Another ? about night feeds

[MomToMatthew]

I was getting all prepared to do the water down bottle thing to see if it would stop my LO from waking up 4 or 5 times a night. But then I started to think... Although he wakes up 5 times, I will only feed him one of those times. Since I am only feeding him once, could that still be causing the night awakenings? And if I am feeding him only once, would feeding a watered down bottle at each awakening actually cause more problems? How should I handle this? Should I just do the watered down bottle at the one time that I'm feeding him presently? Should I do a bottle at each awakening because maybe he's waking hoping it will be the one where I feed him? Or should I not change anything and continue to just calm him back to sleep 4 times out of the night and do a regulare breast feed the one time? Help! I am soooo tired I need some type of plan!

[MomToMatthew]

Can you post you routine, your los age, how you put to sleep etc.. do you have any props? Is there any medical issues like reflux?  What do you do other wakings with no bottle?

My son is almost 8 months old. Bedtime routine is bath, jammies, bottle of expressed breastmilk, then upstairs to bed by 7. Usually we lay him down, put a hand on his chest, and try to walk out while he's drowsy. If he's acting wound up, we'll use the paci, but try and pull it out as he's dropping off. Sometimes my husband just leaves it in and will also rock the crib until he's extra drowsy. (I try not to do this. Grrrrr) No medical issues. At the awakenings when I don't bf him, it usually involves repeatedly laying him back down because he's crawling, sitting up, or had pulled himself into a kneeling or standing position on the crib railing. In between the "lay downs" there is a lot of crying so I shussh in his ear and lay a hand on his chest. When he starts to accept that and calm down he holds onto my hand and rolls onto his side. Many times when I try to pull my hand away it starts all over again. When he gets really upset, it seems like his next awakening will often only be 30-40 minutes later. The daily routine (which is pretty new since I just started swaddling him again and finally getting longer than 30 minutes naps) is:
Awake 6:30 - 7 and breastfeed
bf again around 9
1st nap 9:30- 11 or 10-11:15 depending on wake up time then bf
bf again sometime before next nap
2nd nap 2:30 - 3:45 or 3- 4:15 then bf
bed at 7pm

Do you see anything that might be causing all these wake ups? He used to be so good. He'd wake up around 2:30 for a feed and then go in 3 hour spans from then on. He doesn't have any teeth yet, but I don't see any swelling or anything in his mouth. Any advice or ideas to try would be so great.

[MomToMatthew]

The bf are never right before a nap, just somewhere in between wake up and the nap. He is just so easily distracted that I try to get them in where ever I can, but I never do it as part of a nap routine. Last night he cried hard for an hour and a half. I finally got him to settle and go back to sleep, but he awoke an hour later. I ended up feeding him that time. The one time that I do feed him out of the 4 or 5 night awakenings, he gets so relaxed that he is practically asleep by the time I get him back in his crib. But it seems hard to believe that this one time out of all the other times that I put him to sleep without eating could be causing all those night awakenings. I'm at such a loss.

[MomToMatthew]

Stacy, thanks so much for your thoughts. Regarding the waiting longer between feeds. He is 20 pounds, 8 months old. Should I try to stick really hard to 4 hours between bf during the day even if he gets fussy? Also, since he takes a full eating before bed, what if his first wake is only 2 or 3 hours after that last feed. Should I feed him then? Regarding the laying him back down at night, he is always crying, not fussing, but it isn't frantic. Do I wait until he gets that horrible frantic cry before laying him down? Do I even put off going into his room until he is frantically crying? I'm just so worried about breaking that trust we've developed. I can tell the difference between a cry and a fuss, but I don't really no when to respond when it comes to the different kinds of actual cries. My husband wants to turn off the monitor and let him cry so I feel like I'm running out of time. I told him we should try everything else before we resort to a cop out like CIO, but he's losing patience, I'm getting tired, and it has become my responsibility at night. I just don't know what to do.

[MomToMatthew]

Thanks again for your help. I have read that exerpt on CIO and have it saved in my favorites. I did feed after the first awakening last night. It might have been a little better because I was able to just soothe him with my words when he woke up 3 hours later. But then he woke up again an hour after that. Since it had been 4 hours since his last feed I did feed him again. Was that okay? Also, when I'm not laying him down myself, but I'm letting him fuss and see if he can settle on his own, should i be present in the room so he sees me, or stay out of the room and only go in if he really gets to that horrible cry?

[MomToMatthew]

Once again Stacy, I want to thank you for all your help and being so readily available. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of his feeds yesterday were pretty close to 4 hours apart. It really was a more enjoyable experience because he was WAY less distracted and he did eat more. (I feel kind of silly that I've been struggling so long and getting frustrated with his distraction and it was really a pretty straightforward fix.) Since I only had 6 oz of expressed breast milk, I mixed in two more oz of formula for his bedtime bottle. (I'm glad I hung on to the samples from the hospital.) Then he slept 7 hours before waking up!!!  I fed him, put him back down awake using mainly some comforting words, and he didn't wake up till 7am (4.5 hours after that awakening.) Do you think the fact that I used a bottle rather than the breast for the night feed made it less appealing to wake up again? I hope this is really the turn around and not just a one night fluke. So thank you again for all your help and always responding to my posts so that I could go to bed comforted that I had a plan, rather than heading off to bed dreading what the night might bring.