GF followers question

[gosh2]

Been following GF without any probs since baby was born, now 16 weeks. We started baby rice last week.

You know the 10pm feed that we wake baby up for? DH and I brought that forward to 9pm as I was getting tired waiting until 10 etc. Anyhow last night I woke DD who was NOT happy that I woke her, screamed and screamed at me. This is the baby who hardly cries, I was just shocked. Tried to calm her, kept trying with bottle but she clearly didnt want it and wanted to sleep.

I put her to bed at 9.30 without bottle, she screamed for a few minutes and went to sleep.

Amazingly woke up at 7.30 this morning. Now does that mean she doesnt need this bottle tonight? GF does say once you start foods the bottle can be dropped, I had cut the amount down to a mere 4oz, that was all she was getting for the last 10 days at that time.

Should I waken her tonight or hope that is it? What happened with other people dropping this feed?

The thought of going to bed at 8 tonight and getting to sleep is quite appealing, but dont want to count my chickens yet.

From what I remember (and it was a little while ago now so I may not be completely accurate) I kept the 10pm feed a few weeks after ds had started on solids "just in case" but it didn't last much longer. He wasn't really interested. Again, I think I did what you did - just skipped the feed and hoped for the best! Anyway, what's the worst that can happen... they wake in the middle of that night and then you reinstate the 9/10pm bottle for another week or so (Yes, I do remember that every second of sleep was precious! I think though that it sounds as if she is ready to give this one up).

We stopped the 10 pm at about 13 weeks for the first time - dd had only been taking 2-3 oz. She promptly woke up at 5.30am - so we went back to the 10pm feed. Tried again about 2 weeks later and that was it. Try and leave her tonight - if she still needs it you'll find out v. early tomorrow morning!
DD still stirs briefly at exactly 10pm every night btw, a couple of whimpers and she settles herself back down. If I feel that she didn't eat well during the day or at the last feed (usually when she has a cold) I will use teh opportuniy to stick my boob in her mouth for 5 minutes (in teh dark nursery) and give her a bit of a topup.

Prufrock what did you do at 5.30, should I have a bottle of cold water ready as GF suggests, and treat it like an additional night feed? Then let her settle herself back to sleep.

Although if she wakes up hungry should I just let her cry until at least 6.30 as GF suggests?

Gosh2, I would try leaving her to see if she can settle herself back to sleep if she wakes at 5.30 am, only offer water or feed if you have to. We did this with dd at about 13 weeks and after a couple of nights of fussing on and off for about half an hour, she then went right through 7 pm - 7 am and (touching wood frantically) we have never looked back even when she has a cold (dd now 18 months). I followed Gina but dropped the 10 pm feed quite a bit earlier than she suggests and I know alot of other mums who say that they hate having to wake their baby at 10 pm when they are so grumpy. My SIL rang me when her dd was about 6 weeks old complaining of this, I suggested leaving her to see what happened and she went through 12 hours from the next night on, but i think this is pretty unusual.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.

gosh: I'd be tempted to treat it as a night feed and then revert to using the 10pm feed if it's as early as 5.30pm. To be honest, it depends on the strength of the cry - if she's howling then of course go in and give her a feed.

If it's just a slight complaining you might be able to get away with going in to reassure her you're there and resettle or waiting to see if she'll resettle herself depending on what you're comfortable with!

We had a patch of early waking with ds a bit later on and we managed to ease it back by telling ourselves we wouldn't go in until a certain time and then each morning pushing that back by 5/10 minutes until he was back waking at 7am.

If she doesn't want the bottle at 10pm and is sleeping until 7.30, why not just forget about it. I did the same as you and brought my late bottle to 9pm. The last 2 nights my DD (18weeks) woke at 8pm so I gave her 3oz then, and she slept through until I woke her at 7am.
I found it hard to sleep the first night she slept from 8pm, expecting her to wake up. Now I feel that if she can do it once, then why not a 2nd time and a 3rd.
So just go with the flow, if your DD starts to wake up early then that's when you can think about it, don't start worrying yet...get that all important sleep!

