Talk to be about a 10 month sleep and feeding schedule

[DottyDoge]

Hello, we have a 10 month old DS, and we just have some doubts about his daily pattern. The two concerns (niggles?) is whether he’s getting enough sleep and is too reliant on milk. There’s no specific reason to worry. He was born 6 weeks prematurely, but according to our Pediatrician, he’s growing and developing nicely in all aspects, he’s pooing regularly. What do you think of this schedule?

07.30 - wakes and gets 150ml of formula milk (was EBF until six months)
08.30 - breakfast - porridge or bread with peanut butter or cottage cheese
09.30 - sleep maybe one hour
10.30 - some fruit (banana)
11.30 - 120ml milk
12.30 - lunch - vegetables and yam
14.00 - sleep one hour
15.00 - 120 ml milk
(Sometimes a nap before dinner)
18.00 - snack while waiting for dinner
18.30 - dinner -usually a simplified version of what we’re having - eg chilli without chilli powder
19.30-20.30 120 ml milk and bed
23.00 - we wake him and give him some milk and he sleeps through to 7.30 again

These times vary somewhat and we have a nanny (we’re outside the UK) and during the day, there’s some uncertainty as we don’t see all of it.

The other thing, he’s quite teasy from 18.30 to 20.00. Is it because he’s too tired?

What do you think of this schedule? We’d like to cut out the bottle at 23.00 and bed time to be easier. Any advice willingly accepted

Your routine looks good although I believe my daughter consumed more milk than this when she was 10months. I understand at this age they should have around 600mls a day over 3 feeds.
I also believe 2 naps a day are right at this age 1-1.5 hours a time with at least 3 hours in between each one. Do you have access to a health visitor for advice?

Every baby is different and as long as he is growing and happy I think your doing right by him!

Thanks. I reckon DS is having around 600ml but over 5 feeds. NHS guidance I could find suggested around 500ml per day and USA guidance seems to include gallons of milk per day

We don’t have a health visitor but we do have a family doctor. We had a 9 month check recently and they’re not concerned at all

I think your second nap is too late!!

My 9 month old is up at 7

Brekkie 8

Then first nap is 9 (30mins - 45mins)

10am milk

12 lunch

12.30 nap (1hr.30-2hour)

2.30 milk

5 dinner

6.15 bath / wind down

6.45 milk

7 bed

We used to keep her up to 8 - but found she was grumpy between 6-8

The earlier bedtime really helped

Thanks. Does your daughter just have the three milks? How much per time? Does she then sleep 12 hours? Are your meals along the line of what we're giving DS (porridge, bread, fruit, simplified meals)?

Ours is grumpy at 6-8 and I wonder if it's because he's too late.

Not sure how much she is getting to be honest - she’s breastfed ! Usually she feeds for about 10 mins each time (the last one can be a bit longer sometimes)

Then usually she needs 1 feed at some point in the night

I give her porridge / fruit at breakfast

Lunch we usually give her something like vegetable purée or a veggie soup or something

Dinner we’ve stayed to give her same as us like you do!

I was doing an 8-8!routine for a while but found she moves naturally towards needing bed at 7 - she was too tired to last to 8.

Definitely planning the naps on the schedule I mentioned has helped massively with her sleep though i must say

Thanks. I might try this afternoon with earlier naps and tea. The difficulty is the foresight to see a little ahead of when he'll be hungry and tired and acting in time!

I don't think your second nap is too late, my DD was having a nap at 9.30 and another at 2 at that age. You probably need about three hours of awake time between naps. In terms of the milk, it looks fine but you could try and consolidate two of the feeds so he has bigger less frequent milk feeds. I would also probably drop the dream feed and try to give him a bigger bedtime feed instead (which might work if you drop one of the earlier smaller ones). Napping is hard to get right, you could try bringing the second nap a bit earlier to see if he sleeps longer but I'm not sure it'll work!

