Hi there, I'd really appreciate some help! My little one is STILL waking up hungry during the night. She has consistently been behind since day one when it comes to how much formula she would take, and how often. She topped out at about 30-32 oz a day before we started solids at about 5.5 months, and took much longer to transition to 4 hour easy than most little ones. She just couldn't go that long without eating.
Because of this, I just figured that maybe it would take her a bit longer to get off the night time feeds than other little ones. She had a dream feed until about 10 months because if we didn't give it to her she'd wake up screaming and not go back to sleep until we fed her and would always take a full feed of about 5oz.
So, with time, she got to a point where she didn't need the dream feed anymore, then she dropped down to one bottle per night. And now we're stuck there. It looked like things were getting better, over a week and a half period we had two nights where she slept through till 5:30, I gave her a 4oz bottle (bearing in mind that she normally would only drink 5oz at a time) and she slept another couple hours (woohoo! that doesn't often happen) and one night where she slept all the way through.
But then a week ago she got sick. And started teething. While her cold was at its worst, there were nights where she took two bottles.
Oh, and I know its hunger because of a) the amount she's taking and b) its never the same time when she wakes up. It can be anywhere between 2:30 till 5:30 that she wakes up. Sometimes I can just give her a small feed; about 3 oz, and she'll go back to sleep until morning but other times she might drift off a little bit but is restless and won't fall into a deep sleep, eventually waking up and crying again. As soon as I give her more to eat, she drops off with no trouble.
Generally she goes to bed around 8pm and is up around 7. She has some fruit and cereal with Daddy while I get a bit more sleep, then when I have breakfast (around 8:30) she has some toast, goat yogurt, and more fruit. (she has started refusing eggs and meat, and can't have dairy.)
Then a small snack (raisins or a rice cracker or two) around 10:30, lunch at noon. At lunch I usually try to get her to eat some meat or eggs again, and she has potato or rice, and some veg. A couple ounces of goat milk before her nap and she'll sleep anywhere from 2 hours to 3 hours. A small snack after her nap; usually fruit. Then supper at 5-5:30, oatmeal before bed, then about 4-5oz of formula.
Trouble is, some days she'll refuse to eat her oatmeal, or some part of her supper, or drink the bottle before bed. The nights when she slept the most where days when she ate really well in the evening, but if she won't eat, she won't eat, right?
Not sure what to do anymore, but I'm getting really tired of getting up at night. Because I have trouble falling back asleep, I'm usually up for 1.5-2hours. Oh...and I wake up hungry during the night myself, so this whole thing is extra challenging because I definitely sympathize with her being hungry! Haven't had a solid 8 hours sleep since I became pregnant with her...so about 2 years.
If anyone has suggestions; I'd love to hear them. Maybe something needs to change with what she is eating during the day? I don't know, and I'm so tired of trying to figure it out on my own!
(I was SO happy to find the board again...I tried to access it months ago and kept getting error messages. Not sure what happened there, but I missed the support here!)
Thanks in advance!
Sapphyre