Need help with 7 month bottle schedule- not sure what to do

[jmosery]

My son for the longest time has had the following routine:(maybe 2 months)

5:30        awake and 8 oz. bottle
7am        fruit only 1-2 oz.
8- 9:30    nap

10:00      8 oz. bottle
11:00      vegetables only 1-2 oz.
12- 1:30  nap

2:00       8 oz. bottle
3:00       vegetables and fruit 2-3 oz.
5-5:30    cat nap

6:15       8 oz. bottle
6:30       bed

about a week or so ago he started waking up at 4:30-5

I am finding the past couple days, that he's hungry then, so I feed him and put him back to bed and he sleeps till 7am

so now our whole day is messed up because when he wakes at 7am, he is not hungry for a bottle

i'm thinking he is getting up because he's not eating that many solids(he doesn't like that its so thin). I think he wants substance. so I think he's genuenly hungry

the past two days, he has woken at 4:30-4:45, ate an 8 oz. bottle and back to bed till 7am

i'm not sure what to do. yesterday I made some oatmeal and kept it thicker. He ate two tablespoons and some fruits and veggies. So i'm going to start giving him more oatmeal which should help hold him over

should I just go with the flow until he starts getting fuller. I'm afraid if I keep feeding him at 4:30, then he's going to get used to it. he can clearly go 12 hours plus if he wasn't hungry. he's been ding that since 3 months old

I don't want him eating more than 32 oz. of formula. doctor agrees he definetly desn't need it as he is already a "bigger kid" weighing 20 lbs. at 6 months

so what I did this morning was 8 oz. at 4:30 am, 7:15 he ate 2 tbl. cereal and 1.5 oz. fruit. i told the nanny to give him a bottle at 9:30-10 before his nap(which i hate doing) but I don't want him to wake from a nap because he's hungry

he can go longer than 4 hours without a bottle so trying to push it out and space it well today so he gets 4 bottles from 4:30 am- 7pm. going to try and put him to bed at 7pm, since he slept till 7am or even later tonight

should i just go with the flow until he figures things out. or should i make some kind of schedule. its all new. i know soon he might cut out a bottle if he DOES eat more solids. i'm just confused

it was easier when he was on his nice schedule

jaime

[Meggie]

Are you feeding your LO the solids until he is showing signs that he is full?  It might be an indication that he needs more solids.

You can also try feeding him only a couple ounces when he wakes early, then wake him up at his usual time at 5:30 to finish the bottle and start the day.  He might just need a little to hold himself over until when he normally wakes up.

[jmosery]

oh yeah, i feed him as much as he wants. he's a spirited baby and he doesn't like to "sit" in one place. so he won't sit in his high chair too long because he wants to go and play. we give him some toys on his chair that he plays with while he eats. if he doesn't have those, forget it, he doesn't want to sit.

i just think he doesn't like the consistancy of the solids. i don't have much time to make his baby food, so i buy stage 2 jars. he hated stage one. he would try to chew the food. half the time, he grabs the spoon from me and just chews on it(he's also teething)

thats why i think he liked the cereal yesterday since i made it thicker

i'll try giving him less formula and see what happens. you think i should do 1/2 the bottle at 4:30-5am and the other half at wake up

if he can sleep till 7am, i'd like to change his schedule from 6am- 7pm

[Meggie]

DD is the same way.  She used to grab at the spoon and the bowl and make a big mess at dinner time!  She is a better eater than your LO, but recently we found that she wasn't happy sitting there to eat.  We just started putting cheerios on her tray and she practices picking them up and putting them in her mouth while I feed her.  He might be ready for finger foods and would eat a lot more if he got them.

IF you want to change her routine to 6-7am I would suggest that you feed her as little as possible to get her to sleep that long. It might take a couple days to figure how much will hold her over, but 4 oz sounds like a good start.  If he can make it to 7am and drink the rest of the bottle, try 3 oz when he wakes.  When my DD was waking early out of hunger, I fed her only 2oz and it always did the trick.

Is he showing any signs of needing to drop the catnap?  He might be getting too much daytime sleep which might be causing the early nightwaking.

[jmosery]

thanks for the advice

he can only stay up 2.5 hours, sometiems 3 hours max, which is why we've been keeping in the cat nap

we would love to drop it but i don't think he's ready yet

the doctor said to try finger foods, i'm just afraid he'll choke. how do you know he won't?? never had to do it.

i bet he would LOVE finger foods. he loves to suck on carrots and those little mesh bags with fruit in them

[Meggie]

If his wake time is 5:30, bed should be at 5:30 for a 12 hour day.  Is there any reason that you are on a 13 hour day?  When we dropped the catnap Kaitlyn goes to bed when she needs to, sometimes she can stay up till 7pm, but if her A times weren't there, we will put her to bed an hour early.  This does not effect when she wakes up the next day.  Have you tried putting her down for the night at 5pm instead of the catnap?

You never know that they are not going to choke!  I watch her like a hawk.  That said babies DO know what to do with food when it goes in their mouth at this age.  Even if it gets partially stuck, they can cough it up just fine.  I started by feeding Kaitlyn VERY small pieces of bread and rice rusks by hand (so small that it could not get stuck in her windpipe).  She loved them.  Just watching her, I could tell that she was handling the small pieces really well.  She would sometimes cough one back up, but I think small  accidents teach them how to eat properly.  She now will eat cheerios, steamed carotts and pea halves really well.

One mistake that a lot of people make is they do not give a child time to try to cough up a piece of food that went down the wrong way.  As scary as it is to see your LO coughing because he choked on a piece of food, if he is coughing, then he is doing fine.  Coughs are very powerful and are the best thing to dislodge the food from the windpipe.  If you start frantically patting them on the back, it can actually do more harm than good and actually can make things worse.

It is scary ANY time you start finger foods. Good luck!

[jmosery]

we were on a 13 hour schedule because he was sleeping 11 hours straight

a couple times i tried putting him to bed at 5 or 5:30 but then i was getting 4am wake ups, so we just stuck to 5:30 wake up and 6:30 bed time which he was doing from 4-6 months

then we added solids and the early wake ups started and i've been battling them for a while

then last week i decided to try feeding him and putting him right back to bed. so that worked. so now i'm thinking, okay, he gets up at 7am, we'll put him down at 7pm, but like today, this has been his schedule

7am- 9:45 awake
9:45- 11:45 sleep
11:45- 3 awake
3-4 sleep(usually this is longer)
4- 6:30 awake

its only 6 here now but he is tired. probably because he didn't take a good second nap

so he is pretty much on a 12 hour schedule just with that 4:30 bottle

i'm going to try the solids. thanks. i think he'll really enjoy it

jaime

[Meggie]

I agree, if you can eliminate that 4:30 bottle, then the 7-6:30 sounds great.  I would start reducing the number of ounces in that feed.  Only you can decide how drastically you want to reduce it. Hopefully she will eventually stop needing it and then you have a great day!

[jmosery]

thank you so much

we are going on vacation tomorrow morning, always fun to mix it up right LOL right when things are getting crazy a vacation can really rev. up teh fun

i'll let you know how things go once we get back and settled

again, thanks for your help

jaime

[Meggie]

Have a great time!  Definitely let us know how things go.