Reintroducing night feed at 5mo (FF)...wwyd?

[BotBotticelli]

Ds2 is 5mo this week.

He is FF and has a large 8oz dream feed at 10pm (bed at 7pm with another large bottle). A couple of months ago he stopped having a night feed because he seemed happy enough over night and stopped drinking his breakfast bottle.

However in the last month his sleep has gone to shit. 4 month sleep regression hell (see my previous threads). Over Xmas we hit a low point where he was waking every 40 mins from midnight until 0530 when he was up for the day. So we have got rid of the dummy which has almost instantly improved things. He now sleeps well from his 10pm dream feed until some time in between 0200-0400 where he wakes up crying.

When he wakes up we leave him for 3 mins then shhhh pat. And then 5mins and then shh pat. For a few days this sent him back to sleep until 0630 (bliss!) but now he will not settle in the night unless we feed him.

So we have started a night bottle again at any time from 0230-0400 depending on when he wakes. This does send him back to sleep but then he will only drink 1-2oz of his breakfast bottle at 8am which then fucks up his feed routine for the rest of the day :-(

Wwyd? Would you just stick the bottle in at night for an easy life and then just accept that he won't have much of a morning feed? And accept that this will probably change in the next few weeks as he starts to eat solids? (We have started with a little bit of baby porridge this week - no comments or judgements on this please! Weaned my first son on purees at 5mo and it worked for us. Plus ds2 is 98th centile and already weighs 20lb, don't think milk is gonna cut it much longer!).

Or would you persevere with a bit of shhh pat and gentle sleep training st night to try and drag him out till a sensible "morning bottle"
Time rather than 4am?

[dementedpixie]

I would try giving the smallest amount of milk you can get away with so it's not a full bottle he is having

[uhoh2016]

Try offer him water in the night in the hope he might think it's not worth waking for. No judgements from me re weaning early all babies are different they are ready when they are ready. If you think he's waking with hunger try increasing foods in the day maybe offer some porridge before bed to fill him up a bit more

[nephrofox]

I would feed him. 5mo is classic time for waking for an extra bottle (which often leads to early weaning).

[jennifer86]

I remember DS going through something similar, feeding during the night then wouldn't have anything in the morning, it was infuriating as he would go 8-10hrs between the night feed and when he would eventually be hungry in the morning, but he wouldn't do that stint overnight! We tried offering water instead but it just made him angry. In the end we gave a diluted feed if he woke overnight eg 6 scoops in 7oz (210ml). Not sure if that helped or if he just grew out of it as he became happier with solid food.

[ODog]

I was never a feeding routine kind of person. I would just feed him when he's hungry. As you know sleep and night feeds are not linear and there will be times when babies will suddenly needing more food in the night again. Don't worry about the routine and just go with what your baby needs/wants at that time. That way everyone gets more sleep and is less stressed and happier all round. You may just have to take out an extra bottle and milk when out and about.

[Lucy61]

I also say start thinking about feeding him. Is he just 5 months or nearly 6 months?

[waitingforsomething]

I have a similar baby. He is 5.5 months and I give him a tiny night feed when he wakes as I can't be doing with staying up for hours trying to convince him to sleep!
He doesn't take much morning bottle- I don't really care tbh, he has a bit of porridge then he's usually hungry mid morning so just give him a big bottle then instead.

[waterrat]

I think at such a young age you should feed them when they are hungry and not push them into a routine that is based on what suits you. He will grow out of the night feeds once he is on solids anyway.

[Jambonandjerusalem]

Similar age DD here and what sounds like a similar routine to you...

We have thought long and hard about dropping our dreamfeed (11pm here) as we had the same issues around the morning feed.

DD's morning feed is at 7am, but I have found that I waking her up a bit early for this feed (6.45ish) and giving her a chance to wake up properly (changing her nappy, dressing her for the day, sitting her in her highchair and chatting to her for a little while while I prepare her feed etc) gave her a chance to actually feel hungry and she then took her 7am feed with a lot more enthusiasm than when I woke her at 7am and offered her the feed straight away.

[Jambonandjerusalem]

Sorry, didn't explain that well, I meant that we have kept the late dream feed and have introduced the above morning routine which has overcome the problem of DD not being hungry for her 7am bottle...

[Scattymum101]

We had this with dd2. She never stopped taking a night feed til 10 months but at 5.5 months we had to bring back her 11pm bottle too as well as the night feed or she only would sleep til 12-1 and then be unsettled until fed.
We just went with it and moved her day bottles around a bit and amounts until we found the right balance to suit her.

I started her in solids and 6 months and didn't make a blind bit of difference. She's now 11 months and still has three 9oz bottles of formula during the day and we've only dropped the dream feed in the last month (she dropped the night feed around a week or two before that).