NWs almost 7 month !

[BayAreaMom]

Hi moms,

I'm new here but have followed EASY for my now 3.5 year daughter and everything was a breeze..so I figured I'm going to do it the second time round too...My son is almost 7 months old and for the first 4 months he slept one long stretch at night ( 8pm-2am ) and then a bottle and then up at 5-6am for a bottle and then back down till 8am. I was happy with that even though my daughter slept through 11-12 hours before she turned 3 months.

Anyway, now he's that he's almost 7 months old. He sleeps at 8pm and then at midnight and then at 4am and then up at 8am. Basically he follows his 4 hours EASY and needs bottle all night. After consulting his pediatrician, I have dropped the amount of milk in the bottle by an ounce a week and now we are at 4oz ( we started at 6 oz ). I am hoping that this will help cut his night feeds esp since we have started solids and he seems to be taking it ok...

There is an additional issue which has started after our trip back from Asia. We co-slept and now needs help in going back to sleep even in between those milk feeds. For ex, this is his nights since we've been back ( its been a month now ).

8pm - 6 oz bottle - Sleep
12 midnite - 4 oz bottle - Sleep
2am - up and not hungry..whining non stop and thrashing around
4am - Up and hungry - 4 oz bottle - sometimes sleeps right away, sometimes takes a little while
6am - up and not hungry..whining non stop and thrashing around...AGAIN
8am - UP and hungry and happy - 6oz bottle

Here is his day schedule - I changed increased his A time to 3hrs since his nap got shorter and he was not ready to nap earlier

8am - AWAKE - bottle - 6oz
9:30 - Solids breakfast - 1-2 cubes fruits or veg
11am - NAP 1
12:30-1pm - UP from nap - Bottle - 6 oz
2ishpm - Solids lunch - 1-2 cubes fruits or veg or porridge
3:30-4pm - NAP 2
5:00-5:30pm - Wake up from nap if not awake - Bottle
8-30pm - Goodnite bottle  - 6 oz

He does not really sleep without my help so I rock him to sleep. But there are nights when he's up and not hungry and I can't seem to help him stop the whining so I just let him thrash around and usually 5-10 mins he goes to sleep to wake up when he's hungry again...

After we started solids he doesn't always finish the 6oz day time bottles but anywhere between 4-6oz. I would like to add that the night hunger time is not fixed...if his naps haven't been good and I put him to bed early..he will wake up in 4 hours for food.

Please help me teach him to sleep by himself and get rid of these NWs !!!

Thank you for your help !!

[Erin M]

Hi there!

I'm thinking a few things--
First off, you might continue to cut the ounces in his nighttime bottles -- or at least in one of them.  Lots of LOs continue to need night feeds at the 7 month mark (one of mine was having 2 at this point) so the feed wouldn't be out of the question. 

Your daytime routine looks solid for a 7 month old, which leads me to wonder if it's more of a prop issue -- does he ever fall asleep independently anymore?  It could be that he's needing you to settle him again when he wakes.  Do you rock him back to sleep all the time or do you try other methods as well -- some form of shush/put or something like that (he's not too old for it, there's some good info on that here: Can a baby be too old for sh-pat? )?

[BayAreaMom]

Thanks for your reply Erin and sorry I took such a long time to get back to you...Fell sick with a bad cold so was out of it for a few days !

First thing we did was shift him to his room and voila, its been 4 days and he's doing so much better !!

Here's what he did past 3 of nights :

8pm - Sleep
1:30am/2am - Bottle ( Offered 4 oz diluted )
4:30am - Bottle ( Offered 4 oz diluted )
7:30am - 8am - UP for the day

This is what he did last night :

8pm - SLeep
1:30am - Bottle ( Offered full 6 oz )
6am - Bottle - had 5oz ( Offered full 6 oz )
8am - Up for the day

As you can see, he's definitely sleeping longer stretches and even better if his tummy is full. Last night was an experiment to see if I gave him full bottles if he'd sleep longer and he did. My question is should I continue to give him full bottles at night or reduced ? My ped tells me that I've trained him to have full bottles of milk at night so am unsure what to do...

Also, is 1 hr 20 min nap OT or UT....I gave him full 3 hour Awake time past few mornings and he woke up 1 hr 20 min..not entirely happy but not too bad as well..just not his happy self which leads me to think I need to adjust the morning A time for sure...

Thanks for all your help !

[Erin M]

Also, is 1 hr 20 min nap OT or UT....I gave him full 3 hour Awake time past few mornings and he woke up 1 hr 20 min..not entirely happy but not too bad as well..just not his happy self which leads me to think I need to adjust the morning A time for sure...

It's probably undertired -- I would think that you need a bit more A time -- though not a ton.  You're getting a decent nap, just not long enough to be fully restorative.

Regarding the night feeds, I'd probably give him a full feed at one of the wakings (probably at the first one) and then start to cut the other one by ounces and see how he does. 

[BayAreaMom]

Thanks Erin..Things are going along fine..

2 wake ups at night..the first one I give full bottle and second one I am diluting...hoping he won't be needing it much sooner !

[Erin M]

Sounds like good progress!  I would think once you get rid of that first bottle you can work on the second one (maybe, sometimes they still do need one night feed at that age).