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hehateme
01-14-2010, 07:11 PM
Our son is 5 months old. He weighs 18 lbs.
He drinks 5 oz bottles every 2-3 hours during the day.

At night he typically goes to bed around 7:30 pm. We and wakes up between 12:00 and 1:00. We give him a bottle and he drinks 4-5 oz at that time.

He wakes up again around 4:00 am and drinks another 4-5 oz of formula.

As soon as he finishes his bottle he falls asleep again.

Are we getting him used to drinking formula at night?
Should we try to change his habit?
How do we change his need to feed at night if that is even possible?


Thanks

SnuggleBuggles
01-14-2010, 10:45 PM
The need to eat will go away eventually. For some kids they do it around this and for others they still eat in the middle of the night when they are over a year old. There's no way to really say that an X month old doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night. Think about yourself and how some days you are just more hungry than others and want an extra snack; babies are the same way. Also, with babies you have to factor in the many growth spurts they have especially in the first year. Some can take you by surprise b/c they will have been sleeping well for so long then all of a sudden they seem to want to eat again at night.

My feeling is that if it works for your family to feed him at night and it gets him back to sleep easily then go for it. If you want to try other things then you can. If one of you bottle feeds more than the other then the other person can go in and tend to baby at night during one of those wake ups. Try rubbing his back, shhing, general soothing things. If baby can get back to sleep w/o being fed at those times then you will know baby isn't really hungry. Think hard about what you chose to do if you are worried about sleep associations (don't do things you don't want to keep up with and have be a habit in the future...something you don't need to worry about just now but in a few months you might want to).

Waking up 2 times/ night at 5mo really is normal though. It sounds like he is really hungry because he is eating a fair bit.

Beth

Dr C
01-14-2010, 10:56 PM
Your DS's feeding pattern doesn't sound at all abnormal to me. Some kids do need to eat at night. That said, you could try slowly reducing the amount of formula in his bottle to see if one night he doesn't bother waking up. Try 3.5 oz for a few nights, then 3 oz, and so on. If he's ready to give up one of those feedings, that trick may help you.