I need help with schedule and how much baby is eating for 8 months ? Please help!

macbook

My daughter is almost 8 months old now and I need some help with her schedule! She still wakes up a lot at night and I feel like I may be doing something wrong?

Her schedule varies a bit every day but she usually wakes around 7/8 and has milk at 9am -> nap -> 12 am milk-> nap -> 3 pm milk -> nap and then again at 6 pm I breastfeed her and she goes to bed around 8 (breastfeed before hand). She has three meals in between but honestly, she doesn't eat too much in the morning and when she does a good job eating solids its usually around 7-8 little baby spoon fulls. 

She wakes up usually around 1 am and 5 am to feed which I am told is unusual at this age...and that they should be able to sleep through the night at this age. But when she wakes up she acts legitimately hungry. So i'm wondering, am I not feeding her enough during the day?? She drinks anywhere between 100-130 cc of formula each time. I hear of kids at this age drinking the 8 ounce bottles - we still use 4 ounces. Am I not feeding her enough? Is that why she is waking up? 

Also, i'm wondering why she isn't eating more solids. I homemake the food but wonder if 7-8 spoon fulls is enough (this is the most she does. Sometimes its 3-4). 

Anyway, I would like some insight because I'm concerned i'm not feeding her enough and i'm concerned about her sleep. Its hard to get her to take naps during the day but each time she does nap its between 30-60 minutes (Average 45 minutes). And then at night time, she usually wakes up about an hour after i put her to sleep and then wants to be rocked/soothed. I try not to pick her up but usually end up giving in because she cries and cries if I don't. I don't know what it is about an hour after i put her to bed, but usually in the beginnings of the night she is sensitive and wakes up easily.

Anyway, anyone with any advice I would really really appreciate!!

spartybride3

This is our schedule:

Wake up- around 8ish

1st bottle- shorty after wakes up. 7oz

Nap- around 9-930 to 1130-12

Solids- 2-4oz

2nd bottle- before PM nap. 5oz

Nap- 2-4

3rd bottle- 430 ish. 5-7oz

Solids- 2oz (sometimes)

Bed/bottle- 7pm. 8oz

We stopped feeding her in the middle of the night around 4-5 months. We started to feed less and less and then just did it cold turkey one day and she's been fine.

Sleep has been an issue for us. Our naps & nights were like yours. Our pedi is Dr. Weissbluth of the Weissbluth method. He is strict, but it's helped. We let her CIO and started at 6mo. She can wake up during the night but generally it's because she can't find her paci. We just give it to her & walk out. She does have bad nights, but for the most part she goes to sleep within 20 min and she's down until the morning. We had the wake up after an hour thing, but it was mostly after she discovered object permanence. It sucks and it's hard, but after she CIO for a couple hours one night, that was it.

I too feel like I'm not feeding enough solids but she has little interest in them. I try to feed her less bottle to make her more hungry for solids.

Good luck. It's not easy with these kiddos!

glreding

Always remember that all babies are different. There are some general guidelines, but not all babies (or children or adults) follow them. It would be nice for your little one to sleep through the night, but maybe she's not ready. Yes, it does seem as though she drinks less than other babies, but I don't know the equivalency of 100-130cc to oz. Our baby girl is 6.5 months old. She's not on a time-of-day schedule. It's more like she wakes around 6:30 am and has a bottle shortly after waking, usually 5 to 6 oz. About 2 hours after waking, she is ready for a nap and will sleep around 2 hours if undisturbed. She eats another 5 to 6 oz about 4 hours following the start of the last bottle. This schedule is continued until bedtime, which is around 7pm. She normally wakes once during the night around 2:30 or 3 and wants another 5 to 6 oz. This regularity has been led by her.

