Night waking/routine - feeling quite down :(

[T33MVY]

My son is almost 11 months old and I’m getting really down because I feel like we haven’t nailed anything yet :(

He is still waking at night for a feed and then usually wakes early too. Sometimes he is taking ridiculous amounts of milk from the time he goes to bed (around 7pm) until 5am. It can be 3 7oz bottles which I don’t think he needs.

We have tried to be consistent with bedtime and nap times but we cannot nail it at all. Some days he naps for 30 mins all day even when offered naps. Other days he naps for 3 hours split over 2 naps.

Sometimes he is shattered by 6pm and needs bed, other times it’s a fight and resettle attempt 4-5 times before he is down at maybe 8pm.

He has always been an early riser and can wake anywhere from 5.30am-6.30am. Rarely, very rarely he will sleep until 7am but has been awake during the night.

I’m exhausted, fed up, disheartened and getting really down the fact that we have tried and tried and still have no routine or predictably.

We have tried dream feeding, reducing the amount of milk we give each night, only offering water when he wakes, leaving him to cry but nothing works. We know a bottle will get him back to sleep so it’s an easy option when you’re tired. He will take a full bottle during the night so I don’t know if he’s genuinely hungry or it’s a habit.

Because he is awake during the night he then won’t take any/a full feed in the morning which throws off the whole day.

This is his typical day

Awake - 6am- 6.30am - offer a bottle (usually takes 3-4oz)

7am - offer breakfast (toast, cereal, yoghurt and water) he only takes a few bits it any

9.15 - 9.30am - nap one (takes a full 7oz bottle before this nap usually)

Can sleep anywhere from 30mins to 1.5h (never know what’s the right time!!)

12ish - offer lunch (e.g sandwich, fruit, eggs, puffs, cheese, crackers, fruit pouch and water ) again sometimes a few bites, sometimes more.

1.30-2pm - nap 2 - offer a bottle (usually takes a full 7oz bottle) (again can be anywhere from no nap here to 2 hours)

5pm - dinner (risotto, pasta, cottage pie plus water and fruit pouch or fruit)

Bedtime - if he’s not had a good afternoon nap this can be 6pm but we try to stick to 7-7.30pm bed.

Bedtime Routine - bath, in sleeping bag, upstairs for bottle (can take a full 8oz bottle here but can also only take 3-4oz) white noise on, in bed.

Some nights he falls straight sleep while taking the bottle, sometimes he is put down awake but drifts off on his own, some nights he requires settling, some nights we have to go and attempt the rest of the bottle, some night it’s 6-7 times to settle.

I don’t know what we are doing wrong. Can anyone offer any advice or help? I’m starting to actually feel quite depressed as I’m back at work now and I feel like it’s taking a toll on my health and mental well-being.

He obviously has quite a strong connection between his bottle and sleep. One option would be to stop giving milk before sleep during the day and only give it after his naps to see if he can break that association.

If he’s having a lot of milk already then I would drop that morning bottle upon waking and just offer breakfast first. I know it’s done the typical pattern but soon you can start to offer a cup of milk with breakfast instead and it sounds like he’s not that hungry when he wakes and is then filling up on that milk and not eating breakfast.

Another option would be to wean down the amount of milk you give during the night so that he does still have some when he wakes but not 7oz. He’s ending up having a lot of milk over each 24 hour period and you will probably find that if you cut this down a bit he eats more food. You could eventually then try not giving milk overnight.

However overall it doesn’t really sound like you’re doing much “wrong”. You’re responding to what he seems to want/need. Sometimes he can put himself to sleep which is great but sometimes he wants cuddles and that’s ok, he’s still just a baby. Nap lengths will be unpredictable still at this age and that’s fine too although frustrating.

For context lots of breastfed babies wake in the night to feed for as long as they are feeding ie into toddlerhood if they are not weaned before. Yes it’s annoying but it also suggests that babies are biologically prepared to feed during the night. Our western modern concept of small babies not eating between 7pm-7am is convenient for us as adults but not really how most babies are set up to work. What I mean is that his behaviour is natural so although you might be able to get him into some different habits, you might also not. And that’s ok.

