Worth trying 10pm bottle?

[DrDoobs]

I'm on DC3 but am really struggling with night feeds this time around (otherwise 3 is great).

At the mo DS is BF but has bottle (SMA) at 6.30 after bath and goes to bed at 7. He does this really well and it's the only thing keeping me sane as I can then go to bed at 8.30 if really knackered.

In the night he'll wake at 11-12ish, 2-4ish and then is usually awake with really bad wind at 5am and spends the next hour or 2 asleep on his front across my tummy (beats getting up).

I was wondering if the bottle was causing the wind (although there's quite a big time gap) or if it's the night feeds as I can never get him to burp before he goes back down. The other thing frustrating me is that at each night feed he's not really awake enough to feed properly so it takes an hour of 5min feed, put down, sqwawk, repeat to get enough into him to get to the next one. (if he just feeds for 10 mins then he wakes more).

Do you think it's worth moving the bottle to 10 pm to try to get more sleep during the middle of the night and make the wind later? The downside is that I then have to stay up til 10pm!

Sorry - I know this sounds mild compared to other people's sleep issues and everything will probably change next week as he's still little but I'm really struggling with nights this time around.

Thanks - and sorry for the long post but it's nice to off load.

This sounds fairly normal for a small baby. How old are they?

If you cannot get the wind up, when it gets down into the main gut it will cause a lot of pain. I sometimes would spend ages in the night trying to get wind up in the early days but it truly wasn't worth it to not get it up, because I'd always pay for it later. Give them infacol before feed.

I always do a dream feed at 11pm personally when small. Can your partner not give EBM at 11pm in a bottle? Keep twisting bottle and removing from mouth and putting back to get them to start sucking again. It can take sometime to get feed down them but they sleep far better for it.

Apart from 11pm feed I never woke mine, just fed when they woke. I tried to do feed in the dark so they wouldn't wake too much and then wind them well in the dark. Sometimes they did wake a little and would fidget in cot for a while after.

It will get better. Try your best to get wind up and use infacol IMO.

Infacol hasn't really helped TBH so have given up on it. I know he's being fairly standard and probably will be different/better next week but for some reason am finding it harder this time around - which is fairly silly really since he goes down like a dream at 7. Neither of the first 2 did and DD2 woke 2-3 times a night for AGES.

Hi, the night shift is a long one I know exactly how you feel. And I don't know about you but I felt with my second that surely it should be easier than this and shouldn't I know what to do all the time?!? But no, they're all so different.

Don't know how many weeks your baby is but I think as far as the wind is concerned it will be something he'll just grow out off in a few weeks. It is probably the bottle thats causing it as formula would take longer to digest and that could be why the wind effecys him then. Also that time of the morning does seem to be when babies have a wakeful period. The witching hour as my midwife used to call it.

You'll have to weigh up which is the lesser of the two evils. You do the bed time feed bf for a few days and see if it makes any difference?

And all those frequent little feeds through the night are normal too. Though clearly exhausting for you. Again, with out knowing how old he is its hard for me to say. Your fattiest best milk is there at night and that's what he wants. Also he's loving the quiet snuggles that help him sleep.

Not sure there's a great deal you can do about it all. Just keep the faith and carry on as you have been. You know it won't be like this forever. Take care, X.

Doh - forgot to say he's only 9 weeks. (which makes me sound even more silly)

Also i think it's taking longer for his gut to sort itself out as he had a week of antibiotics at 5 weeks after a respiratory infection (which saw us in hospital for 5 days, 2 in ICU).

My son preferred gripe water to infacol. The infacol made him cry harder as it coalesced the bubbles into one big one that still went downwards but hurt more. But giving him gripe water after every feed straight away really soothed his tummy. I had to do it every feed though without fail.

My son had colic though and cried every night for a couple of hours at least. Full on screams.

I didn't bother mentioning that, as yours sounds a little different. But worth trying gripe water. My son started to improve at 10 weeks and it just got better and better as the weeks went on.

My son was my second baby and was in fact harder than my first!

You sound like you're doing great.

I know how you feel. My DS has to wake up completely (by screaming) to be able to have a complete feed so by the time he's fed and winded it's an hour later he's wide awake and not remotely interested in going back to sleep!

Yes, give him your usual feed at 6.30/7 and another at 1030. Go to bed at 8.30 and use your alarm to wake yourself up at 1030 to feed. You may well get a good 5 or 6 hours sleep after that!

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. he woke anyway at 1030 the other night but still only fed a little so it didn't help. am moving him to his own room tonight in the hope that might help delay his feeds until he's more hungry and so takes more. in the meantime i kepp telling myself it's only a phase!

Yeah my son sometimes woke before I got to him for the final feed before we all went to bed too.

Hope the separate room plan works tonight x

Bit better: 10.20; 1something, 4something and 6. I can spin that into only 2 wakes in the night! At least he took more and made 3hrs, intead of the 2 that he was lasting. And i got back to sleep quicker not having to listen to his grunting.

That sounds pretty good for a young baby. Glad you got back to easier. I always slept better with the baby in another room.

But did pray God kept them safe and always checked/ check on them before bed.

Fingers crossed for tonight x

crap crap crap. tried bottle at 10pm. he only took 60ml. then woke at 12, 2.50, 4 and 6. hardly fed each time )5 mins or so). can't work out if he's waking to feed or feeding because he's awake (and using me as a dummy), although he's perfectly capable of going to sleep on his own and does every night at 7pm and each time he feeds. time for a question on the breast feeding thread....

Poo!

woo hoo. 12pm, 3am and 6am last night (cluster feeding around DD swimming lessons and back to bottle at bed time). Lots of effort to get decent amount in at 12 (changed nappy etc) I am a tranformed person today.

It makes all the difference when they take a good feed at 11pm ish doesn't it!

It will get better soon x

He's bang on 2 month growth spurt time. Give it a few weeks before you tear your hair out.

I wanted to say that it's unlikely the night feeds making him gassy (hind milk has more fat/less lactose and it's the lactose that makes the gas) and a bottle of formula (not having the prevalence of hind milk) may make him worse.

If he has his bottle at 10pm why do you have to stay up late? Why can't his dad give it to him? Especially as he goes off to sleep on his own?

Thanks Ches. Dad givng the bottle at 10 was the plan but have abandoned attempts to move it from 6.30 to 10 as had such a terrible night the time I tried. I think he's just had a couple of terrible weeks to make me happy with what we had beforehand!

BTW I've worked out why I'm struggling more this time round - he wakes much more! DD1 slept 10-7 at this age (but didn't go to bed until 10 and spent all eve cluster feeding) and DD2 went to bed about 8 and slept until 3am. Definately a trend other friends have noticed too - later children being worse at sleeping.

If later children are worse at sleeping then I'll stick with one! He's 3 now and has slept past 2am five times in total.