My daughter of 6.5mths is still waking in the night and needing small feeds to settle her
My daughter is 24 weeks and has never slept well at night, although she goes down awake, is well tucked in and all the things such as darkness have been looked at.
I think her wakings were due to hunger because after we started weaning, once she was taking a decent amount, she slept through the night 4 times. Then she got a really awful cough and cold, and now conjunctivitis as well. She has been unwell for a month now and has only gained 5 oz in the last 5 weeks. The doctor says it’s just a bad cold and we just have to ride it out. She has not really progressed on the weaning front the whole time she has been ill and has often refused to eat anything. I have not yet introduced protein. She eats a good selection of fruit and vegetables at 11am and then has rice and fruit in the evening but small amounts each time. The problem is that she has started to wake several times a night. She won’t settle with water from a cup and won’t take a bottle. I am guessing it is hunger but I am also worried it could be habit from being ill for so long. (Many nights I have had to sit up with her as she has been unable to sleep lying down even with the cot elevated, humidifier on etc) But one good thing has been that she now sleeps the full 2 or 21/2 hours at lunchtime whereas before she was ill she only ever slept 45 minutes at lunchtime, so maybe being held upright to sleep has reset her sleep cycle. She still stirs after 45 minutes and often cries out but will then go back to sleep. I am exhausted from all the broken nights and I have a 3 year old who has also been ill too. How should I proceed on the weaning front? Should I introduce breakfast (she is not very hungry in the morning having fed at least once in the night) and protein now? And is there a way to stop her getting into bad habits at night and minimize her night time wakings even when she is so poorly and its been going on so long? (The times below are based on the last month whilst she has been ill)
I feel so fed up as I have tried to do everything right and in the last month everything has been going wrong and my happy little girl is so grumpy all the time.
My daughter is totally breast fed. She takes 5 minutes at 7.30 and 8.30am, 10mins at 10.45am, 11am, 2-3cubes of sweet potato and carrot or other vegetables, 5mins at 11.15am, 10mins at 2.30, 5.45, 6.30 and 10.30pm. At 6pm she takes 2 cubes of pear puree mixed with 1/2oz breast milk and thickened with baby rice. When she wakes in the night, which can be up to three times between midnight and 6.30am she will take 5-10mins and either go straight back to sleep or cry for about 10mins and then settle. She weighs 14lbs 3ozs.
My daughter naps at 9.10-9.40am, 11.45-2pm and 4.30-5pm.
To help your daughter sleep better in the night, especially if she is now over the worst of her illness, looking at her solid intake and beginning to offer a greater variety of food should help. As she is totally breastfed and over the age of six months the iron supplies laid down at birth will now be running out. Breast milk does not contain adequate levels of iron to sustain a baby over the age of six months, without the addition of iron rich foods to the baby’s diet. Introduce dark green leafy vegetables, lentils and beans as soon as possible, as well as introducing protein. Begin to do this by making a chicken casserole such as that on page 75 of The Contented Book of Weaning. Mix 1/2 to 1 cube of this with 2 cubes of the vegetables she usually takes at 11am. Gradually increase the number of protein cubes and decrease the vegetable ones until she is taking a full protein meal. The casserole recipe contains vegetables she is already familiar with and will help her get used to the taste of chicken. Very gradually offer her more solids at this feed. Her need for milk at this feed will decrease as the solids begin to take over. Use the “tier method” explained on page 25 of The Contented Weaning Book so, by the time she is having a full protein meal, she can drop the milk feed completely and be offered water from a beaker.
Increase the amount of rice you are offering at the 6pm feed until she is having 5-6 teaspoons mixed with fruit puree. Increase the amount slowly if she is reluctant to take a lot more but eating a larger amount of solids at this feed will help her get through the night without the need for more milk. Once you have established protein at lunchtime then consider moving her teatime solids to 5pm and giving her a vegetarian tea. Begin with the vegetable soups in Gina’s Weaning Guide if she is still not eating a lot of solid food. These are thickened with carbohydrate, vegetables, beans or lentils, all of which will help fill her for the night and again cut out the need for milk feeds should she wake.
Once you have noticed an increase in her lunchtime solids and have begun to cut down on the night feeds you can offer your daughter a small amount of breakfast cereal mixed with fruit puree. Increase the amounts very gradually as you don’t want her to begin to cut back on her lunch. Once breakfast is offered she may be able to wait until nearer to 11.30/11.45am for her lunchtime solids.
After a prolonged spell of illness such as your daughter has had it may take a while for her appetite to really pick up again. It will help increase her appetite if you begin to cut back on the feeds you give in the night. Look in the Complete Sleep Guide, page 42, for a full explanation of the “core night”. This will help you drop these feeds one by one which will be far less traumatic for both of you than trying to get rid of all of them at once. As your daughter refuses the water you offer her during the night you may have to give her a cuddle at her first night waking, to encourage her to sleep for a longer stretch. Just in the way you have “reset” her at lunchtime it will take time but, along with an increased intake of solid food by day, she should be more able to settle back to sleep again without the need of a feed.
If your daughter does not already have a comfort object of some kind such as a toy, Cuski or even a muslin, consider introducing one to her. If you sleep with the toy or muslin for a couple of nights before giving it to your daughter she may be comforted by the familiar smell.
The last things to take into consideration are her daytime naps. These begin to move forward in the second half of the first year. Continue to push the morning nap towards 9.30am so she also moves her lunchtime nap later. As this is now her longest sleep of the day, if it starts at 12.30pm and she continues to sleep for two hours she may only need a brief 10-15 minute catnap later in the afternoon to get her through to teatime. Cutting back on her daytime sleep, even by 10-15 minutes, can help a baby who wakes several times at night.