Bedtime routines and hunger

snok83

Couple of questions on sleep.   What times are your little ones going to bed/wake up?  

 We start our bedtime routine between 6 and 6:30 each night and give her a large bottle 7-8 oz right before bed.   The problem we are running into is she is waking up anywhere from 4 to 5 am b/c she is hungry.   I truly believe she is hungry as she can finish a 6 oz bottle in like 10 minutes or less.  Forunately, she normally goes right back to sleep once she finishes her bottle.   We have tried feeding her solid foods right before the bedtime routine.  And have attempted to keep her up later after 7 but she still woke up to eat.  Our bottles go up to 9 oz so I guess we could try a 9 oz bottle though that seems like a lot in one setting.  Just trying to see what else we can try to help fill her up more.  Or is it something where she simply may need this bottle b/c she is sleeping so long and just a growing girl!

When we switch to WCM here in a month or so, do you still plan to continue with forumula/BM for the last bottle to help hold them over.  Or second time moms does the WCM fill them up enough?  Just curious. 

ceamac0127

Our pedi told us - even if LO is in a growth spurt, she doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night, period. She will make up for it during the day if she needs extra food.
FWIW before LO started cutting her bottles down due to more solids, she was drinking 8oz before bed so if you wanted to go the route of 9oz before bed, I don't think it's too much. Just be ready for a heavy stinky diaper in the AM!

Debbie0580

DD goes to bed between 7/7:30 and wakes up between 6:30/7:30. She gets her last bottle right before bed (I offer 8oz but she only ever takes 4-6oz). She has no night wakings unless she's lost her sucky and can't find it herself. She's been cutting bottles on her own since Christmas and she's down to 3/day with a total of 15-20oz/day. She eats solids like a champ and when she dropped her last bottle I started offering her WCM in her sippy with meals. She drinks max 4oz WCM/day.
With DS he dropped his bottles on his own around this time and the WCM was enough. If DD doesn't drop her own bottles I'll start weaning around 12 mos but her night bottle will be the last to go. I'll still likely offer formula in her bottles rather than WCM.

JSS1002

We've been struggling with changing up his sleep schedule for the past few weeks, so take this with a grain of salt, but what has worked best for us is the following:

Bottle; 6:30-7:30 AM

Breakfast: 8:30- 9:30 AM (cereal, etc)

Bottle: 10:15'ish

Morning nap: 10:30-12:30'ish

Lunch: 12:30 / 1'ish

Bottle: 1'ish

Afternoon nap: 3:30'ish

Bottle: upon waking

Dinner: 6'ish

Bottle:7:30'ish

Bed: 8 PM

I wrote out the whole schedule because honestly, if we don't adhere closely to that, then it is a crap shoot... if he doesn't get down for his afternoon nap, he can't stay awake long enough to go to bed at 8 which means he's waking up at like 4 AM.  

pinottoparenthood

saxchloe said:

I have no idea about formula cause I'm breast feeding. I do it before bed and will continue to do so until she shows signs of weaning. I'll be offering her milk with meals at 1 but still offering breast milk before bed and maybe when she wakes up in the morning.... I don't know about adding more formula to a bottle at this point I was told by my doctor that they should be winding down their formula/breast milk at this point so I'm not sure about adding more ounces to the bottle before bed? What if you added a snack to make sure your baby is eating enough during the day?

This is me, too. I will continue to nurse him at night until he self-weans. 

Have you tried not giving her that bottle at 4-5 AM? Can you rock or soothe her back to sleep? (You probably have... just checking!) Good luck... sorry I'm not more helpful! What helped us to make him sleep through the night was when I stopped nursing him to sleep. He got too reliant on that to fall asleep, so he would wake up and cry until I nursed him. So just make sure your baby is awake when you put her down.

Angela814

DD3 goes to bed around 8:30pm and is up for the day around 7:30am. She nurses before bed and at least twice in the MOTN. (Last night was 11:30pm and 6am, which was a good night.) If I'm gone and she has a bedtime bottle, she won't take more than 5oz and wakes the same throughout the night.

I nursed both my older DDs past 2 years and night weaned both right around 2. (They both continued to wake up MOTN even after night weaning.) We did do some WCM at daycare after they turned 1, but I wouldn't say solid and/or milk intake had any effect on night wakings.

Eta: DD3 eats 3 solid meals and nurses on average 5-6x during the day.

pinottoparenthood

@angela814 Wow that's rough! Did you just have to rock them back to sleep after the night weaning?

Angela814

pinottoparenthood said:

@angela814 Wow that's rough! Did you just have to rock them back to sleep after the night weaning?

We've always bed shared after the first night waking, so eventually they just came into bed with us and went right back to sleep. While night weaning I had to rub backs or tummies until they fell back asleep.