19 week old

[Jlbst171]

Hello was looking for some help and guidance with my sons routine

I am trying to follow a 3 hour easy routine starting with the first feed at 7 am. I exclusively pump breastmilk and feed this during the day and give formula for last bottle of day and any middle of the night wakings.

He will sleep pretty consistently for the 1st nap of the day - however he usually wakes up eArlier than 7 am and I try my best to get him to wait until as close to 7 as possible to eat. I just started offering 5 ounces in his bottle - not sure if this sounds like enough (he is 14 pounds).

Here is our schedule
Wakes anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30
Eat bottle pumped milk around 7 (5 ounces)
2 hour awake time
Nap around 8:30/9 depends on wake up
Sleeps for 2-3 hours! -- should I wake him?

From this point on I usually feed him about every 3 hours - the rest of his naps are short (30-45 min).
I have introduced solids 1x day and he loves them

How much should I be aiming for in each bottle?

He still wakes 1-2x a night but it is very inconsistent- it was just 1x somewhere between 3-4am and would eat and go back to sleep but now it's about every 3.5 to 4.5 hours throughout the night - sometimes he will drink. 4.5 ounce bottle at both wakings and sometimes he won't drink all

Should he still be waking so much? He has done 3 nights in row of sleeping all night 8-7:45am but hasn't in about 2 weeks!

Help!

[trimbler]

Hi there Can I ask a few questions which might help us to understand the situation a bit better? Firstly, please could you post the whole day's routine (or an example day - pick an actual day rather than an average), eg:

WU 6am but chatting in cot until getting up 7am
E 7am
S 8:30-11
E 11am
S 1-1:45 (any resettling attempts etc?)
... Or however it is for you

Secondly - could you tell us a bit about how he's settling for sleep and where he naps? How much help do you give him, for example? Are you out and about or at home in the cot? Swaddled?

I didn't quite understand what you said about night feeds - sometimes he drinks 4.5oz twice in the night, and sometimes nothing at all, or did you mean not all of the 4.5 oz offered?

Tbh it's quite usual for a 4.5mo to still be feeding twice in the night, especially considering that there's a growth spurt around 4mo. On the nights where he feeds well and goes straight back to sleep, I'd consider that normal, he'll grow out of it eventually but probably just needs the milk then for now. On nights where he doesn't want milk but is awake for some time, what does that look like? Is he crying/babbling/fussing/squirming/gassy? What do you do to settle him when he wakes?

Regarding the long morning nap, in general the advice is not to let them sleep more than 2h at this age, or it can backfire later on - just a rule of thumb of course, but it seems to work for many LOs.