7.5 months old - too many night wakings; introduce dream feed??

[Iggys mom]

Hi - I need help, not sure what to do, but here's some background -

My son is almost 7.5 months old and has never slept through the night, but recently has been waking every 1-2 hours after an initial stretch of maybe 3 hours, tops. I give in and feed him most times because nothing else is really working anymore. I need more uninterrupted sleep and so does my son.

He typically goes to bed at 6:30 pm on his own (routine: nurse, bath, pjs, sound machine, 2 stories, then lullaby, I put him in awake and leave the room, he fusses for about 10 minutes then goes to sleep - we've done this for about 4 months) and after at least 4 wakings, more often 6, he wakes for the day between 5:30 and 6:30 am. His daycare routine is so different than it is at home on weekends, where he can go 3.5 to 4 hours between nursing. At daycare, he will have either 2 or 3 naps for about 2-3 hours total for the day. At home it's usually 3 naps, ranging from 30 minutes to an hour and a half each.  Daycare has to offer a bottle every 3 hours, unless he is sleeping, which means he is not eating at consistent times in the day - sometimes bottles are before a nap which I dislike, other times they are during play time, sometimes right when he wakes (and he often refuses because he's not quite hungry) -  11, 2, and 4:30. Other times they are 10, 1, and 3:30. I really think it is messing us up at nights now. He naps around 8:30am for an hour (sometimes 1.5 hours) if he wakes at 6am and has another nap around 12:30 or 1 for an hour (sometimes only 45 minutes). He might have a cat nap around 4 or 4:30. Basically, they don't believe in schedules at this age. I fully disagree, but can't do anything about it   We've also started solids - he gets applesauce in the morning at daycare. I wanted to do baby led weaning, but by the time we get home at 5, there really isn't much time for food and I thought it might bother his tummy at night. Food before 1 is for fun?

How can I break the nurse association in the middle of the night? He falls asleep on his own at bedtime. My husband thinks we need to start waking him every 3 hours to feed him so he doesn't think I'm feeding him because he's awake and crying, but I don't want to feed him so often at night if he's really not hungry - last night was 5 times - mostly due to comfort. It used to be 2, sometimes 3 feedings.

He has a lovey, doesn't take a pacifier (although we haven't tried since he was about 3 months), and sometimes sucks his thumb.

I guess I need to pick a method and be consistent, but don't know which is best. I've tried waiting 10 minutes before going to him, going to him right away and rocking him then putting him down awake, but he still cries. I've tried rubbing his back in the crib, saying shhhh go to sleep, sitting in the room with him, but no matter what I try, he cries and gets really mad (up to 1.5 hours, which I feel like is the most I want to go) until I feed him. The few times I do get him back to sleep without nursing, he wakes up within a half hour crying so I think maybe he was hungry and feed him. Also, if I do a partial feed, he gets upset and wakes sooner than if I give a full feed.

I thought he can go longer than 2 hours between feeds at night, but I'm losing my mind and questioning everything I do. My husband thinks it would be a good idea to set my alarm every 3 hours to feed him. I hate this idea; we never did that even when he was an infant. I don't even know if we should introduce a dream feed? We've never done one before, but maybe he really is hungry the first waking that comes as soon as 8:45/9:30? Or is it 3 hours after he falls asleep (if not over tired), he goes to his next sleep cycle and can't fall asleep

I feel like I've written a book - sorry this is so long, but I really don't know what to do anymore. Please help! Thank you.

[goldmom]

I'm sure there are others who could give you great advice, but I wanted to just respond to some of your points.

My LOs are with a babysitter, it's different than a day care center, but if I'm not on top of DD's nap, then they will be all over the place (I'm way more structured than the sitters have ever been, and for some reason they have never been able to accurately count the time awake between naps without me). I usually send a note to the sitter with the time I expect the first nap, since I explained that I will know this best since only I know what time she wakes in the morning, which could vary by up to an hour on different days (DH drops the kids off and he's not great about giving over these messages, so I send the note). I then call in middle of the day to check up on how the nap was and then tell the sitter what would be a good time to start the next nap based on the previous nap length and wake up time. I have found constant calling the best way to get my LO's sleep needs across since otherwise they don't realize that even though she may look tired, she takes better naps if she's up for longer or shorter (or she'll sleeps better at night). I used to also send a note about when and how much in each bottle, but since that's consistently after waking from a nap, not really a time thing anymore, I leave it out (we only do 2 bottles a day at the sitter with additional nursing morning, before BT and 1 NF, with solids 3 times a day - which I think we were up to by 7.5 months already, with only quantity of solids increasing since).

About blw, I send some jars and some finger foods with DD to the sitter so she can eat there. At dinner (I bring her home at 5:30 and we eat at 6, with BT at 7) she eats finger food of whatever DS is eating, so it could be chicken, veggies, etc. If you're only giving applesauce in the morning, I think you could start increasing your solids throughout the day.

Overall I think you need to drop the catnap and increase A times until you're on only 2 long naps a day. Hopefully that will help you LO be more tired at night for more consolidated sleep.

[Iggys mom]

Thanks goldmom! We will try to introduce more food. We do get a daily report from daycare about how much he ate, when, and how long his naps were. The problem is - it's all over the place! They say they give him naps based on his cues, but I'm not sure if they're reading correctly. Yesterday he had three naps - an hour, 45 minutes, and then another 45 minute one that ended at 4:45! He doesn't take long naps - even at home the longest is an hour and 20 minutes. Maybe daycare is too loud for him to settle past 1 sleep cycle. A time is usually 2 hours 40 minutes, sometimes 3 hours.

He went to bed last night at 6:45, woke 9:30 so I fed him because he last ate was 6, but then woke again at 11:20. I tried rubbing his back and patting his butt, but he screamed and cried until 12:30. I feel bad when I give in and feed him after so much fussing and crying because I feel like he isn't learning anything other than waiting for me to feed him, but don't know what else to do.  He woke again at 3, so I fed him and he went right back to sleep, then woke again at 4:30, I rubbed his back right away and he settled to sleep, but woke at 5:20. I tried rubbing and patting, but he was angry, so I fed him briefly at 5:30, held him in my arms until he fell asleep, and he snuggled with me sleeping until 6:20, when I wanted to go eat. He slept in the crib until 6:45.

Do I drop the 9:30 feed and wait until later to feed him in the night? Should I cut all feeds until say, 1am? I'm lost. I think he's waking 9:30 out of habit now. It's pretty much 9:30 exactly.

[goldmom]

With 45 minute naps, chances are you are looking at an A time increase. I would be proactive to tell the daycare center that they should keep him up until a certain time in the morning based on A time (at 7.5 months we were going 3h - 3h 15 min), even if he is giving tired cues (at this age they aren't necessarily so accurate). I would also tell them that the last nap of the day has to end before 4 in order to preserve a 6:45 BT (if you do get a late nap, I would expect a later BT) and they should try to space his naps a little better in order to accomodate this (I know it's not so easy with short naps, but instead of a third nap, I would go with a little longer A before bed and an EBT if needed).

I would also start not expecting a 12 hour night, we do get them some times, but 11-11.5 hours is pretty normal for this age also.

For a long time we also had an early evening feed (between 9-10) which I didn't either think was from hunger, but DD didn't settle without being fed. I found that if I fed right away she would wake up at the same time or earlier the next night, but if I tried to resettle her first (even just for a minute or two) then the next night she would push the feed off by a few minutes. This actually did help to push this feed to between 10-11, when I felt more comfortable about feeding.