Baby gone back to 3hourly feeds at night - thinking of introducing mixed feeding - advice pls?

[curlyLJ]

My Lo is 6months (in a few days) but has over the last week or so gone back to wking 3 hourly - we don't even get the long 7-8hr stretch at the start of the night anymore 5 hours is the longest she's managed in over 2 weeks and i am exhausted!

I have introduced some solids, but I think the problem is that she is just so distracted in the day now and she just won't feed properly when we are out and about (which is most days...) Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

I have given a bottle of formula in the place of one of her feeds today - was thinking I can begin mixed feeding now she is also weaning, and give a couple of botles of formula in the day and then BF early morning, bedtime, and anytime in between when she 'demands' it.

Does this sound feasible or is my supply just going to dry up?

Six months is a bad time for sleep - especially as you've have started to introduce solids, its all exciting and new!

I know someone who did exactly what you're suggesting, and found she got no more sleep, just was more tired from faffing around with bottles. There's no garentee that formula will help her sleep more. However, if you decide you want to, at six months your supply is established, so it wouldn't dry up, just adjust.

Hmm, I suspect that she's not waking because she's "hungry" but due to other developmental issues like SirBoob says. And, if she's anything like mine, once she's up "a bit of milk to get back to to sleep will do nicely thank you Mummy"

That said however, I did introduce daytime formuala feeds (one at a time) for DD at about 7 months in prep for going back to work and supply adjusted very quickly.

I also remember those distracted public feeds with sympathy - stretched nipples were no fun.

DS2 doing this, he's nearly 5 months and still EBF. No solids etc yet. Last night I fed at 10.30pm, and he woke at 2.30pm - I fed him but then he woke at 5am.

I decided that really 2.5 hours is not long enough between feeds, so chose to put earplugs in and ignore (I know you'll all be judging me for this but I was so tired) and he went back to sleep and slept until 8am (I woke him) clearly he wasn't that hungry at 5am.

DD is 7 months and over the last 3 weeks has gone back to sleeping a long stretch at night - at about 5.5 months she decided that she wanted her 2 am feed back which I did for a few weeks. I was considering mix feeding as it was making me exhausted but never got enough energy to buy the formula etc :).

Because DH had to get up for work I was going to get her immediately so that he could sleep, but one weekend (when DH gets up to get DD for me) we decided to see if she would go back to sleep... it took 8 mins of whingeing (not upset crying or screaming, just moaning every now and then) and she resettled herself.

Now she's back to doing her 8 pm to 5 am stretch... I'm sure that she wouldn't have done it initially and that she was ready to go back to sleeping but just wanted to let you know that (as far as my experience has gone!) it could potentially get better again.

last night it was every 2 hours, apart from one 3hr stretch from 3-6am. We did try leaving her to whinge but it turned into screaming. Have also tried getting DH to go to her instead of me, but that didn't work either!

I gave her Nurofen at the 10.30 waking as she seemed to be screaming/in pain, but clearly it didn't help as she was up again at 12.30, 2.30 and 6am.

I can't take another night of this... don't know what else to try

Crapweasal how do you go about introducing the formula? Just pick a feed and start from there? It's just that as she's always been EBF the feed times can be all over the place, whenver she 'demands' it - so there isn't really a set time to choose IYSWIM?

How frequently are you feeding during the day? I was told to go for three hourly to four hourly at some point between 4 and 6 months. It's counter intuitive but by doing this they get more food.

HTH. Good luck.

Can you co-sleep?

Day feeds are all over the place, it just depends on when she asks for it. Trouble is BFing in public is now a nightmare as she is too interested in her surroundings and won't feed properly (that's why I don't think she's taking enough), so the feeds can be anything from 2-4hourly, depending on naps. That's why I'd like to move the day feeds to formula...
She can and does nap for 1.5-2hrs reularly, with some 40 minute ones too btw.

Have never got on with co-sleeping, but she is in a crib right beside my bed. Was thinking of moving her into her cot tbh, in case she is outgrowing the crib and needs her own room and more space...

I just don't know what else to do!

Would it be any help at all to remind you this sounds normal? :) Six months is difficult, especially feeding wise, regardless of how you're feeding.

I'm not saying don't switch to formula if that's what you've decided you want to do, just that it isn't definitely going to be a Fix It.

THanks SirBoobAlot I gather from other threads that this is developmental so I have resigned myself to it for the forseeable future

I have still decided I want to move to FF for the day feeds tho, whatever the nights may bring - it's for a combination of reasons really, but I feel like the time is now right.

Sounds like my DS - he's just over 5 months. I've started to wean him (very slowly) and have tried unsuccessfully to introduce a bottle for one of his daytime feeds. He wants his mummy!!!!

I now have a rule (after DS did over 6 hours) that if it is less than 4 hours in the night he's not getting fed and I try and pat him back to sleep or give him a dummy to stretch him a bit longer (not helping my plan of ditching the dummy!!!). My problem is as the night wears on he wakes more often...eg. goes 4 hours, then 2 hourly then every hour. He's done this for months now and I'm shattered too. He used to go from 6.30 ish to beyond 11. Now we're lucky if we make it to 9pm...then he has around 3-5 hours then it all goes pairshaped!

I'm getting a bit fed up of it all and being the only one to be able to settle DS as wonderful and lovely that he is...

Agree with everything SirBoobAlot says.

littlemissindecisive - just because your DS slept a certain amount at one stage doesn't mean that he's ready to do it continuously.

Babies wake for a variety of reasons - hunger is just one of them. Babies cannot tell when is and isn't a socially accepted time to need comforting and at 5 months I would expect the constant developmental changes and the possibility of teething to throw most babies off track.

that any of you have had more than a couple of hours sleep in one go at any point in the past seven months.

MoonFace, tell me about it... DS hasn't read the baby books either!

DS1 was like that for 20 months Moonface.....so i count my blessings DS2 sleeps slightly longer

DD was like that....and she was FF. So no, I don't think that it would cure the waking per se, once I got the feed, food, activity levels right i got a bit better. We still get night wakes and night feeds but that usually due to teething.