sleep update...

[michellemcd]

Follow up to last night's post...

Wow - last night was NOT good. She cried at 12:30. Would NOT go back. So I brought her into my room and gave her the watered down bottle. (We've been watering gradually, and I had gotten to 8 oz of water with only enough formula for a 4oz bottle. She drank 3 or so oz and went back to sleep.

Then up again at 2:30.

Comments

[michellemcd]

She does take a paci, but it's not calming her down in the middle of the night. And she defintiely takes 4 8 oz bottles AND a container of food for dinner, so she is certainly getting enough food, I think. My hesitation to taking it away completely is having to deal with the straight up CIO. I was kind of hoping that by cutting back, it would be a gentler way of eliminating the wake up. I think it's probably just prolonging the inevitable though. :-/

[michellemcd]

Re: the watering down method - I forget where I read it but we did it with Mike at some point and it worked like magic. After 3 nights or whatever it took us to get to just water, he just stopped waking up for it. It was awesome. She was not as easily fooled, however. ;-)

[lawgirl4]

she could be going through a growth spurt, you know? that might explain why she sucked down the full strength 8oz bottle.

I don't know the intricacies of formula feeding, but maybe she *is* hungry, and could eat more solids during the day?

alternatively, you could offer her a full strength 4-6oz bottle at the midnight wakeup, and then let her CIO if she wakes again before morning.

*hugs* - trust me, I know how horrible sleep issues can be!

[michellemcd]

Only thing is that she's been doing this for 3 months now, so I can't blame it on a spurt! Just my own reluctance to CIO.

Is it OK to give them more than one container of food? I thought at this age it was supposed to be primarily BM or formula. The thing is, no matter how much she eats at dinner, she is still waking up. This makes me think it is out of habit more than hunger. With Mike I had no problem letting him cry, and this is my own issue. For some reason I feel like because he was a big chubby boy, he could handle it. And she is just a little girl, so it's too early. Hmmm... someone over here is going to have to be a little more careful about stereotyping genders.

Oh god I hate this part of parenting. I will do literally ANYTHING in the middle of the night to stop the crying!

[lawgirl4]

sorry, didn't realize it's been for 3mo! so she is 6mo now? I agree, it seems out of habit, but if she sucked down the bottle it seems like she's probably legitimately hungry, you know?

my feeling (and I know I may be in the minority) has always been that babies under 9-10 mo (i.e. before they are really eating "meals") cannot go 12 hours straight without eating. that just seems REALLY long to me. I know plenty of babies do it (including yours!) but LOTS of babies can't. and now that she's bigger, Noelle may not be in the same camp as Mike, kwim? So I would first try to offer her one big bottle at the first wakeup, and then CIO until morning.

[michellemcd]

Thanks - I know I need to be a be more patient with these things. She just tricked me by sleeping through so consistently early on! ;) The weird thing about her is that some nights she'll go till 4 or 5 without waking up, and other nights it's 12, 2 and 4. So there's no real rhyme or reason yet, but the only thing that gets her back down is sucking down some food. Oh I'm so tired. :(

[stefanieas]

Is she eating any solids yet? Cameron sttn at 8 weeks and then around 4 mos started waking to eat. I kept feeding him more at bedtime, thinking that was the issue, but came to find out (around 6mos) that he wasn't getting enough to eat throughout the day. I think at that time he was having 4 8oz bottles and two 'meals' of solids (one container at lunch and one at dinner). So you might try upping her amount of solids. Good luck! :)

[stefanieas]

Wow - that is a lot of food!! Maybe that is the problem. I can barely get her to eat one container of solids for dinner. She's just not that into it. Awesome - another picky eater. ;-) I will try to up the amount - you are probably right.