Progressing backwards! Help with a routine please!

[tillymarps]

Hi all
My son is 8 weeks old and we seem to have hit a brick wall in terms of sleep. For the first 6 weeks he was feeding (formula) every 4 hours. His last feed was at 10pm, he'd wake at 2am and then sleep until 6ish. We have recently attempted to change his routine in order to put him down earlier and work towards eventually dropping his middle of the night feed.

He now feeds every 3 hours during the day, his last being at 730 and is usually down by 8:30. The first night worked fairly well but for the last week we have really struggled. He wakes any time between 10pm and 11pm and doesnt really settle again until Ive given in and fed him (which seems to be getting earlier and earlier). He is then pretty restless for the rest of the night - only sleeping for an hour or so here and there.

We are desperate to get some form of routine going. I am not expecting miracles and would be happy to continue with the early feed if we could just get the rest of the night more settled. I am being very strict with day feed times and we always do bath, bottle and bed.

Can anyone suggest anything to help? Are we going about this in completely the wrong way? Am I just being impatient and expecting far too much from my little man?!

Thanks in anticipation!

Congratulations on your ds. He's very small for a predictable routine. I don't have experience of ff babies but I assume they want to feed more during growth spurts, just as ebf babies do. I'd cut yourself some slack, change your expectations and see how it goes.

I think you are trying to cut night feeds too early. I'd say the 10pm, 2am, 6am seems like pretty good going for an 8 week old.

My dd is bf on demand and would drop the 2 am but only if she had fed like mad during the day and evening. From speaking to friends though this isn't really that common and i pay for the night sleep by having to feed every 1-2 hours during the day.

Thanks very much for the feedback - you have both said what I was expecting to hear. I think I was just determine to stick with my decision and not back down but perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. 10,2,6 doesnt seem so bad afterall! :)