Can you ladies believe that I still don't know what STTN is??? Our Little guy still wakes up to FF once or twice a night! If he has given DH and I 4 nights of complete sleep since birth it has been a lot.
I have no idea what else to do. Anyone else in the same boat?
I doubt it but thought I should ask anyways.
Re: I'm I alone in this?
He drinks 5 ounces every 3 hours, 1 jar food and 1 jar fruit. He is about 23 pounds. Am I under feeding?
Do you know how many ounces a day total? I know DS didn't start STTN until he ate about 28-32 ounces a day, and had doubled his birth weight. 23 pounds!! Big guy!
I don't think you are alone but you do have a big guy there. He might need more food during the day. Maybe try 3 meals and a snack later if that doesn't fill him up? Maybe you could also switch to water at night? It might just be the sucking that he wants. My pedi said it is okay to give up to 6oz of water each day.
Good luck!
Can you suggest a menu for those 3 meals?
I tried the water feeding when he woke up to feed but all he did was cry and keep us both up. He did not stop crying until he was formula feed.
I would introduce more protein into his diet and up the ounces on your bottles. For breakfast, DD often has yogurt, for lunch this afternoon she had leftover tofu stroganoff (we are vegetarians), for dinner tonight I am making Mexican- black beans and sweet potatoes for her. She has been cutting down on bottle intake. I am even going down to three eight ounce bottles starting today (7 am, Noon and then 6:30 before bed).
Like PP, she started STTN consistently when we moved her up to 32 ounces at four months old.
This helps. I have not tried yogurt yet but I will. I am often affraid of feeding him what we cook. I guess I still see him as a tiny little baby and the truth is he is growing up and growing up fast.
Thanks
:-) I know what you mean. I am hesitant about serving what we eat, but truthfully it just makes me more mindful of the ingredients I put in our food so she CAN eat what we eat (no salt, full fat dairy ingredients). I am still a bit freaked out about the chunks of food, but the more she is having chunks, the better she is about chewing them with her gums. I still can't bring myself to giving her big sticks of veggies or fruit and having her bite off because she just doesn't work that way with her food yet. I just cut everything into small chunks for her and if she swallows them whole, it isn't a big deal. Don't be afraid to have your LO at least try what you are eating. Last night I made her a squash pur?e and had cottage cheese for her, but she threw a fit until I realized she wanted what I was eating- spinach lasagna rollups and she loved it.
Pipsqueak born 6/9/14
Anyway, her typical meals are something like this:
Breakfast: a smoothie made with 1/2 cup of full fat yogurt and either one small jar or pouch of fruit/veggie puree (she usually drinks 90% of this, we save the rest for lunch), plus either a waffle or piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and jam, or cheerios and a slice of cheese, or scrambled egg with cheese, and some fruit if we have anything ripe. She loves bananas, pears, peaches, grapes (cut up), blueberries (cut in half), watermelon, strawberries...
Lunch: she will eat 1/2 to 3/4 of a veggie burger or 1/2 grilled cheese, any leftover smoothie from breakfast, sometimes some veggies from dinner the night before like green beans, asparagus, roasted carrots, sweet potatoes, or cauliflower.
Dinner is whatever we are having if appropriate - tonight she had chicken sausage with a bunch of roasted sweet potatoes.
If you never feed him finger foods he won't learn how to eat them :-) Just start slow and keep the variety coming so that he tries and likes a variety of foods.
I generally try to avoid prepackaged food as much as possible b/c of the sodium content, so usually my daughter just eats a random collection of things. I try to be sure she gets a fruit and veg at each meal and some good healthy protein and fat. Sometimes she has yogurt and half an avocado and a fruit pouch. I figure it all rounds out, plus she has breastmilk.
You could maybe switch around his feedings, maybe even try a mini cluster feeding before bed? He may wake up, and expect food, so feeding him right before bed might help.