On the exhaustion front, do you have a partner? If so they should be sharing night feeds once you are back at work.

Sorry that was long!

I would drop the morning bottle and give breakfast only

You could try gradually dropping the night feeds if you feel like they get enough in the day? I did this by choosing the feed I most wanted to lose, then dropping it by 30 ml for 3 nights, another 30 ml for 3 more nights and so on. If they still wake for that feed, comfort them but don't feed. Then move on to the next feed and do the same.

Thanks for the quick responses !

We have trialled just not offering a morning bottle at all but he doesn't take any more breakfast. Still only a few bites.

I went back to offering the bottle in the hope that it was more calories at least during the day to try and curb the night feedings. Maybe I'll need to just persevere longer with it.

On the cutting down front, we have tried reducing the milk by 1oz per night and also then increasing the water so day 4oz of formula but in a 7-8oz bottle but he is still waking so It's still not having the desired affect or stopping the night wakings and then he is waking earlier anyway.

I know it's probably completely normal and he is mostly likely just doing what a baby should be but it's so hard when I have friends with older babies and babies the same age who sleep right through they try to offer advice but he's just a different baby!

My husband doe help. We take turns so a week about each of getting up a night but when he gets up I naturally wake too because I can hear him.

We are both just tired. I would just like some consistency.

I hear you! It's really tough. Hopefully it will resolve in time.

Sometimes I find with these things that it helps to let go of the desire for consistency or predictability. I got myself into a big ball of stress with my eldest when she was about 8-9 months because she wouldn’t nap consistently and her bedtime and wake up time was all over the place. I tried everything and was determined to “crack” it but gradually it just eventually passed by itself as she grew up and changed naturally. In hindsight a lot of the stress came from the fact that I wanted consistency and was trying to force this onto her and it just wasn’t going to happen. Totally understand the desire but if you have already tried most things then it might be better to just accept things how they are, go with the flow and wait for him to naturally outgrow this phase.

In my experience the day time naps sort themselves out around age 1-1.5 or whenever they start properly walking and have consolidated down to one nap. That then helps bedtime become a bit more consistent at least for a little while (until they spend 6 months trying to drop their nap but not really being ready to drop it yet 😭)

You aren't doing anything wrong, you are being responsive to his needs, and that's what he needs. It probably seems like everyone else you know with a baby has one they only have to care for for 12 hours of the day, I certainly did. I am pretty confident that I now have 2 school age children that need good deal less care through night than those who sleep trained or forced their babies to meet adult expectations of how nighttime should be.

I second everything @MovingSchmoving says, great advice.
One thing I’d add is I’ve found that parents who say their babies sleep through all the time/from day dot etc, are stretching the truth a little. I have friends who said from very early on that their babies slept through- then drop in somewhere about a 3am feed, or a regular 530 wake up.
It’s really tough, my DD is a still a bit of a nightmare (I was up from 1-4am with her last night), and she’ll be 2 in November. Sorry, probably not what you want to hear..! Xx

He needs to learn how to settle himself to sleep at bedtime. So that would be sleep training. What method you want to use it up to you. Then once he can sleep without the bottle to settle you can cut down on the amount of milk you’re offering overnight because he doesn’t need the calories, the fact that he’s not eating breakfast tells you this, and if he can learn to settle himself then he won’t need the comfort of the milk to go back to sleep. It’s important to tackle this now really because you’re risking irreversible damage to his teeth. Ideally you should be brushing teeth after milk and you soon need to be thinking about dropping all the bottles in favour of a sippy cup. But you need to sort the sleep/feed association to get anywhere. Good luck, it’s so tough especially when you’re knackered isn’t it?

@LakeShoreD he used to be so good at self settling!

I could put him down awake and he would go to sleep by himself. I don't know why he has gone backwards.

He drinks all his water from a sippy cup so I'll try with the milk now too and we have been cutting down his milk also.