10.5 mo. old - early waking from hunger?

[anna-mama]

My 10.5 mo. old touchy/spirited DD goes for about 10h without food at night, but wakes early, around 4:15 - 5:00. It seems to me she's hungry. After a feed (not only a nip) she falls asleep for another hour or so. She's clearly tired then, but can't go back to sleep without a feed (I've tried for several nights for up to 1.5 hours - without feeding, she sometimes would fall asleep again for 5-10 min., then wake unhappy). Her pediatrician told me that at age 9 mo., they can go for 8-10h at night without food, another ped said 12h. So I don't know if she really needs an early feeding or not. She's very tall but lean for her age. As for self-soothing, she's doing fine at bedtime (though we are still working on naps). If she wakes earlier at night, she sometimes needs my help to go back to sleep (laying her down from standing, giving a sip of water), but never a feed.

Is that a common pattern at that age, to need an early morning feed and sleep on after that? How many hours can they go without food?

Our routine:

6:00 wake and BF (that's the part that does not work :-(   )
7:30 solids
9:00 nap
10:30 BF
12:30 solids
2:00 nap
3:30 BF
5:30 solids
6:30 wind down / BF
7:00 bedtime

Thanks so much!

[macsmum]

recently my ds has been doing this and i have been feeding him, i think he is hungry cos he has been off his food a bit due to teething and illness

Emma

[rebecaq]

Hi there,

{{{HUGS}}}
Babies sure love to throw us for a spin, don't they?

Has she always waken early? Has she hit any milestones lately? How much solids is she eating?

- Beca

[anna-mama]

Beca,

She's always been up early, but not SO early, more like 6:00. Milestones: I don't think so. She's been crawling for 3 months now, but hasn't started to walk, cruises a bit. How much solids is difficult to say, she's taking only fingerfoods so I can't count ounzes (refused spoon-feeding at 9 mo.!). And she's picky, lives mainly on bread cubes, cheerios, crackers and bananas.    And breast milk, of course. An example for a large meal would be half a banana and a dozen bread cubes (thumb nail size) and a few baby crackers. A small meal would be 1/3 - 1/2 of it. Three solid meals a day, 4 BFs.

Just to be clear about it, I don't mind feeding her so early, it's only that I am afraid I might reintroduce BF as sleeping aid. We worked really hard to stop that! 

[rebecaq]

Hmmmm,

By the sounds of it, it could be her solids. How do you go about introducing new food to her? My ds went through a "hate the spoon" phase. I let him play with it till kingdom come and since 13 months it been a fight to have him give it back    Meals are messy but he eats himself which makes me happy in the end.

About the waking early, this may sound crazy, but have you tried an earlier bedtime? Just by 30 mins maybe? When Tracy said "Sleep begets sleep" she wasn't kidding. If I miss bedtime by as little as 15 mins ds will rise early the next day. And spirited babies need a good night's rest. It's worth a shot 

- Beca

[anna-mama]

Do you mean she's taking not enough solids, or not the right choices? Maybe not enough fat in her diet? How much solids should she have? BTW, over the last 6 weeks she lost a little bit of weight instead of gaining!

About the spoon, she had a play spoon ever since we started solids (at 6.5 mo.). She lost interest in it. I continued to offer spoon food once a day after she started to reject it, but after 2 weeks or so I gave up because I always had to eat it myself. Should I continue offering it?

About new foods, I simply keep on offering new foods for a few days, and then again a week later or so for a few days again, and so on. She does eat a few types of veggies and fruits and a bit of meat, but only small amounts. I'm a bit limited in my choices because a lot of allergies run in our family and I don't offer her dairy products or eggs yet. Suggestion about appealing food alternatives for DD without dairy/eggs would be highly welcome!

Yes, we moved her bedtime by 30 min (from 7:30 to 7:00) but no effect...

And I forgot to mention one big change that took place: she started to sleep through the night sometimes (i.e. every other night, on average) around the time the early waking started. Before that, she was up at least once nearly every night.

Thanks again!