Getting the day started if wakes early!! HELP!!

[timo]

Every day I start out to feed in a routine,7am,10.30,14.30,18.30,22.30.
What shall I do!!!
Wakes between 4-6 very hungry!! Will not just except 2-3 0z feed,water or even apple juice.He wants a full feed or he will not go back down. He then refuses to take his 7-7.30 feed which then makes him hungry well before 10.30 which then makes him overtired & hungry which, well Im sure u can c wot happens.The routine I want is ruined!! HELP!!

Hi Timo
Just saw your other thread about weaning, you sound like you are in abit of a state. Don't make yourself frantic about routines. You can nudge your baby towards a routine but the truth is generally they will nudge you into theirs. How old is your baby? Don't know about weaning as haven't start myself but any books by Annabel Karmel seem to be a good start. I bought the Gina Ford one but that is very routine led. Sorry not to be more help but wanted to let you know someone is listening.

I do agree that you can get overly worked up about routines, and that the GF book especially fails to recognise that some babies need less/more sleep. But I think most babies do need some sort of routine, and having waited in vain for months for ds to find his own, I've started imposing one. He wakes up early sometimes too and I have 2 alternative strategies:

1. If he wakes less than an hour and a half or so before "breakfast time" then I start the routine then and make the whole rest of the day earlier. If he does the same the next day (he doesn't always) I start to nudge him back to a decent time by 10-20 mins a day. Mind you, my idea of a decent time is 8.30am.

2. If he wakes about 2 hours before breakfast then I feed him in bed and let myself doze off. This is the only way to make him go back to sleep without giving him a full feed IME.

Try one of those anyway - ds and I are getting there!

How old is your ds? Mine is 10 weeks, some nights he wakes 2amish, 5amish and then sleeps until 8amish, other nights its 12.30am (ish again!), 4am and 7am. I just go with the flow and do what he wants to.

Sorry - I seem to have killed off both your thread

hi timo
sorry sorry in advance cos I just know this is going to sound crap and patronising but please try not to be so worried about following a strict routine. I remember sometimes putting ds2 in his cot when he was supposed to be 'sleepy' and jsut crying and crying because he obviously wasn't at all and just started screaming instead. life got much less stressful for us both when I chilled out a bit. I think I had a lot of new mum hormones floating around and wanted the idea of control that a routine seemed to promise - falsly I think
I would personally let him have as much as he wants in the night so long as it kept him quiet, then note down when he next woke up and wanted a full feed agin and then take the routine from there - eg instead of saying your day starts at 7, why not start it at 8 or 8.30?, move all the feeds forward a bit but if you want an earlier bedtime then try and shuffle feeds forward a bit during the day
in a few weeks he'll be sleeping more or less through and you could move back to the 7 am thing if you wanted
how old is he btw? mine is 3 months and sounds in a similar stage to yours - time passes so quickly, before you know it he'll only be on 3 feeds a day and no night feeds at all
hth

Timo,

If he's hungry at 4-5-6 a.m. then it's just not fair to expecvt him to wait for his full feed. I know it's unfashionable, but I am very VERY anti GF. Babies aren't born to routine, and tinies can't be expected to accept a routine just like that.

If he wakes early, then feed him in bed with you, and both get some extra sleep after that feed. then use his next feed as a timer (if you must) and plan your routine for THAT day from there.

Quite soon he'll take more feed less often, and your days will become a bit more regular. but I think you just stress yourself and baby by trying to regiment him too soon.

He is 3mths.
Thanku so much every1.
I am told that I need 2 chill out but never listen but if u have all just got that impression just from wot I have put on here then really I MUST chill out.

Timo - like others who've posted here, if your baby is hungry, I think you should just feed him and try to adjust your other feeding times etc as a result. My ds is 6 mo now and is settling into a good routine, although it has taken a while. I think babies and children need a structured, but flexible routine and I've always been dead against anything too rigid - GF is just not for me! There's a lot of pressure on parents to 'produce' a baby that feeds / sleeps etc on cue but the reality is very different. With time, your lo will settle into a routine. Good luck