I fed her - I could tell that the cries were hungry cries. I did it in the dark, with no talking, and after 5 minutes she was asleep again until I woke her at 7.30am

gosh2

you're bringing back all my memories (Ds now 19 months). I clearly remember the night that we decided to drop the 10pm feed. It'd had been getting smaller and smaller but DH and I were both nervous in case it meant that DS woke at 5.30am or something similar rather than the 7am sort of wake up time. In the end, he slept from 7pm right through to 7.30am and that was it, the 10 pm feed was dropped and what bliss it was to be able to go to bed slightly earlier. As others have said, if you drop the feed again tonight, the worse that will happen is dd wakes a tad earlier tomorrow morning but judging from her reaction when you tried to wake her last night I'd say (for what it's worth, in my very limited experience) that she's ready.

Good luck!

Gosh2-all seems like good advise. ds2 didnt drop his 10.45pm bf until his 5month birthday. We were on holiday at the time, and I was enjoying the chit chat and wine too much (oh I'm such a bad mummy) to banish myself to ds2's bedroom for 45mins. By the time we'd finished everyone was in bed. So I'd been waking him up later and later for a fairly half hearted feed on his part, and on the last night of our holiday I didnt bother. He slept on until 6.30am! Hurrah. ds1 was 28weeks old before he dropped his bottle at 10pm, but this may have been due to the fact that he was a v poor solids feeder. I'd ditto the advise you've had and go for dropping the feed. Good luck.

Update

There is something else I should tell you! You know when GF says you can split the 5/6 feed, but when moving onto solids GF says feed after bath. Well DD cannot hold out until after bath, so I give her 3oz and solids at 5 until bathtime. As it now takes AGES to give solids. Anyhow after bathtime she is so tired and irritable that last night she only took 1oz from a 4oz bottle. I put her to bed she cried and conked out 5 mins later.

I woke her at 8.30 to give her 2 oz (as I was worried about her not getting the remainder of her 6pm feed). That is all she got. It was a sleepy feed and GF would slap my wrists.

Anyhow she woke this morning at 7.20. So cannot complain.

Tonight I will have to try again with this 4oz after bath time. Or may give her 4oz before and try 3oz after bath. I also may let her have a longer little sleep in the afternoon, rather than the GF 30-40 mins. I will try that and see if she is less irritable.

I can't remember if we ever gave solids after the bath. Don't think we did either - just made sure ds had at least quarter of an hour after he finished eating before he had his bath to make sure anything that was going to move through had done by then

Sounds like she's ready to sleep through though, doesn't it?

Oh gosh2 you bad Fordie you
Seriously - by the time dd was on solids she was at nursery and I was back at work, weo found GF exact routines just didn't work. So what we do is afternoon milk at 2.30, solid tea at nursery at 4pm. I then pick her up and get home around 6. We play for 1/2 hour, then bath, book, bf and sleep about 7-7.30. Personally I never saw the point of doing a solid feed after the bath, surely the whole point of teh bath is to clean off all the food that gets smeared!

Well exactly, the mess is unbelievable. I am also concerned about nurserys routine, will have to speak to them. DD goes full time in about 5 weeks time. In a way I cannot wait as it is such an effort trying to feed her, as she just hates it.

I seem to remember with babies they start lunch about 11 or so, so that is fine, that is ok. Basically it doesnt matter what they do, she is ok now. So long as she is getting all her food in daylight hours, and I think they are all allowed one big sleep at nursery - midday. From what I remember about DS when he was baby there.

DD coped fine with the change to nursery from a GF routine. They gradually changedher feed times to fit in. The one big difference is that sleeping during the day is in a cot in teh main room, so light and noisy-ish. It means dd very rarely has a sleep of more than 1 hour, as she doesn't want to settle herself back from a light sleep, but wants to get up and play. But it just means that she tends to have 45 mins in am after breakfast (I give a bf at home then solids at nursery) an hour at lunch and an hour in afternoon after tea. I also found it very liberating to have somebody else cope with the feeding struggles. It means I don't get stressed out if it's difficult at the weekends as I know its only 6 meals!