Schedule / Routine for 9 1/2 mths old baby

[sashimi]

Offhand, my thoughts:


- Are you consciously and deliberately feeding your girl every 3 hours? EVen if she does not indicate she’s hungry?

- The naps seem too short. Some, eg. those below 45 mins cannot be considered naps at all. Esp. if interrrupted by crying.

- what does she do just before each nap?

- beware constantly carrying her to sleep, this is extremely tiring, becomes a bad habit you 'll find very hard to change.

[cmm]

icyclaw:

I tried the sleep begets sleep theory for 2 days asking my maid to lullaby her to sleep in the daytime and as we noticed that she can sleep more when she is being carried, she carried her throughout while she sleep.. Same things happened at night.. Need to continue for how long then will be able to know whether it is effective?

Agree with Sashimi not to get your baby into the habit of being carried while sleeping. Try to get your baby to fall asleep on the bed itself. I know it's hard, but babies are more adaptable than what we credit them for. Place sleep positioners around baby when she's asleep so she doesn't jerk herself awake when she turns in her sleep.

I feel that you are feeding your baby at very odd hours. When introducing solids, we are also introducing the concept of breakfast, lunch, and dinner at certain hours of the day. And not feeding at 3 hr intervals.

My suggestion for a daily routine:

0700
Milk feed. Let baby wake up for the day. I wouldn't wake baby up if she's still sleeping, but if she wakes up at around this time, her day starts.

0900
Breakfast (avocado + oatmeal cereal)

1000
Nap

1200
Lunch (spinach & pork porridge)
(I cook the pork in the soup for the porridge and put it in a mini chopper to chop it up finely and set aside. mix it into porridge with vege just before serving)

1500
Teatime - Milk feed and nap. When your baby gets older, you can include a cookie with the milk feed.

1700 bath

1800
Dinner (fish porridge + broccoli)

2030
Milk feed and sleep. End of the day.

Try this for a few days and see if it helps....

[icyclaw]

Sashimi, i am consciously and deliberately feeding your girl every 3 hours. As all along was bf-ing on demand averagely every 2 hrs. So tot of every 3hrs since its solids now. So far she does eat, but when she indicates that she do not want to eat, we will keep the food and try again 1/2hr to 1 hr later. So shld be how often?


My prob is her sleeping. All her life, her naps and even her sleeping at nite are like tat (always will wake up crying with eyes closed). To be able to reach 45mins is considered long liao. If can 45mins without crying once is like once in a blue moon miracle liao… How we know she "Wake" up from her nap is when she wake up without crying / she open her eyes
/ if sleep in yao lan, refuse to go back to sleep - start to scream if we cont to shake yao lan.

She could be eating or playing, then will indicate that she is sleepy - according to my maid by scratching her ears or eyelids like want to close like tat, and start to refuse to eat, start screaming… or start to throw away all her toys…

[icyclaw]

thanx cmm for the routine, will try and report on progress.


wanted to stop the carry to sleep method. so far in the afternoon, maid managed to put her in cot and she can sleep on her own once. usually need patting and/ or singing.

my baby sleep halfway, suddenly wake up will while closing her eyes, get into crawling position and start crawling ard… sleep positioners can help?

[sashimi]

Solid food does not work the same way as breast milk. Simply put, solid food take a much longer time for a baby to digest, whereas BM is digested very very quickly.


So you must not assume just because your child wants to BF every 2 hours, she therefore must be hungry every two hours. If you have fed her solid food, it will keep her stomach satisfied for a longer time.

In general, never feed a baby more than she wants to eat, UNLESS her weight/size/growth is below par.

If you overfeed a baby, the result is the baby becomes overweight, and this could cause other health problems.

I suspect that perhaps because you are concentrating on a very fixed feeding schedule that you are disrupting her natural sleep cycle. Just a guess. Eating and sleeping are linked, because an infant/baby is usually either doing one or the other, and not much else. If you are feeding when she should be sleeping, her bio-clock goes haywire.