I heard from another teacher that her DD kept waking up in the middle of the night, so she gave her a little bottle of water and eventually weaned off that and started to STTN. Good luck!
I'm going to guess that you're not alone. DD STTN most of the time, but at this age, DS definitely did not. I'm going to guess that the night waking has nothing to do with hunger. I've done a lot differently with DD than I did with DS and it seems to have worked (or maybe they're just different sleepers, who knows). In any case, restless sleep is often caused by overtired-ness and he's probably demanding a bottle because once he wakes he has no idea how else to get back to sleep. He has a strong bottle to sleep association.
I would first make sure he's getting enough sleep. He should be getting 14-15 hours per day. Probably 11-12 at night and 3-4 during the day. Bed time should probably be sometime between 6 and 8. Just making sure he gets enough sleep might take care of the problem. If not, you might work on trying to break the bottle-sleep association. Experiment with other ways of getting him to sleep. Maybe it's as simple as taking the bottle away when he's almost asleep (when you're putting him down) and swapping it for a pacifier. Or you could try laying him down drowsy but awake and then sitting by the crib and patting his belly until he falls asleep.
~Working Mom~Breastfeeding Mom~Cloth Diapering Mom~BLW Mom~
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Shawn and Larissa
LO #1 - Took 2 years and 2 IVFs ~ DX - severe MFI mild PCOS homozygous MTHFR (a1298c)
LO #2 - TTC 7 months, surprise spontaneous BFP!
Not alone.
My son wakes out of habit, though, not hunger. He nurses plenty during the day. He wakes 2-3 times a night. I haven't had a full (5 or more hours) of sleep since before he was born.
Sorry I don't have an answer for you! It sucks, I know.
DS born via unplanned C-section at 40w6d
DS most of the time does not STTN. We FF but I know for a fact he is not drinking enough formula during the day in order to STTN. He refuses formula unless it's nap time or bed time. I'm going to start giving it to him in his sippy cup instead of water during the day to see if I can up his intake. We also have him on 3 meals plus snacks during the day. Usually it looks something like this:
Breakfast: yogurt and cheerios, cottage cheese with fruit chunks or oatmeal mixed in with some sort of fruit puree.
8 oz bottle before morning nap
Lunch: leftovers from the night before, soup, pasta, sandwiches, veggies (chopped up or pureed, whatever is on hand) and usually some form of fruit.
8 oz bottle before afternoon nap
Snack: some sort of finger food in his highchair with water to drink
Dinner: Whatever we are having but more veggies than anything.
Sometimes I can sneak in a few oz of formula here but most of the time no.
Bedtime: 9 oz bottle
4 am: 8 oz bottle
Repeat!
Lurker here...I'm usually hanging out more around the multiples board but made my way over here finally...anyways on to your question...I think it sounds like he needs more food! My boys are 23lbs and 24lbs and this is what they eat:
morning 8oz bottle with cereal
morning snack yogurt and dry cherrios
lunch veggies (3oz) and fruit (3oz)
afternoon 8oz bottle
dinner meat and veg puree (3oz) and fruit (3oz) and puffs
bedtime 8oz bottle with cereal
They go down at 7:30pm and wake up at 7:30am...how are the day time naps? The worst enemy of a good nightime sleeper is being overtired! We do a morning and afternoon nap of 1.5-2hrs.....I hope things get easier for you soon! You must be exhausted!
i think you need to his solids intake significantly. my LO doesnt sleep through the night and gets up to FF- but i think it's also out of habit... i notice that if he has more solids throughout the day, he sleeps much better at night. we have gotten better about soothing him back to sleep without feeding him.
we've had better luck giving him larger bottles as he has gotten older- we offer him 6-8 ounces after a meal of solid food. he eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner with one snack that has protein and fruit.
after a meal or snack we offer him water in a cup, then his bottle. he drinks about 24 ounces a day at this point, more like 30 ounces if he doesn't have enough solids.
my son is ten months old on the 26th and 21 pounds.