**Niki (and other MoMs of 6ish mth olds)

juliannat

Hi Niki! Can you please share your schedule in more detail? Specifically -

How long are naps and at approx what times? (My LOs still sometimes have 4 naps, one of which is quite late - ie. 20-30 min around 5/5:30 pm)

Both STTN - DD goes down at 7-7:15 pm and DS between 7:15-8. Both wake up between 6-7. Sometimes they wake earlier, like 5, but go back to sleep within a couple min. I'm wondering if they are sleeping "too much" at night and that's why they don't have super-long daytime naps.

We are presently feeding 4x/day - 645-7, 11, 3 and 645/7.

How much are they eating? (or are you still EBF so not really sure?) We do 7 oz bottles but yesterday they seemed a bit hungry after a couple feeds so today I am trying 8 oz at the 7am and 3pm feeds. I am going to start cereal within the next couple of days, in the AM and see how that goes.

Ferbering - did you do both at the same time, in the same room? Or start with one and then the other? (I just started reading his book)

Sorry for all the q's; I don't have a lot of stuff outside the house planned this week so am trying to work on some things

TIA!

nikinikinine

Hey there, going to answer your questions in line so I don't forget anything

juliannat:

How long are naps and at approx what times? (My LOs still sometimes have 4 naps, one of which is quite late - ie. 20-30 min around 5/5:30 pm)

We just dropped our fourth nap at 5 months. DD usually wakes up between 6 and 7 a.m. (mostly 6:30 a.m.) once she wakes up I open the window shades and turn off the sound machine in the nursery. DS usually wakes up within 10 minutes of that happening.

Assuming our day starts at 6:30 our schedule is -

6:30 - 9 a.m. nursing, baby einstein and playtime

9 a.m. nap - this one is around 90 minutes

10:30 a.m. bottle. DD has solids an hour later, after her solids we do baths, this cycle usually takes 2 hours

12:30 p.m. nap - between 60-90 minutes

2 p.m. bottles and playtime

4 p.m. - nap - this one is anywhere from 40-60 minutes

5 p.m. bottles and playtime

7 p.m. we change into jammies and they get a small bottle (around 4 oz) at 7:15. Bedtime is 7:30 p.m.

With naps I don't let them sleep more than 2 hours (I'll open the shades/turn off their sound machine) so I don't take away from nighttime sleep, but I don't do anything to keep them down for a certain time. They have 2 hours of awake time now, I'm going to start extending that 15 minutes at a time starting next week. My hope is that we'll get to 3 hours of awake time by 7 months and drop the third nap...

juliannat:

How much are they eating? (or are you still EBF so not really sure?)

They eat 5x a day on a three hour cycle. I nurse first thing in the morning and then I pump 2x a day. So they have two BM bottles and 2 formula bottles. DS can take anywhere from 5-7 oz and DD can take anywhere from 4-6 oz. By the end of the day he is usually between 25-30 oz (plus one BF session) and she is usually 20-25 oz (plus one BF session).

I went from EBF to a mix of BM and formula at 4 months, at 5 months I stopped nursing during the day and just EP'd and FF'd and at 6 months they are going straight FF. So I'm still trying to figure out what they take by bottle.

I am using the nursing mother's companion as my guide. It says to take the baby's weight in kg and multiply it by 6, then divide that number by the total number of feedings per day and that is the ounces your baby should be taking in a bottle per feeding. My kids are pretty spot on with this.

juliannat:

Ferbering - did you do both at the same time, in the same room? Or start with one and then the other? (I just started reading his book)

DD was a great overnight sleeper so I only had to Ferber with her for naps. DS I had to Ferber during naps and at bedtime. Both have responded *beautifully* to having a schedule and go down without a peep for naps and bedtime.

I did both at the same time, it was just easier that way. At first I thought separating them would be better and we did that overnight the first night, but then I realized that they need to be able to deal with each others' noises and such so I put them back together in the same room.

GL with everything! I hope your changes work for you

CaliDutchGrl

Thank you Niki for providing a schedule...we have NONE! And my life is starting to become chaotic. I hope I can follow this pretty soon!