Can you distinguish between a hunger cry and a tired cry? Some parents don’t realize there’s a difference, and aggravate their kid’s health by overfeeding when the child is simply tired and wants to sleep.

I.e. to see when your child is hungry, you need to recognize the hunger cry. Monitor this to understand how often she needs to eat.

Bear in mind babies at this age also undergo growth spurts where, from time to time, they experience a huge hunger, and would feed non-stop. Afterwards, they go back to a normal schedule. (they will also grow visibily).

As for sleep - ideally your child should doing something quiet before naps. If you can tell when she gets tired, then immediately calm her down as best as you can. If what you - your child is screaming away - then there is a possibly she is already OVERtired, which is not good.

If this happens again, monitor the time of day, and the next day try to bring her for her nap about 30 minutes before you think she’s going to overtire.

You need to watch and anticipate when your child will get tired. This has the additoinal benefit of slowly becoming a true schedule.

[schellen]

sashimi:

If you overfeed a baby, the result is the baby becomes overweight, and this could cause other health problems.

You have to be very careful with this. sashimi and I found out that if you're fat when in childhood, the chances of you getting fat when you're older is much higher than if you weren't fat in childhood. This is because in childhood, fat cells are laid down in your body if you grow fat. When you're older, since the \"foundation\" for fat is already there, your body can get fat more easily.

I can't remember the official report where we got this. I think sashimi should be able to find it though. I was skinny as a child so I only started gaining fat in my 30s. However, sashimi has not been skinny for quite a huge part of his life so .....

P.S. There's a period of time in a baby's life when all babies generally look fat/are chubby. I think it's about 3-6/9 mths? That's when they start gaining weight after adapting to life outside the womb. When they start crawling, they'll naturally lose the chubbiness.

[icyclaw]

Eh.... Her \"sleeping problem\" has started from when she is born till now... Was on \"on demand\" schedule from birth till 1.5months back.


Dun really tink that she is being overfed...

Pls refer to http://claudiachong.multiply.com/photos/album/6/Cheyenne#1 for her pic.

So far, she will eat when she wants to ... If she do not want to, she will seal her lips and no matter how we try to put the spoon to her mouth she wont open her mouth... So guess, no issue of feeding her when she do not wan to be fed?

P/S: Im definitely not trying to argue here.. just trying to share more of my baby's reaction so that you good Samaritans can enlighten me with ur words of wisdoms..

Oh, the 3hrs thinggy, i try.. but i dun force.. if she is tired and wan to sleep just before the feeding, i let her sleep 1st... cos if she is tired she aso wont eat much.. and if she sleep 1st, she tend to wake up faster cos she is hungry.. so i try to strike a balance here...

[cmm]

icyclaw:

wanted to stop the carry to sleep method. so far in the afternoon, maid managed to put her in cot and she can sleep on her own once. usually need patting and/ or singing.

Yes, keep at it. Repetition does the trick. Try to \"forestall\" her wakings. For example, if she usually wakes about 40 mins after you put her down for her nap, go to her 5 - 10 mins before that time and pat/soothe her. This is so that she wldn't wake up completely and wld be soothed before her usual wakings. Hopefully this should help her nap longer.

icyclaw:

my baby sleep halfway, suddenly wake up will while closing her eyes, get into crawling position and start crawling ard.. sleep positioners can help?

Does she sleep on her side or on her back? At 9mths plus, her arms are strong enough to push herself chest up, so you can safely put her on her side to sleep, and have her hug a bolster. Then put some pillows snugly against her back. The idea is to make her comfortable so she can stay asleep longer. Make sure the pillows are not heavy ones though.

When she crawls around and changes position, stuff the pillows around her again. But do it gently so you don't wake her in the process.

[icyclaw]

ok, will aso try the sleep positioner too...


thanx..