[sahm3]

Hi

I have a 5mth old. DS2 seems to be a pretty easy going baby, but then again he now seems to be getting bored after only a few minutes in the Rocker, or on the Playmat.
DS2 is now waking every 1.5-3hrs at night, and only seems to have 2 good day sleeps.

I get a bit bored with it every now and then, trying to think of ways to keep him entertained or active.

I have 2 other children but it seems like donkeys years ago and I truly can't remember much about what they do at these stages of development!

I have started DS on solids - mainly just having 1tablespoon of Apple/Pear puree with Rice cereal, after a breastfeed in the morning, and then having 1 tablespoon of Pumpkin/Sweet Potato puree with rice cereal after his late afternoon Breastfeed.

DS2's day goes a bit like this:
6am wake and Breastfeed, 7am breakfast, 8am-10am sleep.
10am wake and Breastfeed, Play, 12-2pm sleep.
2pm wake and breastfeed, 4pm dinner (puree vegies), has a small nap in rocker 4:30pm-5:15pm. 5:30pm Breastfeed. 6pm bath. 6:45pm breastfeed. BED at 7pm.

DS then wakes throughout the night at around 10pm, Midnight, 2:30am, 3:30am, 5am and then up at 6-6:30am.

It's driving me insane as I have no idea what I am doing wrong.

Yes, he is dummy dependent. It just seemed to be the best thing to do - give him the dummy, as I have 2 other children to chase after (bath/feed/entertain) etc - so I can give him the dummy if he's upset whilst in the rocker or the car etc.

What would you recommend I do? ... should I increase his solids? Start him on Formula?

Also, what is your 5mth old up to? ... do they roll over? happily play anywhere? eat solids yet? Do you give them tummy time etc or do any special activities with them?

THANKS!!!

This post has been edited by sahm3: 13/05/2011, 03:11 PM

[Jenflea]

Formula wont help with sleep. My 5 month old (when she was that young) was hard to entertain too. They don't seem to DO anything! Going outside and watching the world go by as good, as was her bouncy chair. Mostly I carried her around the house and she kept me company lol.
I'm currently trying to think of things to do with her now that she's 1. Not walking, but crawling heaps. Tummy time is pretty important they say for development. Maybe put a mirror on the floor in front of him to look at. babies LOVE faces, especially their own.
Maybe get the older kids to try and entertain him?

[pratique]

My DS is 5 months also. His routine is:

7am - BF and play
8am - Breakfast of rice cereal and pureed fruit
9-11 - sleep
11 - BF and play
1-3 - sleep
3 - BF and play
4:30 - 5:15 ish nap (not always)
5:30 - vegetable puree and fruit
6:30 BF, bath and bed.
He does sleep through the night (luckily!)

In order to help with sleeps

Could you perhaps increase the amount of solid food you are giving DS? Mine DS would easily eat around 15 teaspoons of each the vegetables/rice cereal and then fruit. Your sleep, eat and play times and amounts seem similar to mine so sleeping longer may be possible if you tried this.

Also a friend of mine had similar issues and when her DD woke during the night instead of feeding she went in and patted her stomach. She fell to sleep straight away and within a few days was sleeping much longer stretches. She believes DD was waking out of routine rather than hunger.

As for activities it varies daily. Sometimes DS is happy playing with his activity center or sucking away on his toys. Otherdays he is more interested in being held and watching the world go by! It is hard as they are not very interactive yet at this stage...I just do lots of little activities during play time (eg. read him a book, talk about colours, touch the plants in the backyard, sing songs, tunny time)

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM if you need.

[TarneeW]

Your post is very familiar although I haven't yet started solids. DS2 is 4.5 months and not a great sleep during the day. I am forever trying to settle him & finding it really hard with my other two. Usually there will be a 'need' and all my effort settling is interrupted. as a result we have NO routine at all and a cranky bub often. I even gave in to the dummy a few weeks ago out of desperation. I am lucky to get 30 mins sleep out of him at a time during the day with about 4-5 BF's.

Nights are definately better than yours although I co-sleep because it's easier for me. In saying that it is really hard to put him down but on a good night he is asleep around 10ish with generally one feed until about 8ish.

We spend a lot of time out of the house in the sling - he's not a fan of the pram - or on my hip.

He loves watching the big kids and they entertain him a lot. He also loves looking at himself in the mirror. He doesn't seem to get much floor time as DD 2.5 is in his face. He does have great head control though and rolls from tummy to back. I haven't seen him roll back to tummy but have found him on his tummy at times....

Having three is very time consuming and I find when he is happy I put him in his bouncer and race around getting other stuff done so sometimes feel he is a little neglected with playtime - in comparison to number 1 & 2.

I find being out with the big kids makes him happy! He also loves playing in the bath although now it is getting cold I am at a loss because that was a good time waster

[halcyodays]

My 5 month old only has three 45 minute naps a day, so there is a lot of the day to fill in.
Usually breastfeeds at 4-5 am and then goes back to sleep.
7 am wake up, play on activity mat and enjoy watching us getting ready for the day
8am breakfast
8.30 - into the car for the school drop off
9am- enjoys looking at the kids in preschool and all the paintings etc etc
falls asleep in the car on the way home
10am- shopping or errands
11 am- breast feed
sleeps 11.45 to 12.30
12.30 solids
1pm- walk in pram
2.45 breast feed
3 pm sleep in car on the way to school drop off
3.30- watches playschool with his brother (I know, I know, but I can't really keep them apart)
plays on play mat, watches me make dinner from his rocker
5pm - dinner
5.30 bath
6pm breast feed and bed at 7

I would dearly love him to nap longer in the afternoon, but no joy, so I have given up trying to resettle.
He generally sleeps well at night- 7pm to 4am, quick feed, and back to sleep til 7am.

