Schedule / Routine for 9 1/2 mths old baby

[gigue]

Dear icyclaw, you have my total sympathy...lack of sleep gives me a short temper!!


I hope that the many useful suggestions by sashimi and schellen are effective for you.

I've a 8 mth old who also rejected the bottle when he was younger. But now he's ok. The key is to persist. Some things we did were:

- We changed the teat - because some babies are sensitive to the texture / feel / shape of the teat. We changed from silicon to rubber. It helped.
- We changed the milk feeder. My boy used to look at me (at 2 months!!) with wide-eyed and a traumatised look when I tried to bottle feed him! He associated me with BM, so bottle feeding (even with EBM) was rejected. I asked my hubby / MIL to help feed with bottle. And during that time, I leave the room so that my baby could not smell / see / hear me. That also helped.
- We started bottle feeding for one feed a day. Everyday, consistently, for the feed around lunchtime, he will receive a bottle feed. And when hes ok with one feed, increased to 2 and so on. Soon, he was able to adjust to being bottle fed, and after 2 months I think, he was able to let me bottle feed him too!

This baby also sleeps light. Until recently, he used to wake up as many as every 30 mins at night, and slept max 2 hrs in a stretch before waking up crying, asking to be carried to sleep again. Like you, I couldn't let him cry until he sleeps - part of the reason is that his crying wakes up his two brothers and I do not want to deal with 3 kids being awake in the middle of the night!!

I absolutely agree with sashimi and schellen that routines are important for babies - not just at bedtime, but throughout the day. I'm still trying to work it out for this one (who's diff from his two older brothers), but here are some things I tried:

- at first, just try to reduce the no. of times I bf my baby to sleep. In my sleepy daze, I did that very often when he was younger. But now that he's older, and taking the bottle, I give him water, or sometimes just carry him a little to put him back to sleep. Mixing gripe water in the water helps - he likes it too.
- adjust his daytime routine to have regular sleep - meal - wake times. Feeding takes place every 4 - 5 hours. No food in between that. After food, it's wake / play time and then it's nap time. He takes 1 catnap (30 - 45 mins) in the morning, 1 longer nap (1 - 2 hrs) in the early afternoon, and sometimes a very short one late afternoon (30 mins). I try not to feed him to sleep.
- his daily routine is based on this sleep-meal-wake cycle. 6am - wake up, milk, play. 7am - bathe and self play time in playpen. 8.30am - catnap. 9.15am - read. 10am - breakfast, playtime with me. 12.30pm - afternoon nap. 2pm - wake up, lunch, play. 5pm - catnap. 6pm - dinner. 7pm - bathe, 8pm - sleep, 11pm ++ - milk. 2-3am - if he wakes up, to give water / carry. but sometimes, when that doesn't work, and I am dead tired, I give in, and give him milk.... :oops: I try not to do that too often.

Hopefully this helps you in creating your own schedule for your little one. My boy is now sleeping better, and sashimi is right - the more a child sleeps, the more the child sleeps!

Also, found this website on helping baby sleep useful too: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070300.asp

[icyclaw]

Hi thanx everyone for all the valuable advices.


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?

My maid vacuums the bedroom & vaccum + steam all the pillows/mattress/bolsters etc with OSIM iecologi + change bedsheets / comforter every week. So i guess no problem with the dustmite? Anything else i shld do? Wash the air-con filter everyweek? - need to do it with hot water?

Some of the routine that she has:

Porridge is 1 tbsp of rice steamed into porridge using either (ard 2x4cm) pork (thrown away) or fish mashed to be eaten together.
Scoops of cereal will b using the Similac formula blue scoop

1115 wake up
- > play
1200 - 1230 eat broccoli & pork 1tbsp porridge
-> play
1345 - 1430 sleep (wake up 2 times crying)
1530 - 1600 eat 5 slices avocado + 4 scoop oatmeal cereal + EBM 80ml
-> play
1730 - 1740 bath
1800 - 1845 sleep (wake up 4times crying out loud)
1845 - 1900 eat 2 scoop rice cereal + 60ml formula
-> play
2100 - 2130 eat fish porridge + broccoli
2330 eat 2 scoop oatmeal cereal + 105ml FM
0000 sleep after daddy carry and rock her sleep

0055 - 0115 BM
0659 - 0714 BM
1034 - 1048 BM

1100 wake up

Another day:
4th May
1230 wake up
1240 6 spoons of 1 tbsp of porridge + 12 slices of carrots
1400 - 1445 Porridge finished + carrots 1/4 only + FM 100ml
-> play
1615 - 1640 sleep
-> play
1710 4 scoops barley cereal + 20ml FM
1730 bath
-> play
1825 - 1840 BM
1845 - 1850 sleep
-> play
2000 1tbsp rice porridge+ 1 large pumpkin (finished 1/2)
2030 try again - finished all
2240 - 2 scoops barely cereal + 1 scoop rice cereal + 120ml FM
0055 - 0105 BM
0105 sleep
0233 - 0244 BM
4+, 7+, 9+ BM
1052 - 1058 BM

5th May
1150 wake up
1230 - 1300 3/4 of 1 tbsp rice porridge, 4 spoon taken of 1 large cauliflower
-> play
1440 - 1515 sleep
-> play
1600 - 4 scoops oatmeal cereal + 55ml BM + 1/2 scoop rice cereal
-> play
1730 bath
-> play
1840 - 1905 sleep
1908 - 1920 1 tbsp rice porridge + 1 large pumpkin - finished all
-> play
2045 - 2145 EBM 30ml
2200 2 scoop rice cereal + 30ml FM
2238 - 2250 BM -> SLEEP
1133 - 1148 BM
0012 - 0026 BM
0304 - 0314 BM
6+ BM
0830 - 0845 BM
0902 - 0912 BM
11+ BM
1203 - 1224 BM


Can see that there is no routine at all. So how to start fixing one? I realised alot of mummies have babies that wake up at 6am? Im a night owl, guess that’s why my baby is one too. Im thinking of fixing her waking time to be 10am and sleep time to be 11pm? Any recommendations as to the pattern for this? I know that i will be very sad the day she is weaned. But just hoping that maybe can let her BF in the morning and before sleeping - perfect scenario. And during weekends more often if possible. Dunno how… to start on this… and similac’s pauline was telling me 10mth old baby shld have ard 750ml of FM with 2 solid food… So my idea of every 3 hrs of solids in the day time is wrong?

Confused…

[icyclaw]

oh… she loves to drink water from her new pigeon bottle during the day time. Can finish 2 bottles in a day. But at night while she is sleeping, when she wake up crying, anything else that touches her mouth she will spit out and cry harder except for my breasts… even tried to slip in the avent teat with my breast next to it to fool her, also doesnt work… when she taste water, she rejected…

[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...