structuring feeds before bedtime feed?

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

I try to be led by ds (10wks) during the day, make sure he eats if 4 hours have given by without him asking for it, though normally 3, try to get him to nap between feeds which is hard...the only set structure we have is bath and bed routine which we start at 6:30 so his bedime feed is at 7pm...trouble is of course everyday is different and the timings between feeds often go haywire so I think I end up feeding him when I think he ought to be fed rather than when he asks for it, to make sure he's hugnry enough at 7pm to take a decent feed (it still takes at least an hour after to get him to sleep though)

just wondering what ppl's thoughts are - feel like I'm stuck between baby led and structure routine and not doing too well with either! All of course linked to trying to get him to go to bed in the evenings!

There is nothing what so ever wrong with offering a feed if you think it might be needed! You can offer as often as you like and your DS will only drink if he wants/needs to.

You would only be forcing him into a routine if you were to refuse to feed him until it was 'time' for a scheduled feed.

Do you give him a dream feed? That can win you a couple of hours of precious sleep

Sounds a bit like us - ds2 is 10 wks too. I tend to go with the flow in the mornings, but try to tweak afternoon feeds so he'll be hungry at about 6.30 - 7 pm.

It doesn't always work but I reckon a bedtime of any time between 6.30 and 8.30 pm is pretty good going.

I don't let him go longer than 3 hours between feeds in the day time, to try and avoid the frantic catch up feeds all evening.

This works for us - don't beat yourself up about bedtimes though - it sounds like you're doing great. Things even out a lot once they start solids, as these tend to be given at 'mealtimes' rather than on demand, so please don't think you'll never have an evening to yourself ever again, you will!

thankyou for the quick replies, Ninja that's reassuring to hear, I've never had casue to make him wait to be honest, it's very rare we get to the point he's asking for food (cue mother guilt that I'm overfeeding my child and he'll be obese in later life!)..he's BF btw

We do give him a dream feed and he then normally won't wake until somewhere between 3:30-5:30am for a feed then normally at 7:30am for 2nd feed which I treat as start of his day, so I know we're really lucky on that count!

jojay - I know this is the wrong section but do you put DS2 to bed when he's ready then? The only routine thing we do is our bath and bed which we try to make the same time every night (fits in with when DH gets home from work), he used to go down after the bedtime feed but not for the last two weeks and it normally takes us 1hr to 1.5hrs to get him to sleep!!

Do you mind telling me what your bedtime routine is?

You honestly can't overfeed an exclusively BF baby, he can have as much as he likes and you don't need to worry about it at all! It's thought that BF babies are at a lower risk of obesity in later life.

It's great to hear he's sleeping so well! Dream feeds are a great thing

Hello lovely!

I have no advice because it sounds like you are doing so much better than we are - tried to get DD to bed at 7 a week or so ago and just ended in disaster - six hours trying to get her to sleep and bed at 2 as normal!

So just wanted to say that it sounds as though you're doing brilliantly to me!

thanks again Ninja...we moved onto dreamfeeding when it was clear he could sleep a little longer rather than waking for this feed, it takes bloody ages to settle him to sleep so thought it made much more sense to dream feed before he wakes up hungry, which should then see him through and means I generally only have to get up once in the night instead of twice - of course prob means I'll be too scared to ever drop it!

hey you - thanks hun, how is your marvellous little girl doing? it's taking E a good 1.5hrs of going to sleep, waking up, being settled to sleep again after our whole bath/bed-feed thing in the evening but yeah then thankfully he generally sleeps

1st jabs yesterday which were horrible but he slept right through last night (9pm - 7:20am), hooray, never thought he'd be the kind of baby put to sleep by immunisations!

Don't worry about dropping the dream feed, it'll happen on it's own!

would you wait til baby was sleeping through to drop it? other wise how do you know it's time?

I know it sounds hard to believe now, but you'll probably just forget one night and be amazed that it was fine!

If not, then you just risk it one night when you know you can miss the sleep if it goes pear shaped

will let you know when i have the guts in about 5 years then!!!

It's nowhere near time yet anyway! It will be fine, honestly!

Hi GWTMH

As requested our bedtime routine is as follows:

DH comes home at 6 ish so I take DS2 off for a bath while DH plays with DS1. We come back downstairs at about 6.15 - 6.30 ish and he has his feed - he's breast fed too. This takes about 15 mins usually.

Then I put him to bed when he seems tired. I find it hard to structure his sleep during the day. He finds it hard to have more than a quick catnap when were out and about with DS1, and if I do manage to get a long sleep out of him, he's so grumpy if I wake him before he's ready. So I tend to go with the flow with daytime sleep.

That means that he doesn't have a set bed time, though it tends to be any time between 6.30 and 8 pm. I'm getting better at reading his sleepy cues now - he yawns a couple of times and starts to bury his face in my shoulder or rub his eyes, and I know it's time for bed.

I started swaddling him last week, which seemed a bit late really, but it was taking us a good hour or more to get him to sleep too. We'd put him in his cot with the dummy and he'd doze off, then jolt awake just as we thought he was asleep. This could go on for ages and was driving us all mad, so swaddling has helped hugely. Now as long as I time it right and he's ready to sleep but not overtired, I can swaddle him and pop the dummy in, and leave him to it - result!!

As for the dream feed, I kept going with it with DS1 until he was established on solids at about 7 months and he simply stopped wanting it. He was on formula by then and wouldn't take more than an ounce or so, so we just stopped. I was always too scared to try stopping it sooner unless he started waking in the night again!

HTH

so jealous of just swaddling, popping dummy in and he sleeps!! our ds seems to go from awake and happy to overtired so damn quick I don't have time to read him before bed/naps....it's one thing taking an hour or more at night time but naps are a major issue!

just cos it's good to compare, how do you get him down for his naps?

our main issue is helping him sleep in the 1st place, i do my best to be led by him so "getting him to nap" is because he's tired, not because it's 3pm or whatever...we are doing the bath and bed routine thing so take your point, I guess we're not truly baby led and maybe that's the problem....

GWTMH - it wasn't always as easy as popping the dummy in and he's away, believe me!!! And it still goes wrong sometimes and he's a nightmare away from home. I feel your pain, I do

To get him down for naps, I watch him like a hawk and as soon as he starts yawning and burying his face in my shoulder, it's time to go. I take him upstairs, swaddle him and pop the dummy in. If he seems calm I put him straight down in the cot. If he's crying or cranky I cuddle him and jiggle him around a bit until he's relaxes, and then I put him down. Then I leave the room but hang around upstairs until he's asleep as sometimes he'll spit the dummy out and it needs replacing.

I'm afraid I disagree with Starlight - I do try and predict when he's going to be tired, because if I miss the 'window' and he gets overtired or really grouchy he can be a nightmare to settle. So after he's been awake for an hour or so, I try and keep a really close eye on him. When he's hungry, it's easy to tell, and easy to fix for him, but his tired signs are very subtle and easy to miss, and a whole lot more difficult to fix if I miss them!

Hang on in there

sounds very similar to what i try to do - my current obsession is over the dummy as he's going to sleep much better now, but does need it for every nap and bedtime, but hoping to just go with the flow on that one

thanks for the reassurance!