7 mo old with 2 night wakings...advice please!

[JulieNG]

Hello,

My son just turned 7 months on Oct 23rd. He is pretty much a textbook baby in other ways. He is bottle fed and eats solids 2 times per day. Our normal routine is this:

7:30am wake and eat bottle (usually not even that hungry b/c he ate in the night).
9:00 or 9:30 at latest nap (this nap is on average 1 hour 45 minutes. Sometimes 2 hours. Goes down with no problem. He has a blanket that he sleeps with. It may take him 10-15 minutes or talking in crib.
11:00 solids (cereal with formula and fruit)

Now if he wakes at 11 he will go down anywhere from 1-2 depending on his mood. If he's fussy after 2 hours he'll go down. If we run errands it may be 2 1/2-3 hours max of A time. I usually give him a bottle BEFORE this nap 6 oz.

He always has to be up at 3:20 to get my daughter from school.

Solids around 5

Bottle somewhere in between this

Sometimes catnap at 5

Bedtime is 7 ish depending on if he had a catnap. If no catnap bedtime 6:30. Bottle before bed of course.

Wakes around 10 or 11 some nights

then again at 2 or 3

then up between 7-8.

Now some nights he will only wake between 2-3. I have tried to resettle at night but he will only go back to sleep with bottle. He is usually crying very hard, not just a little fussing.

Any suggestions as he is starting to wake my other 2 kids up!

[deckchariot]

we had to use pu/pd to get my dd down to 1 NW, it's not fun, but it does work.  We started with the idea that she could go at least as long at night as she does during the day, and she's on a 4 hr EASY, so any NW less than 4 hrs from her last feed, we did pu/pd til she went back to sleep.  We then realized she could go 6 hrs at night fairly easily, so no we do pu/pd if she wakes at less than 6 hrs.  We also just added a 3rd meal of solids, but we've got almost a month age-wise on your bub.

[worriermum]

Hiya,
How many bottles is your bub having during the day & how much at each feed?
Did you drop bottles for the solids?
I'd been advised to give milk feeds before solids until bubs at least 8mths old & offer solids 30-60min later.
Not sure how much your routine has changed since your son has started solids?
Here's what I do for my 5mth old but only a few changes would be made for 7mths.

6.30am breastfeed
7.30am breakfast/solids
8.30am-ish after 2hr-2hr15m from waking- nap for 1-1.5hrs, awake around 9.30-10am
10.30am breastfeed
11.30am lunch/solids
12-12.30 after 2hr15m-2hr30min nap (1.5-2.5hrs)
2-2.30am breastfeed
4pm bottle 110ml top up
4.30 catnap (however you might find you 7mth old wont be having this now?)
5pm bubs woken
5.15pm dinner/solids
6pm bath etc
6.30 bottle 220-300mls we offer as much as he wants.
isnt fed for 12hrs.
BUT he was waking in the night for a feed like your son, so we decided to wean him from them meaning he would take more during the day. We also stretched out his milk feeds to 3.5-4hrly to encourage better feeds. so the first night we offered 100ml bottle at each waking, he was taking better feeds during the day esp that 1st one. after 2 nights he wasnt even finishing his night feeds so switched to offering 100ml of water, he would fuss a bit more going down but would go back to sleep, again he was taking in better feeds in the day, after 2nights he wasnt interested in the water so went to doing controlled crying whenever he woke, took 2 nights. then sleeping through to 4.30-5am but will chat away & go back to sleep until 6-6.30am.

Not sure if this will help??

[deckchariot]

I forgot to mention that you could also try watering down his bottles at night, some moms find that their bubs don't wake for watery milk.  If he does, then you could do pu/pd.