You may have seen my original plea for help on facebook regarding Isla's night time feedings. I'm seriously about to lose my mind. She has been waking up between 12-1am and 4-6am for 6 oz each feeding. This cannot be normal for an 8 month old. At her 6 month visit the doctor said she does not need to be eating at night anymore, so I'm wondering if maybe I'm not feeding her enough during the day?
Isla has anywhere from 24-32oz of formula per day. For breakfast I've been feeding her a small bowl of rice cereal and a tub of baby food (fruit). Lunch is probably the meal where I'm totally failing...because sometimes she eats food, sometimes she just takes a bottle. It depends on her mood and our schedule. She has at least has 6-8oz of formula for lunch, and often 1 tub of baby food. For dinner she either has 2 tubs of baby food (veggies) or she has 1 tub of baby food and green beans. Green beans is as far as I've gone with introducing table food.
Anyway, I thought this was enough food, but maybe I'm wrong?? I just don't know why else she'd be waking up so hungry twice a night, when she previously slept the entire night through.
I previously blogged about giving her 3 oz, then 2 oz, and then 1 oz....but that didn't work as I had hoped. She was fine taking 3 and 2 oz, but she woke up more frequently at night for more. The 1 oz bottle was essentially a joke, and she screamed immediately after she finished it until I gave her more.
HELP! What should I do? Part of me wants to just go in and comfort her without bringing a bottle...but I would have to endure nights of screaming. Plus if she really is hungry, I don't want to torture her! Thoughts/suggestions/volunteers for night time feedings are appreciated!
7 years ago
2 comments:
Clearly I am not one to give advice. Gus wakes up throughout the night constantly, and I actually know he's hungry, because he eats the bare minimum throughout the day. He clearly is LOVING his nighttime eating/snuggles with mom. ;) For me it's a vicious cycle. I won't feel comfortable cutting out the nighttime feedings completely until he starts eating better during the day. But I can't get him to eat better during the day because he's full from his all-night long nursing fests!
Anyway, totally different problem than you're having, because it sounds to me like Isla is getting plenty of food throughout the day. Though maybe it's a growth spurt? Are you giving her a nice big bottle at night before bedtime? I do know that until they're a year old, most of a baby's actual nutrition should be coming from breastmilk or formula, so if you're going to up her intake during the day, make it formula, not solids.
I'm reading a book called The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley, and she lays out steps and a lot of great methods for getting your baby to sleep through the night that don't involve crying it out. I just need to find the energy to start implementing a plan, because our biggest problem is that Gus doesn't know how to fall asleep on his own when he wakes up. And teaching him that is going to take some major work. Anyway, I would totally recommend the book, she takes a really loving and compassionate view of babies and sleep, and totally makes you feel like you're not alone in suffering from stressful nightwakings.
This sounds like what Lincoln did about that age. At Lincoln's 9 month appointment, our doctor told us that he wasn't necessarily hungry, he was just waking up during his regular sleep cycle but couldn't put himself back to sleep. She suggested playing music for him when we put him to bed and we could put it on again for him if he woke up in the middle of the night. She also suggested having a very scheduled bedtime routine. According to her, our sleep cycles are 3-4 hours and sure enough, he was waking up every 3-4 hours. She suggested putting water in his bottle so he wouldn't want to eat or rocking him for a minute or two and putting him back in bed. We definitely had a few sleepless nights, but after 3-4 nights he figured out that he wasn't going to eat and he learned how to put himself back to sleep. We also made sure that we put him in bed while he was still awake so that he'd learn to put himself to sleep.
It isn't easy...we didn't do a good job with it and I was up 3-4 times a night a few nights a week. The good news is that they grow out of it, so even if you didn't change anything, she'll eventually learn to sleep through the night :)
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