DS is 6mo old and a few weeks ago, we were having a rough time with sleeping through the night and naps. He’s still not taking hour long naps or sleeping through the night. I’m ok with the short naps as they are usually at least 45 minutes and the waking in the night because we are now on more of a schedule.

My problem is that he doesn’t, and has never, eating everything all at once. He gets a bottle during the day three days a week. Yesterday I was going over his feeding in my head and noticed that he has never finished a 4oz bottle in one feed. He woke up last night two hours after his last feed. I tried holding him until he went back to sleep and put him back to bed. An hour later he was up, wide awake and “chatting” I picked him up and fed him and he went right back to sleep.

So now I’m thinking that the reason he won’t or can’t sleep through the night is he is not eating enough at one time, and prefers to “graze” or “snack” throughout the day and night. If I knew this was going to end in a month or two, I could handle it, but I’ve heard stories about it lasting for the first year.

I would appreciate any suggestions you ladies have,

Also, as I mentioned earlier, we don’t really have a schedule. I read the book and used some of the tips and it has helped tremendously for me to feed him just after he wakes up, that has gotten rid of the waking up every half hour and has helped him nap longer and made him much happier. We do follow the EASY but it’s very flexible.

[Mum of 3 + 2 stepkids]

Hi, How many feeds a day does your lo have? and how often?

Kate

[EllenS]

Noonie, it is very possible that he is hungry from snacking, both because of volume and he may not be getting enough hindmilk if his feeds are quite short.  At 6 months most babies can go 4 hours between feeds for at least part of the day, which encourages them to take more at each feed.  Cluster feeding in the evening can also help, as supply tends to be lower in the late afternoon.

Have you tried stretching his feed times during the day?  Maybe distract him for 10-15 minutes and work your way up?  If I remember rightly, at that age we did something like
7
11
3
5
6:30

and maybe had 1 night feeding.