EASY goes WONKY in the evening

[Beed]

My 6wo has been following 3 hour Easy for about a week in the hope it will help the evening sleeping issue, no such luck.

All goes pretty much to plan until after the 4.00 feed when catnaps are hit and miss and sleep doesn't happen until 9.30ish. Then resulting in no dream feed as he won't take it then. The evening consists of wanting to be held and crying if put down.

I'm frazzled.

He was 9lb 8oz when born and takes 5oz in his bottles (sometimes only drinking 4oz).

Have now had to give him a dummy which of course falls out and he cries again, waking himself up and we're back to square one.

Where am I going wrong?

[Buttonbobs]

Hi Beed, sorry you were missed for a couple of days.

You may not be doing anything wrong honey, babies of this age are still so small and going through huge growth and developmental change while trying to get used to being on the outside of your body.

Let's see what we can do to get things a bit more settled for the two of you. Have you read any of the links here:

Starting EASY - all you need to know and more!

And this one might be particularly helpful:

Getting started - how I survived the first 3 months

I can see you are bottle feeding, is this with formula? How much are you offering every 3 hours? How min is he drinking?

Are you able to post a couple of days in EAS front for us to take a look at?

In the meantime, try not to worry too much, the evenings are often a hard time for younger babies. If you find the constant cuddling hard, can you use a sling or similar to give you a little break? Is there anyone else around to help at those difficult periods?

Hugs xx

[Beed]

Hi
Sorry for the delay!
Thank you for your reply and the links, they put me at ease a bit.  However, I'm still struggling with the evenings!  DS can't sleep on DH's chest the whole evening every night but he doesn't seem to want to go anywhere else and with a VERY loud cry and two other children in bed it's difficult!

He is on formula, yes and now takes 6oz, this last week not going 3 hours really, more like 2 1/2.  He will normally drink all 6oz but sometimes leaves some, never more than 1oz.  We try to follow the same as 3 hour routine but maybe 1/2 time difference.
I try to put him in a sling but he is too heavy for me, he's now 14lb 5oz!

Yesterday, after a very restless night, went like this:

6.45 E 6oz
7.15 A nappy change, Bouncy chair whilst breakfast for others
8.00 S in buggy for school run

9.00 E 6oz
10.00 A Play on mat and bouncy chair, nappy change
10.30 S fell asleep in bouncy chair then transferred to car seat for appt

12.00 E 6oz
12.40 A Talking on lap, nappy change
13.00 S back in car seat as still at appt

14.00 E 6oz
14.50 S school run
16.30 A talking and bouncing on knee

17.30 E 6oz
18.15 A Bath
19.00 S Fell asleep for 5 mins after I picked him up for crying whilst I sorted other children

19.40 E 5oz
20.30 A Talking and smiling
20.40 S on DH chest, moved onto his cushion on sofa whilst we ate dinner

22.00 E 3oz Dream Feed
22.30 S In moses basket as fell asleep on bottle

This was an abnormal 'car seat' day as we were at an appointment and DD had swimming after school pick up.  I would just like for him to go to sleep in his cot when at home and in the evenings!

02.40 E Breast

05.00 E Breast

06.45 E 6oz
07.20 A nappy change, Bouncy chair whilst breakfast for others
08.00 S In buggy on school run

10.00 E 6oz
10.30 A Nappy change and play mat
11.00 S In buggy on supermarket run

12.40 E 6oz
13.15 A Playmat, bouncy chair
13.40 S

15.50 E 5oz
16.20 S Fell asleep on bottle on my lap

17.00 Awake
17.50 E 5oz
18.40 A Bath
19.00 S Tried in cot, wouldn't go down

19.30 E 6oz
20.30 S on my chest

22.00 E 2oz Dreamfeed

02.40  E Breastfeed

Spent the rest of night grunting and snuffling and wanting to be on the breast, I am guilty of letting him comfort himself a bit 
 

[Beed]

Bump

[Beed]

Bump??

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, I'm sorry I haven't been back on for a few days. Are you able to post an EAS for a day when you were able to do more in the way of naps in the Moses basket, or are most days like this?

It does seem a bit like your LO is feeding at night for comfort, but I'm going to ask some ladies who have bf their babies to have a look as I did full FF at this age. Do you feel like the night feeds are full feeds?

I think really at this age you want to be aiming for an A time of approx 1hr 15 mins, and if you get a nap shorter than 1.5 hours then you may need to shift the next A time a bit shorter - say 1 hour only, instead. This is because the shorter naps are less restorative and he may need to sleep sooner again. But as none of the naps or night sleep are truely independent sleep (he is in a buggy or in car seat or on DH's chest) he might find it harder to settle at other times on his own too.

It sounds like you have quite a lot on your plate at home, do you feel like you devote some time to ST (pat/shh beig your starting point) or would his be too much for now? You could always start to aim for one nap each day in the Moses basket and see how you get on.

What are your thoughts?

[weaver]

I'm just wondering whether his unsettled-ness at night is to do with his feeding.  Absolutely no problem letting them fall asleep on the breast at night at this age, it's totally normal and practically unavoidable, and really rather nice   But I would be concerned that FF all day and BF only at night is undermining your supply.   Breasts respond to demand.  So if there's no demand during the day, your breasts could well be making a lot less milk and, as a result, LO might not be getting much when he goes to feed at night.  My hunch is that you might need to mix up your mixed feeding a bit more   maybe add some BFing during the day to stimulate supply, and get DH to do a FF night feed so you can sleep!

I'm not an expert though so perhaps it would be good to talk to these folks if you are in the UK, or someone similar
National Breastfeeding Line (government funded): 0300 100 021
which is run by the Breastfeeding Network, you can also contact them for a webchat and peer support.
http://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/breastfeeding-help/

and see what they say. Or you could post about it on our BFing board. 

If he's trying to stay on there a lot at night, he might be trying to build supply.  Babies really know their business when it comes to bfing! But remember that every drop of breastmilk he gets is a great benefit to him, so you're doing great to keep it in the mix.