Sleeping Through the Night - Dallas,TX

My pediatrician told me to lengthen the time between bottles by 5,10 or 15 minutes a few times a week (however long you can stand the crying)and that eventually his stomach will get used to the times between feedings. My 9 mth infant son is on the same schedule - last bottle at 10-11 pm and up again at 4:30 or 5 am. He's a screamer, so I sympathize with you! I put my son down for a nap around 8:30 to 9 am and then around 12-1 pm. Most mornings I am able to put him down after his 5 am feeding for another 30-60 minutes while I get some more sleep. Can your daycare help you with getting him on a particular nap schedule? Good luck!! -JM

Hi S.!!
Its Alex. How've ya been??? I've been out of town for the holidays and just returned so we need to get together for a playgroup.
Anyway, Marco is 7 months too and I put him down at 10:30pm right after his last bottle. I warm his nighttime bottle. He wakes up and cries once around 4 AM and only eats about an ounce before falling back asleep. He'll then sleep until about 9AM. He's not really "eating" since he only takes an ounce during that 4 AM feeding so my New Years resolution is to cut it out completely. I'm going to do it cold turkey/cry it out method. I also usually have to feed or rock him to sleep. I'm going to try putting him down awake and see what happens. I haven't had too much luck in the past. It helps a lot when I swaddle him. He seems to know that it means "night night" time and starts relaxing.
I guess good luck to both of us! Let me know what happens and I'll do the same. :)

You will get a lot of different advice on sleep. It will probably all be good advice, but be sure to use what you feel most comfortable with and what works best for you and your baby. A lot of people don't do what I did, but with my son the only thing we could do was cry it out. A 7 month old can go all night without a bottle. (I got all of my advice from a ped and a book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.) It sounds to me like he is just used to having this middle-of-the-night-bottle. My advice would be to give him a late night bottle, which it sounds like you are already doing, and then just let him cry if he wakes up in the middle of the night. You say he cries off and on, so that sounds to me like he actually might be ready to go without that bottle. If he were truly hungry, it seems like he might actually cry constant and hard until you gave him one. If you are concerned about him feeling abandoned, you can go to him when he wakes up and pat his back or console him in another way, but no bottle. He'll get the picture pretty quick. We could not console with our son because our presence just made him more alert and made it harder for him to fall back to sleep on his own.

So in short, I say drop the feeding. If you just are not ready to go there, try reducing the amount of formula slowly until he basically is only getting an ounce or two and then drop it. Next would be console him, but if that just does not work, then my suggestion would be cry it out. It is hard, but we only had to go through 2 nights of crying. First night was 1.5 hrs and the second night was 20 min. As a single parent, I would think it is necessary for you to get as much sleep as possible, so don't feel guilty about putting those needs high on your priority list. I'm sure your son will benefit from your good nights sleep, as well as his own. FYI-the book I mentioned is responsible for our good sleep habits. My son sleeps each night from 6:30-7:00. He's 18 mos now, but has been doing this since about 8 mos of age (I think - it is so easy to lose track of time!!) Anyway, good luck in the new year!

S.,

I read that you are going to bed at nine, is that what time you are putting your son down? I have a 5 month old and we have fought this same thing up until recently. I tried letting him cry it out, but it was too hard on all of us, my husband included. What we found by accident was putting him to bed later in the night, and not waking him up for that 2nd bottle, worked for us. Don't know if it will work for you since all kids are different, but it might be worth a shot. We were always putting our son to bed by 8, I pushed back his schedule just by accident one night to starting at 8 and getting him at bed by 9. He slept through the night that night, well until 6 or so, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. He has been doing pretty well ever since then. In the beginning he would cry out a few times throughout the night, but we would make ourselves wait 10 minutes until we got up, he would eventually put himself back out and now he really isn't waking himself up. My doctor really recommended to me that I put him in bed when he isn't actually asleep and let him put himself to sleep so that when he wakes up he can put himself back out. It really seemed to help us as well. I know how frustrating this is, when you are sleep deprived it makes it hard to be on your game!

Hope this helps.

Ahhh man, I know how you feel. Had that same problem and eventually I was so sleep deprived I just took his 3am feeding away cold turkey. I gave him water and rocked and calmed him as best I could & kept doing that until 6am if needed. I refused to give him milk until 6am, after 2 nights he was over it. He will automatically drink more during the day & not need the early morning bottle anymore. Good luck & happy dreams.