We did the CIO method with our son, and I regret it. It was great for naps and bedtime at our house. We could just lay him down and be done. He was sleeping through the night by this age, but he was almost 2 lbs bigger than her at birth. The problem is that when we were not at home, there was no rocking him to sleep or other method. I wish I could have had that opportunity to hold him and get him to sleep. There has to be a method that is in the middle. Our daughter sleeps in a Baby Merlin Magic Sleepsuit. It took her 2 to 3 tries to get used to it, but the magic is that she (and we) sleeps.

kendy20

@spartybride3‌ , at this age you shouldn't be purposefully giving less milk/formula to get LO to eat more solids. Milk and formula should still be their main nutrition until one year when you start switching them to WCM.

jenn43

My LO is 8 months old, and he still wakes to eat at least twice in the MOTN, sometimes more if he's teething. He nurses several times a day, and eats quite a bit of solids, but he always seems legitimately hungry at night. It really doesn't bother me, so I haven't worried about it.

nicolemcm

@kendy20, thanks for saying what I was thinking too.

As for OP, our schedule is loosely:
630 wake and nurse (ebf, so can't comment to oz taken)
naps at 830/12/4 with nursing before and after
solids at ~11 - we're doing BLW, so he mostly just plays with his food at this point.
bed at 7 and sleeps through

Kriztyn

@ 8 months this was our schedule (and still is today)

Wake between 6-7

5oz bottle, 1oz oatmeal

8-9am- Nap

11:00 6oz bottle

12-1:00- Nap

3:00 6oz bottle

4-5: short nap

7:00 6oz bottle with fruit or veggie

7:30-8:00 Bedtime

KatWAG

If your Lo finished the 4oz bottle, do you offer her more formula? We also follow the Weissbluth method. And it has worked great for us. We slowly started offering less and less in the middle of the might and then stopped offering it at all.  Out pedi says at 7-8 months the MOTN feedings become a habit, not a need.

NewMrsMacC

Try giving her solids first thing in the morning, before her bottle. My daughter is also 8 months old and is doing really well with solids and still eating her formula really well, too.

Here is her schedule.

-Wake 7/8am eat 6oz solid breakfast-
(I give her something different every morning. Oatmeal, ground granola with yogurt, fresh fruit, applesauce...)

-9:30/10am 5 - 6oz bottle and a nap
(I rock her to sleep while she takes her bottle, or we lay on palette on living room floor after her bottle)

-12/1pm 5/6oz bottle

-3pm 5/6oz bottle

-6:30 solid dinner! By this time she's pretty hungry because her last bottle was over 3 hours ago, she eats a 6oz meal like chicken noodle or baby spaghettios and 2oz of fruit).

-8pm 6oz bottle and rocked to sleep.
Then laid down in her bed. She sleeps 12 hours (until 7/8am the next morning).

I guess the idea is to give her solids when she's the most hungry- first thing in the morning after sleeping all night. Then, if she usually gets bottles every 2 hours wait until the evening and have her go 3 hours and then get her solids (Or if her bottles are every 3 hours, in the evening wait for hours and then give her solids.. Etc)

hsal

Do yourself a favor, and never compare your child to anyone else's and you'll have 8000 less worries.

Until the baby is a year old, milk is the number one source of nutrition. Do not give solids so baby will sleep longer. They need your milk still. 

My son wakes up at night. Some nights it's once, some nights it's twice, some nights he sleeps right through. It can be teething, growing, object permanence, or he can just be hungry.

Listen to your baby, not the baby that loves next door that is already sleeping through the night and potty trained. If he/she needs to eat, then she/he needs to eat.

Good luck!

khaalid00

My LO 6-8 month feeding schedule: 6am-5oz milk, 8am-oatmeal until full, naps, 10:30-11am-veggie/ rice cereal, 12pm- 5oz milk, nap, 2pm-5oz milk, yogurt for snack, nap, 4pm-5oz milk, veggie/rice cereal, 6pm-bathed/5oz milk/bedtime. I do not measure nor count oz when feeding solid. I let my LO take as much as he wants.

Ybba0714

Do not give solids when lo is most hungry. Breastmilk/formula are still baby's primary nutrition source. Give solids after lo has nursed or had a bottle.
I nurse my lo before he eats his dinner. Then, he plays for a bit and goes through bedtime his routine. I nurse him again before bed. He sleeps through the night, waking at 5:30-6:00 to nurse, and than he typically sleeps for another hour or two.

