When to feed once at night?

[brownj59]

Hi All,
I am looking to wean my DS who is 7mo old down to just one feeding  at night. Right now he wakes up every 2-3hrs. I was wondering what time would be good to feed him at night? I was thinking 1am. He normally goes to bed around 7pm and gets up about 6am.

[lily_layne]

I think 1 am sounds right. How do you plan to handle the other NWs? Would you like me to take a look at your nap routine to see if changing anything there may help the NWs?

[brownj59]

Thanks. Currently I am trying to extend DS A times from 2:15-2:30/2:45 and get him to just two naps a day.  But I just started doing pu/pd for his naps to wean him of the pacifier and I plan to do pu/pd for bedtime and NW. I just started today. So far so good. What do you think?

Janel

[lily_layne]

That sounds like a good plan. Just in case it helps, this is the routine my DS was on at 7 months:
WU: 6:30/7
S: 9:30-11
S: 1:30-3/3:30
BT: 7
It worked quite well for a few months. I did set naps (same time each day) rather than A times because I got way too stressed with chasing A times with DD and it worked great. Even if he slept later, he was still ready for a nap at 9:30 and even at 10 months still likes the same nap time. I think something similar would work even with a 6 am WU as the book it's from says a WU anywhere between 6 and 7. We dropped the 3rd nap sooner (at 5 months) but we dropped it quite quickly and then I just aimed to put him to bed 3 hours after his last nap ended.

Was the paci becoming a prop? Do you think losing it will help with NWs?

[brownj59]

Thanks,  it is good idea. I think I will stick to nap times not worrying about the exact awake time because I have a 3 year old DS.  His pacifier was not a big problem but I could tell it was going to be one. But mostly I weaned him of it because everything I read said you can't do pu/pd with a prop and they suggested weaning naps and bedtime at the same time.

Yesterday was my first day of weaning the pacifier and feeding only once at night. It went better than I expected. Normally it would take no longer than 20 minutes for him to fall asleep and we only had one long session at 5am when he was thinking about waking up. The AM he went down for his nap with no pu/pd.

Thanks for you help and encouragement.

[lily_layne]

Glad it went well.

Set naps have worked really well here and it released me from the burden of always figuring out the right A time. I am still flexible with times but I don't worry about him having exactly 2h30 A time from the time he woke and he short napped so it needs to be less, etc, etc. I will PD 15-30 minutes early if he woke quite early in the am or had a very short nap and will do an earlier BT if naps weren't great but otherwise it's pretty much the same every day.

[brownj59]

Any advise for getting DS to sleep later in the morning? He has been getting up at 6am sharp talking and playing in his crib. I am hoping not to have to do pu/pd but there would be some magical easy thing I can implement to help him sleep another how. Or do you think he will grow out of it and naturally sleep longer on his own?

[lily_layne]

Some LO's are just early risers. If he's happy, PU/PD won't work - it's only for when they're crying. What time is he going to bed? Is he getting a decent night's sleep? I can look at routine and see if any changes might help him to sleep a bit later.

[brownj59]

Here is what our days kinda look like. Keep in mind I am pushing him to stay up 2 1/2 - 3 hours to keep it to only two naps a day.

6am- Wake up & Nurse

8:30- Nap

10/10:30am Wake & Nurse

1/1:30pm Nap

3/3:30pm Wake & Nurse

5pm Nurse ( I try to feed him a couple times before bed to fill him up)

6:30pm Bed

It would be nice to have a 7am to 7pm schedule. It is kinda hard to start getting him ready for bed at 6pm because it is in the middle of my husband coming home and dinner.

[lily_layne]

That's a pretty great routine. I know 7-7 often is easier to work with but if you're getting good naps and good nights I would be tempted just to make my peace with 6 am wake ups and the hassle at BT and focus on enjoying all your free time with your DH in the evening  If you really want to shift it, I would recommend starting a new thread asking for advice on shifting your day. It would probably be something similar to what happens for daylight savings but since I live in the only area of Canada that doesn't have DST, I have no idea how to go about it!