5 month old, habitual feeding multiple times at night

[A.F.]

Hi,

My Son is 5.5 months old. and i would really appreciate some advice.

From when he was born, he slept about 5 hours at night, which was great. at two months, started sleeping even longer (fed him at 12, slept till 7).

at 3 months old, i was planning on going back to work. since he only breast-fed, i started sending him to babysitter so he can learn to take a bottle. it took a full 2 weeks. it was not surprising he started waking up at night (at 3:30)!

by now, he eats well at the babysitter, but wakes up even more often (12, 3:30, 5:30).

he will not take a bottle from anyone but his morning babysitter. tried giving him one at night, he just spat it out. tried putting him back down (pu/pt), it took an hour to get him back to sleep, but then he slept for a few good hours.

what i do now is only give him a short feed, he is usually ok with that. (unless i stop too quickly).

seems to wake up out of habit. but how can i help him change this habit? won't take bottle or pacifier, and if i stop breast-feeding to early he screams... otherwise, a really good baby, on good easy schedule.

6:30 e
a
9:15 s
11 e (bottle)
11:30 e (solids)
12:45 s
2:00 e
a
3:30 s
5:00 e
7:00 s - for night
12:00 e
3:30 e
5:30 e

thank you so much.

[jessmum46]

How much milk is he having during the day (oz?) and is it breast milk or formula?

Is he an independent sleeper?

[A.F.]

he has one bottle of 4 oz, then with his solids another 2.
how can i know how much oz he is taking when breastfeeding?

he is just getting over his 4 month regression, i our him to sleep mostly shush-pat.

correction - baby is 4.5 months old. not 5.5

[jessmum46]

If he's only 4.5mo he's on a lot of solids and really not a lot of daytime milk unless you've missed some feeds out there?  So far that's 3 bottles of 4oz each - does he have a breastfeed at bedtime and at WU? Obviously you can't tell exactly how much he is getting with breastfeeding but I'd be worried that given how much he seems to be having he is waking through genuine hunger at night.  For a breastfed baby feeding overnight 2 or 3 times is totally normal at this age, so I think my approach would be to cut back on solids, make sure he is getting in at least 4-5 good feeds between WU and BT and then see how it goes.

The other thing to consider is how he gets to sleep.  If you are still shh patting all the way then he's not an independent sleeper and working on that may help  

[FPT23]

Hi there and welcome to the forums

I hope you are able to find some comfort and advice you are looking for here! You've came to the right place and we are happy to see new mommies!

I agree w/ Jessmum, I breastfeed and my LO still eats at least once at night. Is there any particular reason you began solids already? What kind of foods are you giving him? Could they be causing some discomfort perhaps? Or how is he during the day?  When you started giving him bottle- is it breast milk in the bottle or formula? If formula, it could be an adjustment and again, perhaps some discomfort to consider.

Sorry for the questions but just to help narrow things out PU/PD is normally used as a last resort. There are more gentle ways such as shh/pat (varied) ...sometimes it's good to see babies EASY and see if anything needs to be tweaked there

I do notice his A times are a bit up and down through the day. Here's a good link to review to have an idea of how much awake time before a nap is needed.

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

 At this age also, your preferably looking at 2 naps of 1.5 hrs each and one catnap of 30/45 mins. Your averaging very long naps all day which is fantastic however, it could also, at this age, start cutting into his night sleep. I have a 20 week old who for the last 1-2 weeks started NWing and after taking a step back (and getting passed the regression too!) some of the moms here suggested pushing A times and in time it fell into place. I believe he also was getting long naps as a way of crashing out during the day instead of using some of the time at night.

Hope this helps some xo

[A.F.]

Thank you guys. it is very helpful to be able to get advice on these maters!

jessmum46 - he nurses at 5:30am, 6:30am, then when i get back from work at 4:00pm, and 5:30pm. in between, he is by babysitter in the morning - that is 6 oz (+rice formula) between 9:00 and  1:30pm. afternoon babysitter gives only solids.
i used to feed him at bedtime (7:00pm), but since i stopped (a week ago), he dropped also his 10:00pm feed immediately.

