Question:
Hello. My son is nine months next week and ever since he was born he slept through until about three months, then he started to wake up in the night. He’s had his moments where he’s woken up once and that was it, but then I think teething and that play a big part. He’s breastfed. He’s now getting weaned onto formula, so he’s on three bottles of formula and two breast milk currently. Eventually he’ll be on all formula. But I was wondering if there’s any tips for routine or food weaning, whether he’s not getting enough. What time do you do it before bed, bottle and feed? Just things like that. Really just any tips, because it’s just very hit and miss with his sleep at the moment. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.
Lucy:
It’s a great question. And at nine months, actually the routine is really important because they’re changing so much at this age. They’re usually down to two naps a day, so two naps of about an hour and a half each. They do need a total of three hours daytime sleep. So that could be one key indicator, if you’re getting night wakings. So make sure they are getting enough daytime sleep. Three hours is ideal. Bedtime around 7:00 PM is going to work quite well. Nice routine, few steps leading up to that. And that feed before bedtime, that’s still likely to be needed. Just make sure he finishes the milk first and then goes to sleep rather than going to sleep on the milk. As the night feeds, many babies are done with that at this age. They don’t need night feed anymore. There is a chance that some babies could be hungry, but the way this one was described, I would say probably not.
So, it’s probably more likely that just a lovely, comforting, reassuring response to any night wakings will help him settle back off to sleep. If he’s not using milk to get to sleep at bedtime, he’d probably then won’t rely on it to get back to sleep in the night. So that’s another reason why that’s going to be really helpful at bedtime.
 
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