6 month old and bad nights

[Tinker16]

Morning all.

My lo is 6 months old. Up until a month or so ago he was sleeping about 11 hours at night with one bottle somewhere in the middle-ish
That's gone out of the window though and I don't know why!
For example ... last night at 8 he drank 12oz (loads I know, he is however a BIG baby) and then he settled himself to sleep like he does every night. At 12 he became restless so I spent half an hour stroking his back, putting his dummy in and generally hoping he'd go back off. And he really does try to sleep by himself again, his eyes don't open, he keeps fussing his blanket and sucking away on his dummy (just like he does at bedtime when he successfully settles himself) but it's like he just can't get off again. He tries to sleep on his side then goes back on to his back and repeats! Eventually after half an hour he started to cry so I made a bottle and he drank 7oz and immediately slept. We repeated the same process 4 hours later.

So between 8pm and 8am he had 26oz of milk!!!
Surely that's too much? He should be going longer than 4 hours at night really on all that shouldn't he?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Mine was similar. He'd got into the habit of using a bottle as a sleep crutch. I just gradually reduced the amount I gave him at night til it was barely anything, at which point he dropped most of his night feeds and took in more milk during the day.

That's a good idea, so at the moment I make night feed at 7oz. Perhaps tonight I'll try 6 then and do so for a couple of nights before reducing again.

Thank you so much for replying

How much milk is he having during the daytime?

The amount of milk an early weaning baby needs shouldn't change from the amount needed before weaning. In fact milk intake can often go up, which leads to the reintroduction of night feeds.

Remember that early weaning foods like fruit and veg are low calorie foods. So they should not be used instead of milk, but in addition to. Early weaning also means small portion sizes, limited food groups and not the varied diet of an older child. All this means that baby needs just as much milk as he had before weaning, if not more.

Early weaning (6-9 months) is really hard in terms of fitting all the feeds in. It's like going back to the newborn days of baby spending all their awake time feeding. My DD was 91st centile (so also had a massive appitite) and in the early days of weaning out days were jam-packed with feeding and naps leaving almost no time to do anything else! My DD was on 7 7oz bottles s day. So for example:

7.00 wake
7.15 bottle
8.00 breakfast
8.45 bottle
9-11am nap
11.00 bottle
12.00 lunch (main and pudding)
12.45 bottle
1-3pm nap
3.00 bottle
4.00 snack
4.15-5 nap
5.00 bottle
6.00 dinner (main and pudding)
7.30 bottle
7.30-8pm bed

Over time obviously these bottles were dropped and replaced with bigger meal time portions, more varied diet with more food groups eaten. But up to about 9 months if you dont maintain daytime milk, you'll get night time wake ups for the calories instead.

Thanks FATE.
If anything he's drinking less in the day, not through want of me trying though. He's just not as bothered.
This morning he had 4oz at half 8 and I've just offered more now and he only took 4 again ☹️

What you've said is all really helpful though, I think my priority needs to be getting our days back on track and perhaps the nights will follow.
He's had a cold and it's been Christmas so feeds/routine have gone a little out of the window.

He's always gone 4 hours between feeds in the day, the routine you've suggested has them more frequently than that. What sort of volume was your little one taking?

Thanks so much

I'd make 7oz bottles at 6 months but they were never drained. Maybe 5-6oz each feed. Sometimes less, sometimes more.

My DD had bottles every 2h right from 4 months though, so she was used to frequent daytime feeds.

I went up to 8oz bottles when we dropped to 3 bottles a day. That probably happened around 10-12 months old and she was on full portions by then (eating more-or-less the same as my 5 year old).

Sorry I just read again and you said the bottles were 7oz. That's what he was taking before but only 5 maybe 6 in 24 hours.

I need to up his daily in take for sure!! I am on it!!