6.5 month old still wakes 3-4 times to eat

[mazince514]

My 6.5 month old still wakes 3-4 times to eat. Fussing escalates to screaming until he has a bottle in his mouth. On a good night, he wakes 3 times - bed at 7:30, wake at 10, 1, and 4, up for the day around 7. I read Precious little sleep and we stopped feeding him to sleep for both bed and naps. He now goes to sleep independently for both. I also attempted the PLS method of night weaning to select one feed that is most disruptive of sleep (1a) and slowly start offering less during that feed. So we went from 4oz to 3oz and then 2oz. When we got to 2oz, instead of getting another 3 hour stretch (until 4a), he woke at 2:30a, which leads me to believe it is hunger. It’s a viscous cycle because we do offer more during the day and he averages about 26 oz during the day, but then takes 12oz+ overnight. That’s nearly 40oz of formula! Ped not concerned because he’s on his curve.

Some of this is def my fault - He’s in the 10th percentile so I’ve always been concerned about his weight and have always offered the bottle at every fuss. We also fed to sleep for 6 months before I read PLS.

I’m not sure what to do at this point. I feel like he’s drinking way too much overnight but attempts at weaning have led to more wake-up’s. I don’t want to deprive him of food if he’s hungry, but 40oz of formula over a 24 hour period feels excessive. Please help me troubleshoot!

 

[humblepie777]

@mazince514 I was also very worried about my neighbors (condo) but they all ended up being very understanding (those who share walls are all child free). Their experience MAYBE hearing baby pales in comparison to yours. Likely they sleep straight through it.

My baby is 90th percentile and also took 40oz/day at 6mo. She's slowed down now to 32oz at 11mo. I agree with others when they say to increase bottle size and/or offer another bottle during the day. We were offering 5 8oz bottles during the day at that point and she was annihilating them.

A smaller baby will take longer to get through the night with no feeds but I promise it will happen eventually!

 

[bibleville]

@mazince514 If you are going off the general 24-32oz rule that Google says, start doing the upper limit during the day instead of the lower, but talk to your pediatrician about how much you should be feeding if you are unsure. Seems like he’s needing more. Mine didn’t start sleeping through the night until he was finally able to take bigger bottles and we could get the 32oz in him during the day. Sometimes we go up to 40 because we follow his cues on when he is hungry and needs more.

 

[atobo]

@mazince514 My kid woke every 1-2 hours to nurse until just before 2 years old. Now they wake at least once a night for some pasta or cheese at 3 years old. I’ve often wondered when that will stop. But it will! Just glad they are eating, and healthy!

 

[tito1990]

@mazince514 food isnt the issue, milk is all thats needed at rhis point anyway.
i know this is a sleep training grouo but at this age still waking alot is normal, all my kids were 10minths before they started sleeping longer

 

[mrdorky]

@mazince514 Not sure if it’s already been mentioned but we were in something similar. Your baby is likely reverse cycling.

Instead of dropping night feeds, look to decrease the intake. If baby can put themselves down independently at bed, they can put themselves down on the middle of the night. But if they’re actually hungry, then they need to feed.

So you need to slowly up day time intake and lower night time intake. It could take a few weeks.

 

[lemondrop1]

@mazince514 My 6mo is on a veeery similar wake schedule at night for nursing.

Also read PLS and have been careful to nix the eat-to-sleep association with plenty of distance, and am trying to cap the nursing sessions at 10 min, will try for 9 minutes soon, but she seems so hungry! I’ve recently gone back to work and she is still struggling with bottles (but getting better) so I’m hoping to get more ounces in her during the day… but this night waking preceded my return to work and it was even happening with plenty of round the clock on-demand feeding.

A sleepy salute to you from across the internet.

 

[phelven]

@mazince514 Have you given him solids yet ?

 

[mazince514]

@phelven Yes starting solids but BLW so he’s not actually ingesting much.

 

[phelven]

@mazince514 My midwife suggested introducing foods more quickly. For the record he was up 4 times a night, and doing things like trying to grab pizza out of my hand to eat it (for the record I obviously never gave him pizza til MUCH later). But my midwife said that some kids are just more ready for food than others.

