feeding before bed - question

[sherilee]

Hi

I feed ds at 6.30 then bath 6.45 and bed at 7. he still wakes up for feed between 10 and 10.30ish and then sleeps through till 7am but Im wondering if I should change the feed to after his bath. Will that make him go right through without the 10.30 feed? Or should I just keep to what is working (he has only stopped waking every hour in the last month.)?

Thanks

Sherilee xxx

[Deb_in_oz]

how old is your lo?
i don't really think a huge difference would be made by moving the feed from 6:30 to 7pm. if he is taking a full feed bet 10-10:30 then i don't think you will compensate for those calories (and the effect they have which is carrying him through to morning)

[sherilee]

Hi

He is 7 months old. The other thing is that as he has feed then bath (as I was trying to dis-associate feeding with sleeping which seems to have worked), he doesnt get a very long bath, I feel Im depriving him of fun lol! Also, if it gets to 10.30 and he hasnt woken up, I go and feed him anyway, am I doing the right thing? 8 out of 10 times he wakes for it but if he hasnt Im sometimes too tired to wait up! The rest of his day is pretty much clockwork (other than he wont touch and savoury solids!)

7am up and breastfeed for 5-10 mins
8.30 cereal/porridge
9/9.30 sleep for 45 - 1 hour

11 bottle 4 ounces
11/12ish solids yoghurt, fruit
12.30/12.45 sleep for anywhere between 45mins - 2 hours

2.30/3pm 5-6 ounce bottle
4/4.30 SOMETIMES catnap for 45 mins but hasnt done this for 5 days now so I think he is naturally dropping it
5/5.30 dinner - baby rice, fruity rice pudding or yoghurt and a baby biscuit
6.60 breastfeed 10 mins
6.45 bath
7 bed

10/10.30 12 min breastfeed

Ive tried getting more calories into him in the day but he refuses to take more than his normal amounts of breast feeds or bottle ounces and getting him to have more solids is met with pursed lips and screaming!

xxx

[Deb_in_oz]

hi

a couple of things you could do to try to get more calories (and i know some won't increase as my dd2 was like that which is why we kept the DF until she was almost 9 mo old  ) is that 11am bottle - if he takes 4 oz in 1 go you could try giving him a 10-15 min break and then offer him the rest of a full bottle and see if he takes 2-3 more oz. this worked really well with Liv who otherwise woudl always take only 3-4 oz, this led to her taking 6-8oz per feed. also, at bedtime you could do BF, bath, BF top up to get a few more calories in and where he won't "take" savoury i woudl keep offering different ones at every meal as you never know which one he will take or what day he will start (olivia never liked /accepted yogurt or apples from day 1 of solids and now they are her 2 favourite foods. if i had not kept offering every few days i woudl not have known). make sure to include some carbs in each meal (rice cereal/porridge/etc) as these will also help in the long term sleep - especially at dinner. i foundif you give cereal at dinner rather than breakfast it helps with longer night stretches. so if you can't increase QUANTITIES try to go for bulk so that the calories get increased even if the quantity does not (a bowl of porridge woudl sustain him lponger at night than some pureed apple for example)

about the 10:30 feed - your call. if he is not waking for all of them i woudl be tempted to leave him to his own devices at 7 mo and see how he changes over the next 2 weeks. it is a short period to wait and see (i know it is a pain to have to get up but you coudl find that with a few changes in the day and not waking him up at 10:30 he will re-adjust his natural rhythm and start sleeping all the way thorugh at least some of the nights and it will improve from there)  HTH