sleep routine

Naomi - posted on 08/08/2009

I decided to bath,massage him in my room with the music on and i have added an extra ounce to his last bottle.soo glad to say that this week he is only waking up to 1nite feed instead of 2.he is now sleeping from 9ish to 4ish

Jennifer - posted on 08/06/2009

hi naomi i have 5 month old twins and a 6 and 7 year old, i found baby massage very calming, try to start a routine by feeding the last bottle of the eve in his bedroom singing a song and then putting him in bed dont rock him in your arms this will give him a habit. leave him to sleep himself. i ve done this with all mine and they slept through the night since they were 2 months. a baby wont get habits til they're 4 months so try and start before that xx good luck.

Naomi - posted on 08/04/2009

hi all that information was very useful.he is 11weeks actual so 2weeks corrected!!!
tonight i did him a bath,5oz bottle and straight to bed and it has worked so i am just waiting to see how long he will go till his next bottle.he is feeding every 4hours on demand(90% of the time) but is starting to go longer slowly during the nite-before he was waking at 3 now he wakes up at 5 to have his feed after his 12oclock feed.i think its alot harder to know what to do with a premature baby because even though they are a certain amount of weeks,you have also got to remember they are physically and mentally behind.i could try given him a half bottle half way one of his evening feeds.i dont want to cut his nite feed just try get it into 1.at the moment he has a bottle at midnight,5oclock then wakes at 9.

Sounds like you had many a sleepless nights.I dont know how you coped doing that for a year.

Thanks for the advice iwill take it 1day at a time xx

Valerie - posted on 08/04/2009

Naomi

When you say that he is 11 weeks old, is that actual or corrected age? I am going to assume that it his corrected age. A couple of questions - how's his growth, is he gaining weight appropriately? If he is having growth and weight gain issues then the answer is not right now. He should be AT LEAST 12 lbs before stopping night feedings.



Are you feeding him on demand (when he wakes on his own and wants to feed) or do you have him on a schedule where you wake him up to feed? If you are feeding him on a schedule then now is the time to stop.



Let him awaken on his own to feed at night. Make sure that you are feeding and putting him back to bed as quickly as possible. If he is looking for more then go ahead and increase the amount in his bottle. Have you tried introducing cereals during the day? Check with your Pediatrician. In order to sleep through the night, he needs to take in more calories during the day.

You can also start reducing the amount in his night-time bottles. You have 2 choices - either reduce the amount of milk or transition him to water. Reduce the amount of milk by about 1/2 ounce of milk (if you want to transition to water then it will be 3.5 ounces milk and 0.5 ounces of water - keep reducing the amount of milk every couple of days).



At this point, I would not mess around with the daytime naps. They do a tremendous amount of growing while they are sleeping. Increase calorie intake during the day and reduce bottle sizes and let him wake up on his own.



My preemie twins were 5 weeks early and are now 22 months actual. Lily just stopped waking up in the middle of the nights for feedings at about 4 months actual (3 months corrected). Scared the dickens out of me when I realized that I had only fed one baby during the night. Her twin brother, Patrick, however, was a tough nut to crack. He had really bad acid reflux which he was on medication for. He continued to night feed (every 2-4 hours on demand because of the acid reflux he could only tolerate smaller amounts but fed more frequently) until about the time they were about 6-7 months old. My husband is out of town during the week so I was on my own and very, very sleep deprived. Weaning him off the night bottle was pretty painless and took about a week. The only problem was that by this time Patrick was quite used to waking several times a night out of habit. It took about another 3 months to work those kinks out. He would refuse a bottle but did need some help to get himself resettled. I didn't start getting a decent night's sleep until they were about a year old.



Good luck