So I moved him along “just slightly” quicker than recommended. But with that being said he flourished. He went from 1% to 35% percentile in a few weeks. He started sleeping through the night. He became the happiest baby I could ever imagine. It was like night and day.

Still don’t have an explanation for it … besides I think he was just hungry ?

Not sure if it will help but wanted to share what worked for us ! Best of luck

 

[anggreni]

@phelven My mom described me as a baby similarly - I abruptly was super demanding about wanting food, and did really well earlier than expected. But this also caused me to have very little interest in nursing - can be good and bad depending on the situation!

 

[mazince514]

@phelven Wow! That’s amazing. I’ll maybe try some purées and get some solids in his belly.

 

[phelven]

@mazince514 Hope this is it so you get a quick turn around in the sleep department! Best of luck to you mama

 

[oxid]

@mazince514 I found BLW isn’t great at actually getting them to eat until maybe they are 9 months. Once I started purées our little one got up way less at night! He was someone who got up every 2 hours until we did some formula and purées

 

[mazince514]

@oxid Will try more purées! Thank you. I’m not against purées or anything, I just like BLW because I can just modify what we’re eating a bit. But I do have a baby cook I can put to use for more purées.

 

[paul3993]

@mazince514 My daughter was similar weight-wise and did get up to 40oz of formula briefly, but I think she was closer to a year. Are you getting a lot of spit up? If so, could be reflux.

If reflux isn't an issue, I'd try 2 split-feedings during the day as this is what the LC recommended for weight gain and it worked. That means if you're feeding every 4 hours during the day, do two feeds that are spaced every two hours. You can do these on top of each other. Here's a sample schedule (partial):

7 am: feed

11 am: feed

1pm: feed

5pm:feed

9pm: feed (before bed?)

11pm (could do a dream feed of a few ounces here too).

She did drink a little less with the split feeds, but it still amounted to about an extra bottle and a half or 7ish extra ounces/day.

I'd also try to do a feeding before you go to bed ("dream feed"). I did that too, but my daughter was sleeping through the night from 8w on. I'd just wake her around 2 hours after bedtime (11pm) and give her a bottle and change her diaper.

He's probably also able to do some solids at that age and it will help with overnights and weight gain too.

My daughter was younger when we started the split feedings an dream feeds, but she jumped from the 5th percentile to the 10th doing that alone it it was rapid.

I don't think any of this is your fault! Please don't blame yourself. Our pediatrician always said, "An angry/unhappy baby is a hungry baby until proven otherwise."

 

[lynk]

@mazince514 My small for her age infant was feeding 2-3x at 6 months despite being sleep trained to get her self to sleep independently for naps and the start of the night. It naturally went down to 1 feed around 8-9 months and then she fully dropped overnight feeds and was sleeping 8p til 8a around 10.5 months. I think your situation sounds within the normal limits. One thing you can do is try and cut down time on each boob if you’re breastfeeding or oz in the bottles you offer. I did the reduce the time on each boob to drop the final overnight feed and it worked like a charm.

 

[esdras]

@mazince514 I night weaned by setting alarms and dream feeding her before she woke, and slowly fed her less and less at each feeding and tried to encourage bigger and more frequent feedings (without force obviously) during the day. It takes a lot of time and effort but migrating those calories to the daytime hours helps a lot.

 

[ash_p]

@mazince514 I’m BFing and daughter is 7.5 months and it’s almost the EXACT same schedule or even more. And if I try to pop her off before she is done she screams like a wild animal. Lol. She boobs every hour and a half or so during the day. I don’t know what to do… funny thing is she slept 8 hours straight a night up until the 4month regression which it the worst thing that has ever happened to me I swear!

 

[katrina2017]

@ash_p If she’s on the boob every hour and a half during the day at 7mos, it’s very likely she’s not getting enough. Do you pump or can you combo feed or just offer a formula bottle? You could even BF and then offer a bottle when you want to/need to pop her off the boob. Even little babies can go upwards of 3 hours between feeds so every 1.5 hours leads me to think this is possibly a supply issue or a general issue with BF (which I don’t mean negatively! I still def encourage doing it if you enjoy it still, but to supplement with a bottle as well)