Bedtime/Feeds

[SonnyH]

My little girl is 12 weeks and formula fed. She settled herself in a 3 hourly feed pattern about 9 weeks old and roughly feeds at 8,11,2,5,8 & a night feed between 3-4am. She then usually sleeps until 8am. She takes between 3-5oz per feed, usually closer to 5oz these days.

All good except for the fact she is exhausted & ready for bed by 7pm. But isn't fussing for food at that time. She doesn't fuss until 8pm but she spends from 6.30-8pm incredibly grumpy & upset because she's so tired!

So I'm a bit stuck as to how to make bedtime 7pm & for her feeds in. Should we just offer her a bottle an hour early at 7pm? I've tried moving her 8am feed to 7am to bring it all an hour earlier but she's having none of it, she takes an ounce and goes back to sleep until 8am!

Also, we wondered, we currently do bath, feed, bed but could we do feed, bath, bed.. or is not good to put them in the bath after a feed?

 

[MindUtopia]

I wouldn't focus on the times. If she's fussy and tired she's probably also hungry, and I would feed her and get her to bed. Mine was in bed by 6:30-7pm at that age.

Personally I would do bath, milk, and bed. A feed gets them nice and sleepy and I think it would be jarring to be suddenly naked and in the bath after that when she's seemingly already really tired. Mainly I wouldn't stress about feeding to a schedule. Mine was eating roughly every 3-4 hours at that age, but we fed when hungry not by the clock usually for most feeds. But bedtime was bedtime and I offered a feed before bed whether she was obviously hungry or not and she always took it. I definitely wouldn't wake her in the morning. If bedtime shifts, then she'll likely start to wake up earlier in time. In the meantime, enjoy it! My 4 year old is up at 5:30-6am most days and I haven't gotten to sleep until 8am in years. It won't last but you'll be glad you made the most of it.

 

[MrsButterfly]

I'd probably try a feed before her bedtime at 7 and then attempt a dream feed at 10-11. This might then be enough to get her through to morning.

 

[SonnyH]

Thanks ladies, that's helpful! I think I do need to stop worrying about her feeding times.. i just like to try and feed before she has a meltdown! She literally goes from happy, smiling & playing to screaming for food in 5 seconds flat! Maybe I'm terrible at reading her cues but I struggle to spot her hunger ones! The nieghbours must think I'm starving her when she's crying her eyes out while I make her milk!

We started a dream feed at the weekend and so far, it's not made much difference to her night wake up, a bit later at maybe 4.30 but it has stopped her thrashing around in her sleep..! Previously, from 2am she'd start thrashing so much she turns sideways! That's stopped completely with the dreamfeed so I'm guessing she was a bit hungry but not enough to quite wake her up!

 

[BB1982]

Can I ask please, when you put your babies to bed, is that up in their cots/baskets away from you if you are in another room watching tv etc, or are they with you? I only ask because my LO is 6 weeks and he feeds on demand, when he feeds at around 6/7pm I let him snooze in our front room while I watch tv. I can't quite imagine putting him upstairs on his own right now. How old were your babies when you established your bedtime routine?

 

[SonnyH]

We put our LO down in her bedside crib in our room & come back downstairs with our video monitor. We started doing that at about 8 weeks. Was a natural process really, before then she wasn't going for her longer night time sleep until 9/10pm, so we took her up & just went to bed with her. Then we realised she was exhausted in the evenings and so started an 8pm bedtime routine to fit in with her feeds and we aren't ready for bed then! We wanted to create a difference between daytime & nighttime early on and it's worked well for us. We go up, have a bath, change out of day clothes & into a sleepsuit, make our room dark (we have blackout blinds) and offer a quiet, calm feed. She usually falls asleep on the bottle but sometimes we just sit with her awake in her crib until she eventually goes off!

I've started to use the monitor for naps now as well as the slightest noise in the daytime wakes her up! So I creep out once she's asleep to try keep the room quiet!

 

[BB1982]

Ok, well my LO doesn't sleep in his cot even when we are ready for bed, he manages the first sleep from day 11 to 1am for a feed, but then won't go back down again. I end up co sleeping with him sleeping on my while I sit on the sofa. We think he has reflux so he has to be upright. I can't see him settling in the cot until the reflux or whatever the he'll he has is geiwn out of (have read up on 'grunting baby syndrome' lol). I'd love to get him into a bedtime routine! Oh well, I guess we'll get there in time! Xx

 

[SonnyH]

Oh bless you, that sounds hard. It's amazing how much they change in just a few weeks, it will get better! My LO has reflux too, currently on Gaviscon and it's making a big difference! Earlier on, maybe weeks 1-6, she woke up quite a bit and would thrash around and arch her back but then it suddenly stopped and she started doing 8 hours straight at night! I thought she'd just grown out of her reflux but suddenly at week 9, she started bringing up a tonne of milk and getting really upset on her bottle! That's when we went to the docs & started the Gaviscon. Don't be afraid to speak to your doctor if it gets too much, I was worried mine would just say she'll grow out of it but actually they were really sympathetic. They said we'd follow a plan of starting on Gaviscon and I was to come back straight away for something stranger if no improvement after a week.