I think your bedtime is a bit late and would try for a 7.30-7.30 day. Naps seem ok. If you want to cut milk I would love lunch to be at 11.30 and then milk to 1-1.30pm. We’re on three feeds with our nearly 11 month old and our day looks like this:

7- wake and breastfeed
8 - breakfast
9.15 - 10 - sleep
11.30 - lunch (we have mirrored nursery time for this)
12.30 - breastfeed
1.15 - 3.45 - sleep (our DD has a long second nap)
5 - supper
6 - bath followed by breastfeed and story
6.45-7 - bed
She sleeps 12 hours

Thanks, I think this is the kind of schedule we need to be moving towards. It looks good.

This is a rough daily schedule for my 10 month old...

6.30 - wake, 7oz milk

7.30am - breakfast (porridge, cereal, pancakes, toast, fruit, eggs - it varies)

9.15/30 - first nap 30 mins - I wake her up from this nap as otherwise found it was pushing second nap back very late and affecting bedtime

11.45 ish - lunch - soup, pasta, sandwiches, fritters etc

1ish - 7oz bottle

1-3/3.30 - second nap, she normally sleeps 2 or 2.5 hours at this nap

5pm - dinner (leftovers from whatever we had the night before normally!)

6.30 - bath, 7oz bottle, story and bed, asleep by 7pm

She sleeps through the night after this. We were doing a dream feed at 10pm until about 8 months but phased it out as soon as she started getting her teeth through and she slept fine without!

Hope that's helpful!

Thanks, I'm seeing a pattern

1. We should skip the mid-morning bottle and have an early lunch
2. Skip the mid-afternoon bottle and have an earlier tea
3. Get to bed earlier

I'm going to try and start that this weekend.

Before the age of 12m babies should be getting most of their calories from milk. Still around a pint (600ml) per day at that age. Is that right you are only giving him 510ml per day? And you want to reduce it?

I don’t think you should reduce his milk intake, I can’t see why the amount he is having (or having some more) is a problem

We definitely give him over 600ml of milk per day (we give him 150 ml at the dream feed). Perhaps it’s a problem it’s spread over 5 feeds so it feels like a lot

What would happen if you didn't wake him at 11pm for that last bottle?

My 10 month-old's day goes like this (morning looks a bit weird as he's up for 2 hours before he has formula, but both me and his older brother can't eat first thing and I think he's following suit! He won't eat anything before his first nap either)

7am - wake
9am - 250ml bottle
10am-12pm nap
1pm - lunch
3:30pm - 180ml bottle
4pm-5:15 - nap
6pm - dinner
7:45pm - 230ml bottle
8pm - bed

I think your 20.30 bedtime could be brought forward an hour. And try without the 23.00 bottle (or reduce gradually if you're worried) but give more milk at the other times?

My 10 month old does the following - she's in the process of dropping a bit of nap time but does like her sleep and has just started nursery 3 days a week where she sleeps much less so sometimes she seems to make up for that on home days:

7.00 - wake and bottle, drinks 150-200 ml
8.00 - breakfast
9.00 - 10.00 - nap (sometimes 1.5 hrs if really tired)
11.00 - bottle, drinks 150 ml ish
11.45 - lunch
12.30-14..30 - nap
14.30 - bottle, drinks 150 ml ish
16.30-17.00 - sometimes has a nap if tired
17.15 - dinner
19.00 bottle, around 200 ml then bed. She's usually asleep by 19.15 and sleeps all night.

Last night, I gave him tea at 6pm, put him in the bath and gave him milk at seven and then tried to put to bed. He was crying and quite active so he came out and then eventually went to sleep at about 9pm. He woke at 2 for a bottle and then slept through to 8.45. Which is fine, but it has an effect on the next day. Morning nap starts at 11.30am …

I’m really struggling so please give me some advice. 10m old only drinking about 14oz a day and seems to be waking around 5am & I think it’s due to hunger. I just don’t know how to do our schedule any different. Please help me consolidate the feeds so that he’s not snacking and actually finishes his bottle for bedtime. Currently it is:

Wake 630
Feed 6oz @ 645
Bfast @ 830
Nap: 945-11
Feed 1130am only drinks 3oz
Lunch: 1 eats lots of
Nap 230-330
Feed only drinks 2oz
Dinner 5 eats decent amount
Feed 7pm only takes about 3oz
730 bed