My son of 6.5mths has always struggled with daytime sleep. This now is beginning to affect how he sleeps at night
My son of 6.5mths has always struggled with 45 minute naps. He used to take four 45 minute naps at three months old. At four months old he learned to settle himself back to sleep and would do two 45 minute naps and one nap of 90 minutes. As he got to six months he started being able to stay awake for longer without becoming overtired but, rather than dropping the third nap, he reverted to three 45 minute naps. He seems very grumpy and overtired on this and is quite restless in the first part of the evening, often waking anything between 45 minutes to 2 hours after he has gone to sleep, though he does usually settle himself back to sleep. I don’t believe that the answer is to shorten his morning nap as he can be quite grumpy after that nap and sometimes falls asleep on the breast at the 11 am feed. My son was going 12 hours in the night without a feed from four months old but in the last couple of weeks has started waking anything between 4am and 6am for a feed. He takes a good feed and then takes ten or twenty minutes to go back to sleep.
My son is totally breast fed. He feeds well at 4.30am, 7.30am, short top up feed. 8am 2tsp oatmeal mixed with expressed mil and 2 cubes of fruit puree. 11am one side, 11.15am 2 cubes of vegetables, one cube of sweet potato and one cube of courgette. My son struggles with solids, particularly vegetables; he will then lose patience when he has had this amount. 11.30am second breast offered. 2.30pm breast feed, 5.30pm one breast, 5.45pm 4tsp baby rice mixed with expressed milk and 2 cubes of apple puree. 6.30pm second breast.
My son naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.45pm, 3.30-4.15pm
To help your son sleep better by day and to help with his early morning waking you need to move on with his weaning. Having previously slept through the night but now taking a full feed at 4.30am your son is showing that his daytime feeds are not being meeting his nutritional needs, so his solids intake must begin to increase.
Over the age of 6 months the iron supplies laid down at birth are beginning to run out. You need to introduce iron rich vegetables into your son’s diet as soon as possible and move on to protein as well to meet all his nutritional needs.
As your son struggles with his solids you will need to restructure how you feed him so protein can be introduced as soon as possible. By this age babies can begin to be fussy about solids if they are filling themselves up with too much milk beforehand. Since your son is taking a large feed at 4.30am he has cut back at 7am and so needs a bigger feed a11am which may be affecting his appetite for solids at this time. Begin to cut down on both the 11am and 2.30pm feeds to encourage him to take more solids.
Until your son is taking more solids at 11am also cut down on his breakfast. Offer him 1tsp of oatmeal with 1 cube of fruit puree. Once your son has dropped his 4.30am feed and then takes a good feed at 7am you should be able to start pushing lunchtime on towards 11.30/45am. If he starts to show signs of being hungry before this, very gradually increase the amount of breakfast again.
At 11am offer him the first breast for a very short feed. You will need to watch how much time he has been taking until now and reduce this considerably. Offer him his solids then the second side. By cutting back hard on his milk before his solids you should see an increase in his intake of solids. Make sure you offer iron rich vegetables such as broccoli as well as a carbohydrate. Once he has increased his solid intake to 4-6cubes he should be taking a very small feed afterwards, lasting only a few minutes.
Protein should now be introduced. Make up some chicken or lentil casserole and replace 2 of his vegetable cubes with two cubes of the protein meal. Increase the protein cubes each day and decrease the vegetable ones until he is taking a complete protein meal. Once he is taking a full protein meal you need to drop the breast feed given at this time. The absorption of iron can be decreased by up to 50% if milk is given at the same time. Offer your son a drink of water or well diluted fruit juice from a beaker once he has eaten his solids.
Keep the 2.30pm feed small so your son will be ready to have a good solid intake at 6pm. If your son is able to wait until 6pm until his next meal this should help him take a good milk feed as well as his solids and so help him settle well in the evening.
Once you have your son taking a full protein meal at 11am you can begin to offer him his rice and fruit at 5pm in preparation for changing this meal over to a carbohydrate rich tea. Then offer him a full breast feed at 6.30pm before settling him for the night. For ideas as to what to give him look at the menu plans in The Contented Book of Weaning
Once your son is feeding better in the day he may well begin to sleep through the night to nearer 7am again. When this happens you may be able to start pushing his morning nap on a little so he goes down nearer to 9.30am. During the second half of the first year, providing your baby is sleeping well at night, this nap does begin to decrease and move later. When this happens and your son is taking a good protein meal at 11.30/11.45am he should settle well for his lunchtime nap around 12.30pm. Once protein is introduced a baby will often settle better for this nap as hunger is unlikely to be waking him.
If he does not sleep a full 2 hours at 12.30pm he may still need a very short cat nap later in the afternoon. Also, as he becomes more active he may well be ready for bed earlier than 7pm. Crawling and pulling himself up on furniture can exhaust a baby. It is better to put him down earlier and let him chat for 15-20 minutes than to keep him up until 7pm when he will fall straight into a deep sleep, which may mean he wakes early in the morning.
Check your son is well tucked in at nap times, especially if he is in a light weight sleeping bag and not yet rolling over. This will help prevent him from stirring himself when in a light sleep, especially at the lunchtime nap.