09 May
More Sleep Woes
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Xander’s sleep issues. Well, as it turns out, the kid wound up having a rather nasty ear infection. It wasn’t discovered until about 10 days after his sleep issues, but I’m fairly certain that was the issue.
Of course, just like any other baby, shortly after I published my post, the sleep issues vanished. Little dude was sleeping through the night like a champ. Asleep by 8:00 or 8:30 and not waking until at least 6:00. Ah, those were the days.
For the last two weeks Xander has been waking up once a night to eat. I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do. I feel like at 7 1/2 months, he shouldn’t need to eat at night but when he wakes up, he is insistent on a bottle. I just can’t figure out if that is out of habit or if he is actually hungry. With Jack it was a bit easier. Once I knew he didn’t always need to eat at night, my husband would get up with him. Then if it became obvious that he needed to eat, I would nurse him. It worked well because Jack knew that my husband wasn’t going to feed him. Since X is formula fed, my husband and I take turns with night time duty so he doesn’t associate eating with just me.
We had a few days where X had a fever and a few more days of congestion and maybe some teething thrown in there so all of that is likely contributing to his problems. Add to that the fact that he hasn’t been terribly interested in food lately (which by the way, does anyone know how much formula he should be eating every day?) and we have the perfect recipe for the boy child to be waking in the middle of the night. There has also been the occasional one or two nights (like Saturday night (Happy Mother’s Day to me!) where he did sleep through the night so I KNOW that he can sleep all night.
I’ve tweeked a few things in our routine. Feeding him as soon as he gets home instead of after the rest of us eat dinner. Trying to add an extra few ounces of formula mid-evening. Seems like no matter what I do, X is gonna do whatever he wants.
Any advice on where to go from here? Wait it out a while longer? Tweek something else? Help!
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Have you started solids yet? Maybe he’s ready to go full steam ahead with some stuff that is more filling longer?
And duuuuuude. That photo. ZOMG.
We have started solids. He eats 1 jar of Stage 2 food at dinner. I was giving him oatmeal as well but then he stopped eating very much at daycare. Like some days he was eating literally 2 ounces of formula and no solids. I’ve been concerned about Jim eating enough formula so I cut back on the solids at dinner so he would drink more. Perhaps I need to try adding back the oatmeal.
Thanks alot – your answer solved all my problems after seeravl days struggling
Neither one of my kids gave up eating at night by that early of an age. My elder was fully a year before he quit with it (but his sleep issues were a pain so I was less pushy about making him give up food at night) and my second one was about 10.5 or 11 months when he stopped waking to eat at night.
Because of that experience, I never would have expected a 7 month old to sleep all night without eating. That seriously happens? OH how I wish my babies had done that! My solution would just be to wait it out. If he’s hungry, he’s hungry. He could be going through a growth spurt. When my youngest was around 8 months of age, he would eat a four course dinner (no, really, he did) at around 5 pm, nurse heavily off both sides at 7 pm just before bed (when we switched to bottles during weaning, this turned out to be around 8 ounces), and he STILL woke up to eat at night because he was hungry. It eventually went away and now he sleeps like a champ.
I wish I had better advice!
Jack was definitely not eating at night by this age (at least not on a regular basis). And because he slept all night for several weeks and also has done so for a few nights recently, I know he can do it. I just need to figure out how to better encourage it.
Growth spurt? How much is he eating at night? If he has cut back on calories during the day then I would try sneaking more food in during the day and any extra ounces you can get in before bed. Does he always wake up at the same time? That would seem to point to habit like Wy waking up between 2-2:15 every night for a while. Add more calories and wait it out. Maybe Jim will fix everything for you next week
That picture is awesome!
I don’t have anything to add — Michael seems to be on X’s wavelength as far as waking at night to eat for some reason — but I just wanted to say I love that photo!