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Please help me with 5 months routine!

2 replies

Napqueen1234 · 07/06/2020 19:08

Hello all,

Second child and life a bit wild with covid atm but we are struggling with a routine for our DC2. It’s not terrible but not great and the exhaustion is really setting in for me and DH. Any words of wisdom welcome!

Awake 5-5:40 (I do try to treat this is a night waking but she is wide awake 👀) won’t take a bottle

Nap 7:30-8:30ish

4/5oz bottle on waking refuses more
May have a couple more oz at 10ish

Nap 10:30-11:30ish

Bottle 5oz or so

Nap 1-3

Bottle 6oz

Nap 4:30 for 30 mins

Bottle 5pm 5oz

Bedtime 6:30/7 (won’t stay up later starts going loopy)- won’t ever have more than 1oz before conked out

Dreamfeed 10:30 (has started waking up for this though) 6oz v quickly

Night waking 1:30/2 6oz

Dithering and waking up from 4:45-5:45

DH is great I do night stuff he does 5:30 onwards and let’s me sleep til 8am but he works long days all week so I don’t want him to help with nights he does loads around the house and with toddler too.

She often naps 4/5 hours in the day and then sleeps about 10 at night. I’ve tried to keep her up longer or shorten her naps in the day but she just goes insane and cries and then falls asleep on you when you hug her as she’s shattered.

She does go down easily for naps and night time with dummy and white noise but just seems to feed a bit crap and wake a lot/sleep too much in the day.

Happy to stay in for a few days (not much to do anyway 🥴) to get a better routine going. I also have a 3 year old who’s great but obviously we try to get out for lots of walks but DC2 just falls asleep in the pram.

Help!

OP posts:
FATEdestiny · 07/06/2020 20:10

Aside from the very early wake up, I think you're routine looks great. I'd follow the same - no more than 2h awake time. You're getting good nap lengths so you could try to stretch awake times. Awake window approx double nap length as an approximation - so might manage longer awake after the long 2h nap. Having said that I wouldn't push it if she doesn't want to stay awake. I'm of the opinion that in every possible situation, more sleep is better than less sleep.

I would night wean. It will make feeding better for daytime and be good preparation for when weaning. So resettle with a dummy instead of feeding.

It's going to take a while because at first baby will be hungry in the night. The idea is to move those calories to the daytime so that baby is getting enough over 24h and isn't hungry at night. But you won't get baby wanting more calories in the day (particularly the morning) because she's full from the night. So it's not going to be easy for her to night wean initially, it will need time to implement.

At this age I was feeding 2 hourly in the daytime - so about 7 bottles a day (7, 9, 11, 1, 3, 5, 7), all 6oz bottles with about 5oz drank. So about 45oz over the day, none at night.

I've just looked at yours and you're DD is having about 34oz over the day. But the day/night split is interesting. More than one third of her calories (12oz) are at night - so she's not going to want more in the day.

To amend your already in place routine, I'd suggest:

● Any wake up past 5am - offer night feed (first of the night though) and try to resettle back to sleep. Be quick at feeding baby though. Also consider nappy change if needed.

● Hopefully back to sleep after feed, so wake up 7am ish and early morning nap automatically gone.

● 6oz bottle on waking. May not drink much because of early morning feed. Save what's left for...

● 9am finish earlier bottle, followed by nap (earlier nap because now not napping to 8.30am)

● 10am (leave to wake naturally) bottle upon waking.

● 12pm full bottle and the big lunchtime nap.

● 2pm (leave to wake naturally) bottle upon waking

● 4pm bottle then teatime nap (are you waking after 30 min, or us baby only sleeping for that long?)

● Wake at 5pm if not already awake. Bottle upon waking.

● Bedtime 7pm, including bottle.

● Any time between 7pm - 5am if waking, resettle don't feed.

● Dithering 4:45-5:45. The aim here is no dithering, get to baby as soon as possible from first stirring. Early morning feed (quickly, so have a bottle ready ASAP), nappy change while waiting for bottle to warm will make baby feel nicer when resetting. Feed then resettle back to sleep as quickly and effectively as poss. May be necessary to bring into your bed to do this most effectively.

● 7am ish wake (hopefully)

Napqueen1234 · 07/06/2020 20:39

@FATEdestiny thank you SO much for that incredibly detailed response. I am keen to night wean- my plan as I struggle to encourage her to drink more in the day as she flat out refuses was so reduce how much she drinks at the middle of the night feed (only offer 4oz then reduce to 3 then 2 etc) so she’s hopefully hungrier in the morning and we can sort of phase it out that way.

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