FPT23 - thank you! the reason i began with solids is because he refuses to take a bottle. this way i can sneak in the formula he takes either formula + rice cereal or apple sauce + rice cereal. i also feel sometimes like he is not satisfied after feed, bit can't give him a bottle so i top it up with apple sauce.

baby seems very happy during the day. he naps well by now, and is settles, plays nicely, does not cry a lot. well developed and smily. though he is easy going, so can be easy to miss discomfort.

you are probably right about the long naps - it is when he settled in to a better napping schedule that he woke up at night. but he is truly tired, and if i push him off he just gets un-happy .


based on both of yours advice, i asked morning babysitter to drop the solids and instead give him more bottle. also working on giving him a bottle myself, no luck yet. let's see how it goes.

[FPT23]

Hi! Hope it all works out!

Well I didn't mean push A time necessarily. You may want to consider capping the naps. 2 of them to 1.5 and that last nap (which is long) to 45 mins. It could be he's in a loop of being UT tired at night possibly (with his night wakes) and then making up for it and being OT during his day and just sleeping. His first A is rather long for his age and the rest are fairly short but it could be a matter of just adjusting and tweaking his easy a tad! I know it helped ours!

Xo

[jessmum46]

That really isn't a lot of daytime milk   Most babies at this age would need a minimum of 4-5 breastfeeds in the day plus possibly 2 or even 3 overnight.  Sadly with LO being so young there really is no substitute for milk - the solids you are giving don't have much in the way of calories or nutrition so all they will do is fill your LOs stomach with bulk, so LOs appetite for milk decreases in the day and compounds your problem at night.  If it were me I would cut back on solids, perhaps removing them entirely and focus on getting a good amount of milk into your LO.  I know it's hard if LO won't take a bottle well but there are alternatives - cup (have you seen doidy cups?  good for breastfed babies), syringe, spoon....

[A.F.]

thanks so much everyone.
i put back the 7 o'clock feed, but put lo to sleep a bit later, at 7:75. guess what  he wakes up now at 12, as usual, and again at around 4, and then 7. so there is a bigger gap in between feedings at night now.

I also added another bottle feed in the morning, and increased the amount. hopefully he will be more satisfied.

i would appreciate if you can refer me to the variations you mentioned - "There are more gentle ways such as shh/pat (varied)"

[A.F.]

My baby is now almost 6 months old!

In one of the interviews with tracy, she discusses the issue of babies suddenly waking up more and she says to feed them as much as possible during the day. but my baby is not a huge eater, and he is just not interested.... he wakes up even more often now - i feed him at 8pm, 10pm, 12am, 3am, 6am...!!!  by day he can go much longer then that and not want to eat

his sleep is slowly getting better - falls asleep pretty easily with quite patting on the back. He has on occasion woken up at night and fallen back to sleep himself, but not too often. usually he just wakes right back up for his feed...

besides for this baby is super happy by day, and his development is very advanced.

what do i do?

[A.F.]

finding this so confusing
my experience with my older son was so different.... he adapted to E.A.S.Y so much more naturally

this one is much more of a "happy-go-easy", why eat now, if i can play? why take bottle if i can sleep, and nurse later

[Meggyfunk]

Hi there -

I'm a first time mom and have only just started the Baby Whisper book, so I am definitely not an expert, nor do I know all of Tracy's suggestions and tricks. Most of what I've practiced with our son has been from what I've picked up on this forum. We just went through habitual night feeds with my son that began an hour after bedtime and continued every 2-3 hours until morning. He had previously slept through the night (6-10 hour stretches). After about 5 weeks, lots of googling, reading and speaking with his pediatrician, I made the decision to begin weaning his night feedings. It's been just over a week now and he's no longer waking to feed at night, and sleeping 11-12 hours. I planned to continue with one night feeding until he was ready to wean himself not anticipating it to happen so quickly. If weaning some of the feedings interests you, you could check with your pediatrician for advice to see if night weening may be an option or recommendation, while ensuring your little one is getting their nutritional needs met during the daytime. I tracked his day and night feedings by expressing milk and feeding him from a bottle. In our case, he was "snacking" at night, so weaning appropriate for us. I wish I had more to offer, this is simply what worked for us.

[jessmum46]

Great advice from Meggyfunk

Feeds that often sound like a bit of a prop/habit issue to me - what do you think about trying to tackle them?  You may need to cut feeds at night first in order for him to be hungry enough to eat well in the day, so not have to wake at night time (hope that makes sense!).

[ireneasheard]

I agree that frequent night feeds would be contributing to not eating much during the day and that it needs to be cut out if possible. I fell into accidental parenting and my boy was waking every 3 hours on the dot to feed after I was sick. Fortunately I recognised it and resettled and stopped night feeds so he only has his dreamfeed again. This in turn encouraged better feeds during the day.