One suggestion that I have to encourage cot sleeping that helped us (every baby is different of course!) is to get out walking with baby in a carry cot if you have one. And if their reflux allows. This seemed to get my LO used to going to sleep while flat as she'd fall asleep on every walk. I started walking every day from about week 3 and putting her down to sleep massively improved after a week or so! Now she goes down happily (but rarely falls asleep in her pram anymore!)

Ps. My daughter grunts and thrashes around all night as well but she's fast asleep through it! Its just me that ends up exhausted from her noisy sleeping! Doctor says it's pretty normal, most babies do & she'll grow out if it! Fingers crossed sooner rather than later!

 

[cupcake.]

I agree if she's obviously tired i'd just offer the feed earlier and then see how nights/wake up time change.

As far as i remember we didn't start daily baths until closer to 5 months old/5 1/2 months maybe even but for quite a long time we did bath, bottle, bed as DD usually fell asleep during the feed.

We changed that just a few weeks ago and do bottle, bath, bed most nights (except when we know she's way too tired to make it through her bottle without falling asleep).
we didn't intentionally feed to sleep except when it just happened that she fell asleep while feeding but she always had a bottle right before nighttime sleep.
We didn't and don't have any sleep association problems at all, if that is the reason why you're thinking of switching up the routine. I only switched because she got teeth and i wanted to include brushing them into her bathtime, she took to the change no problem

 

[BB1982]

Oh bless you, that sounds hard. It's amazing how much they change in just a few weeks, it will get better! My LO has reflux too, currently on Gaviscon and it's making a big difference! Earlier on, maybe weeks 1-6, she woke up quite a bit and would thrash around and arch her back but then it suddenly stopped and she started doing 8 hours straight at night! I thought she'd just grown out of her reflux but suddenly at week 9, she started bringing up a tonne of milk and getting really upset on her bottle! That's when we went to the docs & started the Gaviscon. Don't be afraid to speak to your doctor if it gets too much, I was worried mine would just say she'll grow out of it but actually they were really sympathetic. They said we'd follow a plan of starting on Gaviscon and I was to come back straight away for something stranger if no improvement after a week.

One suggestion that I have to encourage cot sleeping that helped us (every baby is different of course!) is to get out walking with baby in a carry cot if you have one. And if their reflux allows. This seemed to get my LO used to going to sleep while flat as she'd fall asleep on every walk. I started walking every day from about week 3 and putting her down to sleep massively improved after a week or so! Now she goes down happily (but rarely falls asleep in her pram anymore!)

Ps. My daughter grunts and thrashes around all night as well but she's fast asleep through it! Its just me that ends up exhausted from her noisy sleeping! Doctor says it's pretty normal, most babies do & she'll grow out if it! Fingers crossed sooner rather than later!

Yes he's already on Gaviscon, and has been a while now. We also try to get him out for a walk everyday in his carrycot, which he is rapidly outgrowing!! Eek! He's just done 23.30 to 2.30 and so I'm up feeding but he only had 1&1/2 ounce of his bottle before falling asleep again! Just waiting to see what happens when I put him back down. First night with a 'wedgehog' bed wedge, we shall see if it helps but I'm not holding out much hope as we've tried propping him up with other things to encourage cot sleeepung but nothing's worked so far. He's currently absolutely out for the count on my shoulder, it's so weird, as soon as I try to put him in his cot within about 5 minute it will sound like a goat being murdered in his cot and he'll be thrashing around. I left him an hour once convinced if I just watched him he'd eventually settle but after an hour I had to give in and accept he wouldn't and continued the sofa sleeping! It's so hard but he's totally worth it!! Little munchkin!! Lol xx

 

[ronnie1234]

I too stress about feeding times etc....need to stop also

 

[noon_child]

If she's fussing from 6:30 then I guess she's tired before then as fussiness usually means overtired. Could you do bedtime routine after her 5pm feed? She might then wake for her 8pm feed still but at least she might not have that fussy period.