reintroducing 10pm feed, anyone had to do this??

[alibo]

ds is nearly 10months and for the last few weeks, the time he wakes for his am bottle is getting earlier. it was always between 6am and 6.30am which i could cope with. now it has gone to 5.30, 5.00, and now 4.00am. he will then only take another couple of ounces when he wakes again at 7.30,ish, usually takes about 5-6oz at 5ish. he dosn't have a big breakfast even if its a while after his milk. lunch is about 8 cubes of protein meal and fruit, bit of yoghurt, tea rice or potatoe and veg, yoghurt again. 6-7oz milk at bedtime and 5oz at 3pm. he seems so hungry when he does have the milk at 5am, should i try and give him an extra milk feed at 10pm to see him through, he dropped this at 6 months. tried to increase his food amounts but he will only take the same every day.

My dd tried the ooooo lets wake up earlier to get fed and I decided to deal with it by not feeding her! (cruel mum) but offering her water instead, this kept her in bed until the normal 6am/7am time (depending on her mood that day/what time she can hear dh moving) What time does he have his bedtime feed? as this could swing things, upuntil she hit 1, a month ago, dd was still having her last milk at 9pm, since she hit 1, we've brought it forward to 7pm and she now goes through fine. I do have a friend with a hungry baby who has supper and milk to get him through tho?

he has his last bottle at 7pm, as any later than this and he's too tired to take it. tried water the other night, and it was a nightmare, he seems genuinly hungry.

Ds is the same. He is a little night owl so is still up at 9:00 playing. We give him a bottle about 9:30 or 10:00 and many times I will give him a little snack about 8:00.

alibo, IMO, the thing is, if you reintroduce a night bottle, he will really need it before long -- ie, it may restrict how much food/milk he takes on in the day, so he;'ll wake up hungry at night.
at 10 months, he should be able to go 12 hrs without a feed. are you worried about his weight otherwise? or is he doing fine? if so, it sounds to me like he's got into a pattern of nightwaking. i'd guess it's that that's the problem, rather than hunger. i'd go down the route of shrinking the 5am bottle gradually over a few days so that his appetite adjusts, then offering water if he continutes to wake up early (we did this too for dd). it doesn't work overnight, and of course he will object to the water, but before long he'll work out that it's not worth waking up for water.

thanks folks; just thought that a "top up" at 10pm, would put him off less during the day than milk between 4 and 5am. if we tried it and he takes a feed at 10, and then still wakes at 4-5, then at least i'd be sure that the waking is more a habit. he downs the milk so quickly i'm sure he is hungry at that time, as he has always fussed over bottles, and can be a real faff with his milk, if he's not that hungry. when we tried to give water only, he was awake from 4am and never went back to sleep until he'd had milk. if i reduced the milk at 5, would you offer water first and then milk, or diluted milk?

btw, if we tried to keep him up later instead, what extra nap should i give him, as by 7 he's shattered.

alibo, when does he nap?
re the milk/water issue... while you're winding down the 5am bottle, try dropping 2 ounces or so every day. (This is exactly how we approached closing down the 10pm feed.) i think this means that the baby's stomach/appetite has time to adjust over a period of days, rather than having to go cold into a new routine which may lead to real hunger.
when that's gone, give some water if he still wants it, then put him back in bed.
keep the whole thing quiet, don't talk much or switch on lights or change nappy or anything.
for subsequent morning wakings, just stick to water.
HTH

alibo, when does he nap?
re the milk/water issue... while you're winding down the 5am bottle, try dropping 2 ounces or so every day. (This is exactly how we approached closing down the 10pm feed.) i think this means that the baby's stomach/appetite has time to adjust over a period of days, rather than having to go cold into a new routine which may lead to real hunger.
when that's gone, give some water if he still wants it, then put him back in bed.
keep the whole thing quiet, don't talk much or switch on lights or change nappy or anything.
for subsequent morning wakings, just stick to water.
HTH

his main sleep is after lunch, if this is less than 2hrs he needs another cat nap, about 30mins at around 4.30am. 30mins usually am.

I'd give all the methods a go! bakedpotato's idea sounds good to me, although I did read another thread on her the other day about keeping them up later, means they sleep less anyway? I'd also try the supper and milk route at 7pm and see if that works, but hey its only advice and different things work for different people, I hope you find the right thing!

thanks for advice all; frizbe what kind of supper do you mean?

agree with F, i don't think keeping him up later would solve the problem, but might create some more

the napping he's doing sounds pretty good/standard for his age from what i canremember of dd at 10mths

that 4am waking is so hard to deal with, isn't it?
I can't actually help much as my DS did this a lot too, and I found, like you, that he seemed so hungry I couldn't not give him the milk then. If I left him with water and then to cry, he'd scream the place down till gone 7am, when he'd fall asleep. Then he'd slee till 9am and all his daytime sleeps were happening toolate, and he wouldn't go to bed at night.
Nightmare. The only comfort I can offer is that he has slept very well for the last year. He is nearly 3 though...
Now we have DD doing the same thing 9she's 7 months), and I have no idea how to deal with it. She also seems truly hungry, and having slept most of the night by then, can cry for quite a long time - and she wakes DS up!

my ds still waking too between 4 and 5 - although with the odd 6.20 thrown in. Funnily enough the 6.20 was after a day when he'd hardly eaten anything!
although this morning he woke at 5 and not really hungry - just bored and awake!
I just brought him into bed and after half an hour or so of mucking around he went back to sleep. Unfortunately - I didn't!