adjusting sleep/feeding schedules when LO's sleep longer

nikkim76

Usually my LO's wake by 5 or 5:30 and go to bed by 8:30-9:00 and eat every 3 hours from wake to bedtime. The past 2 days they have slept until 6:15am which pushes up the feeding and bedtime. So, bedtime on tese 2 particular dasy was 9:30. I want them to go to bed earler... latest by 8:30at this point. But I feel that they need that last bottle to get them through the night? Is it not a good idea to put them to bed close to when they get therir next bottle. Because they are usually falling alseep anyway by 8 anyway and I wake them for the last bottle. Should I just skip that last one if its getting late and see how they do. I would prefer a 7-7 or 8-8 bedtime...eventually. Any suggestions would be good! I just hate to wake them when they are sleepy but they usually always go right to bed for me after. Am I being to nit picky about bedtimes at this age?

janjag

i would keep bedtime the same, or try moving even earlier at this point.  you are getting the most wonderful gift in that your LOs are starting to sleep in to a more civilized time.  i've read babies naturally might want to move bedtime earlier at this point.  mine did. 

you could try doing a bedtime routine, feed, put down for the night, but do it at whatever you want to be the last bottle... 8pm.  if they are used to 9:30 now, you might have to inch them back down in 15min increments.

if they are telling you they can sleep longer by sleeping later, then they are probably fine eating the amount given during the day. 

jalaiaa

Maybe try it out without waking them for that last bottle for a couple of nights and see how they do. Offer them a little more in their daytime bottles and see if that works. I BF so I don't know exactly how much mine get most of the time but we do occasionally give them bottle of pumped milk. I noticed that as we decreased the number of feeds during the day and night they started taking more in their bottles. Now they generally eat every 4 hours during the day and when they get bottles for these feeds they eat about 6 oz. Before when they were eating every 3ish hours they would eat 4-5 oz. I think it all works out.