Sleeping Through the Night and Feeding Schedule

[dallinsmommy]

I need some advice; I'm not really sure what's best to do-I know it's not a BIG thing; but, I'm just not sure how to tackle it. Okay, here goes.

My son is now 7 months and finally started sleeping for a good strech at night-he goes down to bed between 6:45 and 7:00 p.m. (nurses around 6:40 each night); well, he was waking around 1:30 each morning to nurse; however, over the past two months or so he's been pusing that time back and now wakes between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. to nurse. Well, he's not ready to wake at that time and goes back down to sleep until 7:00 ish. So, this is throwing our schedule into chaos. If I try nursing him at 7 he's not hungry-he take a good feed at 5 a.m.; however, he is ready to nurse at 9:00 a.m., which is naptime and I don't want to nurse him to sleep for naps (unless it's best); well, all of this is also throwing off our solids schedule as well. If I offer solids at 8:00 a.m. he eats and eats-but, I want him to get as much breastmilk as possible. Ack! This probably has a simple solution; but I just can't figure it out.

Our schedule a month ago was perfectly organized; however, I just can't figure this out now-it needs tweaking, but I'm not sure how. My son used to nurse at roughly 7, 11, 3, and 6:30 and then around 1:30 ish each early morning. He had two 'meals' a day at 8 and 4. Should he be adding a third meal now?

Any advice on tweaking our schedule and feeding times would be wonderful. I'm so confused at what's happening and am not sure how to fix it. I'm thrilled he's sleeping more; but, so confused.

Oh-he still needs quite a bit of sleep; only stays up about 2 hours at a time and is rubbing his eyes and fussing-if I keep him up longer then he's back at the 45 minute naps; however, if I put him down closer to 1 hour 45 minutes then he'll nap like a champ for 1 1/2-2 hours at a time. He usually has two long naps and a cat nap. I kow we need to consolidate naps; however, he doesn't seem ready for less sleep quite yet. He's sleeping 12 hours each night as well.

Sorry for all the information; I just want to put it all out there. Thanks again ladies-You're wonderful!

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

What I used to do with that night feed was offer the minimum that my dd would let me.  So I'd detach her after a few minutes, usually she didn't mind, and I'd just pop her back into bed and then she'd feed well at 7am. 

As far as napping - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  If you're still getting 12hrs at night and then 2 good naps plus the catnap and your ds is content and happy I wouldn't mess with it yet.  You'll know when things might need changing - not settling for a nap when he used to, not settling at bedtime or maybe not sleeping as long at night.

Not sure about adding an extra solid feed in just yet, my dd only really took to solids at 7mths, but pretty quickly made her way onto 3 meals once she figured it out.  So hopefully someone else can help you out with that bit.

HTH