6mo early wake up - reality or anything we can do?!

[MiniMaxi]

Hello, have had some good advice from this forum in the past so here we are again

DS is 6mo corrected (7.5mo actual) and since the 4 month regression has been waking for feeds a couple of times a night (before that he had a good few weeks of sleeping through or waking once).

Currently he wants feeds at approx 1am and 4.30-5am. After the 4.30-5am feed, he really struggles to go back to sleep - I can tell he wants to, and he sometimes drops off in my arms, but wakes as soon as I put him down. If I put him down awake he thinks it's playtime and gets excited! He will finally fall asleep at about 6am for another hour.

So my question is, should we just accept he is an early riser and wants to be up for an hour at this time, or is there anything we can do?!

NB

• This is after 7ish bedtime, with a couple of feeds in the evening before bed. He is formula fed so we know how much he's having.
• We've tried waking him at 10/11 for a dream feed but he nods off after 20ml so it seems a bit pointless

I should add, I know it's normal for him to wake up hungry at this age and obviously I am happy to feed him whenever he needs it

Have you thought about offering something to suck (dummy) to try and settle back to sleep.

It's not unusual that the sleep baby has in the early morning is lighter phases of sleep, so if you have a baby who's struggling to resettle then it will be especially difficult in the mornings.

The timing of the feed doesn't help. If the feeds were more 11pm and 3am, the second feed is much more 'middle of the night' rather than early morning, so easier to get back into a deep sleep.

Having said all of that, 2 night feeds is a bit much for a 6 month old formula fed baby. Certainly a 7.5 month old.

Could you up his daytime milk intake in an attempt to drop at least one, possibly both, night feeds? I would certainly start resetting for the 1am wake up.

Thanks FATE.

We gave up on dummies ages ago as he gets excited and wants to chew them! Will try again...

Re the night feeds, I'd consider him to be a 6 month old in this regard as that's the size he is (iyswim).

He is still having 7-8 feeds of 100-150ml each over 24 hours so I don't know if it makes sense to offer him more or if he'll just get more snacky. I know he can drink bigger volumes as occasionally he's had 200 in one go, but he just seems to prefer less.

Last night he did actually have a feed at 11pm (120ml), followed by 2am (120ml) and 5.30am (140ml). That's more than a third of his 24h intake...

Is there a tried and tested technique for reducing night feed volume or frequency?

For context, he did have silent reflux so that may have an impact. Doesn't seem to suffer anymore or certainly not as badly.

My DD was 6 weeks early and I've always just treated her as her actual age rather than corrected age for feeds. You're not going to leave it until 7.5/8 months to wean are you? Have you started weaning yet? This might help with reducing his night feeds.

Hi Bounce

Oh no we have started weaning at 6 months actual. It's fairly hit and miss and he's not eating much yet ...

Did you do purées or BLW, out of interest?

In terms of milk I suppose what I mean is he is a fairly average weight for a 6 month old so I'd expect his milk intake to match that.

He is still having 7-8 feeds of 100-150ml each over 24 hours so I don't know if it makes sense to offer him more

It's not about offering more. It is about changing the frequency of your daytime feeds so that 7-8 feeds are given during the daytime

At 6 months (through to about 8 months) my youngest was also having 7-8 feeds per day. They were given during the day. You can calorie load s formula fed baby quite easily to take their total calories through the daytime (harder to do when breastfeeding).

We did 2 hourly daytime feeds. Plus 1 night fed which I did as an 11pm feed I woke baby for. But that could be a night feed if you prefer. For example:

7am wake feed
8am breakfast meal
9am feed
9-11am nap
10.30 am "lunch" or snack
11am feed
1pm feed
1-3pm nap
3pm feed
4pm "lunch" or snack.
5pm feed
6pm dinner mealtime
7pm feed and bedtime
11pm dreamfeed

That's 8 bottles in 24 hours, 7 during the daytime. Plus 4 meal times for solids.

DD is 8. 1/2 months now actual and I still do mainly purees though they've got a bit lumpier in texture. She'll eat anything off a spoon but isn't really that interested in finger foods. Plus I'm a bit petrified of choking! The only finger foods she's on at the moment is toast, pancakes and organix biscuits in small pieces. Though she's regressed a bit as I have to now put the small pieces in her mouth for her!

I've got the opposite concern as she's never really interested in bottled - she'll have 4 x 7oz (210ml) over a 24hr period and sometimes doesn't finish them all. She'll have her last one at approx 8.45pm and then doesn't have another until 7am and I did worry that was too long a gap. She's gone without night feeds for quite some time now though. She sleeps with a dummy and will sometimes wake during the night but only because she wants the bloody dummy. Once she has it again she'll notmallh go back to sleep. I only try and give it her for sleeping and naps. She does play with it sometimes and chew it too.

DD had silent reflux too and was diagnosed as CPMA at approx 12 weeks. For her corrected age (7months) she's always followed the 75th percentile dropping once to inbetween 50th and 75th at the end of last year though she went up again in Jan. I haven't had her weighed since though.

Thanks both for your advice and comments.

FATE, sorry I wasn't clear. Totally take your point about offering every 2h instead of every 3 - and sometimes he does ask for it more often.

What I meant was, my concern is that if I offer every 2h he'll end up having say 100ml 8x/ day (because he won't be as hungry as if he last fed 3h ago, in which case he might have 140ml) which comes to 800ml and he'll still wake twice at night to get him up to the 1000ml he wants in 24h. Will give it a go though and see if we want change his habits.

Bounce it's great to hear someone else's experience with weaning a prem baby (in the sleep forum, no less!). Sorry to hear you've had feeding problems but sounds like she's finding her way with solids!

I just had some success by offering him the spoon and letting him feed himself the purée, swapping it for another loaded spoon when he finished the first one. Seemed to enjoy it! It was his current favourite (pumpkin) though so let's see how we go with something "not orange" tomorrow...!