[Jill Deberlanger]

Hi Emma,

An update a month later. He’s just turned 6 months.

We have succesfully stopped breastfeeding him to sleep during naps and at bedtime. Our settling routine now is starting with announcing he’s going to bed, going to the room and making it dark, singing a lullaby and holding him upright on my chest and breathing slowly with him to make sure he has calmed down enough before I put him down. The settling pyramid doesn’t really work that well (sushing is great, but the moment I start patting him, he cries harder until I pick him up and then there is no way to put him down again ; the crying escalates instead of calming down). That’s why we made the rule of “once we put him down, he stays there”. But that means making sure he is calm and sleepy enough already when he’s in our arms after the lullaby. A lot of his naps are now 1 hour and 20 minutes instead of 45minutes.

At night he goes to bed at 6:15 PM (we tried to make it later, but whatever we do, he’s always sleepy around that time, so we’ve embraced it). The first bottle is for my husband (between 9 to 10 PM) and then everything after is for me. I now give him a bottle too at 1 AM and noticed that he sleeps longer (till 4:30 AM), with breastfeeding he woke at 3 AM easily. The last stretch however he still wakes every hour… I now lay him next to me so he can nurse himself back to sleep each time… that way we both get some sleep til 6AM.

So the problem remains, he’s not really sleeping longer stretches… Each time we offer him a bottle, he drinks around 150ml, so we really know he needs it too. I might offer him a bottle at 4AM too, but I’m scared that will only make the problem worse, which is that he feeds too much at night already instead of during the day. But I’m not sure that he can eat more during the day.

At 7:30 AM I breastfeed (I suppose it’s around 120 to 150ml too) and then at daycare he eats 125g vegetables at 10:30 and 125g fruit at 2PM. I offer him a bottle again at 5PM (150ml). We always make a bigger bottle (180ml) but he doesn’t drink it.

I had hoped to bring a better update but alas, the reality is that we’re still sleeping very poorly.

Kind regards,

Jill

[Jill Deberlanger]

Hi Emma,

I´ve noticed something during the night: he sometimes sooths himself to sleep during one of the early morning wakes now (happened 3x this week). At 4 or at 5 sometimes he starts calling out but then falls asleep after again.

But as you said, these moments should be the hardest because sleep pressure is low. Does that support the idea that he is still waking up because he is hungry during the first hours of the night (between 9pm and 3am he wakes 3 times without fail).

Kind regards

Jill

[Jill Deberlanger]

Hi Emma,

It’s a very recent development (5th day now that he does it). If I understand correctly then:

For now just feed when he wakes up like usual, he’ll probably learn to link his sleep cycles next so if I just wait it out a bit, he might start weaning of night feeds by himself the next couple of weeks. I already noticed that his first wake up was already four hours in, instead of the usual three, so I think this might work.

If he doesn’t start linking them and keeps waking up in a couple weeks, I’ll try to wean him off myself by reducing the feeds and using the settling pyramid instead. A great idea to start with the first half of the night, the early hours of the morning really are the hardest to stick to the settling pyramid.

He used to eat 12 times a day + night, so he ate every two hours during the day and during the night. But I think we solved that problem now by giving him a bottle two times during the day. He’s spacing them out to 3 hours again.

At daycare they told me he falls asleep around 8:30 to 9, but he only sleeps for about 15minutes. Is that okay too?

He does go to sleep independently at daycare (they put him down drowsy but awake).

And for naps, I´ve been able to put him down for every nap today without any help (nap routine, putting him down and walking away, in about 5 minutes he settles himself to sleep) so that´s a great development too.

A great tip for going to bed at certain times, I indeed have noticed that sometimes he wakes up when I go to bed too and sometimes he sleeps a few more hours. That’s probably why.

Kind regards,

Jill

[Jill Deberlanger]

Hi Emma,

1. (Final) wake-up between 6:15 to 6:30. Only then I get him out of bed, every wake up before 6am I treat as a night waking and try to get him back to sleep again (endless walking around usually works).
2. Settling with the naps is still more difficult, he needs more comfort and sometimes he cries so much it seems it’s hunger and so I breastfeed and then he sleeps no problem.
3. At bedtime, no settling necessary. I just put him in his bed with his eyes open and after 5-10 minutes he sleeps.
4. Bedtime routine is fairly simple: I put on his pj, feed him downstairs with the lights on, then we go upstairs and I put on his sleepsack, turn the white noise on and sing a little lullaby. I then put him in bed and I leave the room immediately and he settles himself to sleep. For naps it’s the same routine without the feed; but since I breastfeed, i’m not always sure he has had enough so eating intervals are sometimes off, and if he’s inconsolable when I try to put him in his sleepsack (I can’t even console him in my arms alone), I feed him anyway but that happens in the room and then he falls asleep at the breast. If he isn’t hungry, I still have to resort to picking him up a fair bit and then suddenly when I put him down again he settles and sleeps.
5. No pacifier, he doesn’t want one, he just sucks on his arm
6. He shares his room with me. Since last week in his own bed, before it was next to me in the co-sleeper, now he is a meter or more away from me in his own crib.
7. During the night and during naps he sleeps in the same crib.
8. Bedroom is pitch black, cool and quiet
9. Night wakings I do in pitch black too, I don’t even use a night light anymore. Just feeding and immediately in the crib afterwards. No nappy changes necessary.
10. Only three naps during the day when he goes to daycare, four with me. Last nap ends around 4:30pm-5:00pm. But nights are the same no matter where he has been that day.

Thank you in advance.

Jill