[Golfing widow]

OMG I wish I could get little miss 4 1/2 mo into a routine like that

We have just started on solids and I think she could easily go a few table spoons at a time, so I am ramping it up pretty quickly - she is also only in the 3rd percentile body weight so she needs to gain it a bit more!

She also won't sleep for more than about 30 mins at a time during the day but will sleep from about 9pm till almost 7am overnight. Sometime I hit the jackpot and get a 2 hour day nap like yesterday!
I don't think boredom plays a part at this age, I just think they have bad days (she is miss cranky pants today)
She hates tummy time and can throw herself over if she gets really frustrated but I can get up to 30 mins on the play mat or chair thingy usually. She is constantly pulling on her toes how and can almost put them in her mouth (her father has said she isn't to do that when is is a teenager She can reach out and grasp most of the time and gives reallyt big smiles when you smile at her. She can hold small soft toys for a few moments and then it see s like she forgets how to and drops them - it is very cute.

You aren't doing anything wrong, they are unpredictable babies - but if you can tell me how you implemented such a regular nap time I'll give it a go. I have spent most the day trying to put her down for a nap that lasts more than 30 mins.

[ejdonn]

My 4.5 month DS is a sleepy one and is on the following routine:

7:30 am - wake, BF, watch DH get ready for work, playmat
9:00 am - down for a nap
10:00 am - wake and does tummy time (really doesn't like it but I play Peter Coomes songs to pass the time)
10:30 am - BF
11:00 am - solid food (veggies), read some books, watch me do the washing
11:30/12 noon - down for a nap
2:00 pm - wake and tummy time
2:30 pm - BF, play date or go for a walk
3:45/4:00 pm - down for a nap
5:00 pm - wake, nappy free time
5:30 pm - bath
6:00 pm - BF and solid food (rice ceral with pear)
6:30/7:00 pm - Sleep
10:00 pm - wake him up fully for a BF and nappy change

At 4 months he became really unsettle and hungry at 5pm and 6pm. I added another feed at 11:30am prior to his lunchtime nap when my supply was high. That solved the unsettled and I decided that it was time to introduce solids.

If your bub is waking during the night, perhaps he's sleeping too much during the day. Could you start to cut his sleeps back by 10 minutes to see if it improves the night wakings?

My maternal nurse recommended having dinner rather than brekie for breast health. Could you try swapping to no brekie and giving him the rice ceral with fruit for dinner? This may help him feel fuller in the evening.

I find the tummy time after he's woken up but before food is the best option. I know I should probably do it more often but twice a day is better than nothing!

Good luck and good job!

[lozoodle]

DD2 is 5.5 months and our usual day is:

6am wake up, has a bottle of 240ml formula
Most days I go walking for an hour or so at 7am, and she usually sleeps around 40 minutes or so of this walk
8am occasionally a few spoonfuls of rice cereal or pear, not every day, just if she seems a bit peckish
Then some play time which is either sitting in the bouncer watching her big sister play, rolling around on the floor or on her play mat.
9.30ish a catnap.
10.15 or so wake up and have a bottle of 180ml formula.
Playtime, I usually go out this time of day doing activities for my 2 year old so I don't pay much attention, she just fits into our day really. We don't have a set routine for day sleeps, but feed times are the same.
2pm bottle of 180ml formula
Then afternoon is mostly awake, sometimes a 1 hour nap in there somewhere.
Dinner is always at 5pm, and its usually a cube of sweet potato or something, nothing much yet. Always a bath after dinner, I bath her at the same time as my 2 year old. Bottle at 6pm of 180ml formula and then bed, sleeps through until 6. Its been this way for about 2 months, though the solids have only been in the past week or two and haven't made a huge difference, though she seems more content during her awake time in the day now.

I stopped feeding at night at about 3 months when she dropped to four feeds during the day. I was pretty certain she wasn't hungry so decided to try to resettle with the dummy first. My theory was a hungry baby wouldn't go back to sleep, and she usually would for at least 3 hours. Of course if she was really distressed or nothing else would settle her I'd feed her, but I spent time trying other settling methods first and never left her to cry. After about a week of this she stopped waking at all. I do believe that sometimes night waking is more a habit than a nutritional need. Not everyone would agree with that of course, but its just my personal opinion. Its a lot different seeing as I have a formula fed bub though, much different to one who is breastfed

I honestly think I just got lucky with a good sleeper though, her sister was the same. I didn't DO anything to get them to sleep through, they just sort of fell into the pattern on their own. I guess I helped it a bit by not automatically feeding on every waking, but I certainly wouldn't spend longer than a few minutes trying to settle them at night if a feed would be quicker. Its just that the dummy seemed to do the trick to get them back to sleep so I kept it up.

This post has been edited by lozoodle: 13/05/2011, 10:00 PM

[LisaMaree82]

What would you recommend I do?

When your baby wakes at midnight, pop him into bed with you (follow safe sleeping guidelines) and just go with it. He is only little, it will stop soon

[MakeLoveNotBacon]

Agree with LisaMaree ^^

I doubt more solids or formula will have him sleeping longer; it certainly didn't with my first. Infact it may make it worse as their digestive system is still very immature and too much can cause tummy upsets.