PrimRoseMama

macbook said:

My daughter is almost 8 months old now and I need some help with her schedule! She still wakes up a lot at night and I feel like I may be doing something wrong?

Her schedule varies a bit every day but she usually wakes around 7/8 and has milk at 9am -> nap -> 12 am milk-> nap -> 3 pm milk -> nap and then again at 6 pm I breastfeed her and she goes to bed around 8 (breastfeed before hand). She has three meals in between but honestly, she doesn't eat too much in the morning and when she does a good job eating solids its usually around 7-8 little baby spoon fulls. 

She wakes up usually around 1 am and 5 am to feed which I am told is unusual at this age...and that they should be able to sleep through the night at this age. But when she wakes up she acts legitimately hungry. So i'm wondering, am I not feeding her enough during the day?? She drinks anywhere between 100-130 cc of formula each time. I hear of kids at this age drinking the 8 ounce bottles - we still use 4 ounces. Am I not feeding her enough? Is that why she is waking up? 

Also, i'm wondering why she isn't eating more solids. I homemake the food but wonder if 7-8 spoon fulls is enough (this is the most she does. Sometimes its 3-4). 

Anyway, I would like some insight because I'm concerned i'm not feeding her enough and i'm concerned about her sleep. Its hard to get her to take naps during the day but each time she does nap its between 30-60 minutes (Average 45 minutes). And then at night time, she usually wakes up about an hour after i put her to sleep and then wants to be rocked/soothed. I try not to pick her up but usually end up giving in because she cries and cries if I don't. I don't know what it is about an hour after i put her to bed, but usually in the beginnings of the night she is sensitive and wakes up easily.

Anyway, anyone with any advice I would really really appreciate!!

It's normal for infants/toddlers to not STTN until around 2-3 years. You aren't doing anything wrong.

In my experience, schedules don't really matter. At 8 months old solids should not exceed formula/Breastmilk consumption. It's not for nutrition, but for experience/fun. I would not increase more solids.

Food* does not make a baby/toddler/child sleep better. Neurological & emotional development does.

Edit: autocorrect weirdness.

PsyDr04

Does she still seem hungry after she finishes the 4 oz bottle? My LO is about 6.5 months and he takes 5.5 oz every 3-4 hours during the day. At night, he goes for about 5 hours before he wakes and is hungry. He typically goes to bed around 7, then may wake and want to eat around 11 or midnight, then may go until 6 but sometimes wants to eat before then. We have not started solids yet but will likely do so within the next week or two. I'm thinking of trying 6 oz bottles with him though in truth he does not always finish the 5.5 oz but the majority of the time he does. General rule of thumb in figuring out how many ounces your babe should shoot per day is taking their weight and multiplying by 2.5 but some kids will drink less than that and some will drink more. My LO is about 16 pounds so according to the calculation he should be taking in around 40 oz per day but he generally drinks more like 30 oz most days. At some point, the amount of milk intake probably levels off - there is probably a max amount you don't really need to exceed to meet their caloric needs, especially when solids become more a part of their diet, but I am not sure what age that really happens. 

Is your little girl gaining weight appropriately? If so, then you're probably doing ok and she just may not be a big eater.

sviglas

Mine drinks the same amount of times. I am still nursing and he has about 3-4oz bottles whole gone.he feeds twice in the night and everyone will tell you something different. I spoke with an LCon Friday and she D
said if he is eating and you are ok with the wake ups it's fine.

Cass005

Im having a similar issue but I know every baby is different. Ours is 7 months (tomorrow). She still eats like every two to three hours. I feel like she should be stretching it but its usually 4oz. She goes for a longer stretch in the late afternoon like almost 4 hours and I feed her dinner when I get home.

We started doing solids but just for lunch and I'm wondering if we should be doing lunch and breakfast, and how much, etc. This is our first so were still learning.