Any experience reversing reverse cycling?

[daisyd]

So DS2 at 3 months can go 4 hours between feeds during the day and mostly sleeps during the day; but seems to need feeds every 2 hours at night. He eats anything from 1-4 oz at 1, 3 and 5 am (usually while he's asleep) before getting up for the day. The one time he went 4 hours between feeds at night I was so excited. Seeing that I'll be back at work next week, I'm hoping to help him reverse his cycle. What can I do to get him to sleep more at night and eat more during the day?

Thanks!

[Philly Mom]

Not sure if this will work for anyone else, but my ped suggested that I work to keep DD up for at least an hour and a half at a time and never let her sleep more than 2 hours at a time at that age. I was pretty intense about it. DD would always fall asleep while out at that age so I would only go out if DD had been up for 1.5 hours and I would make sure I was home within 2 hours. By doing that, DD ultimately moved to sleeping through the night because she was not sleeping so much during the day. I will be honest though, when she was in the infant room at day care she did NOT nap well so that also helped with weekends as well because she was exhausted by the time we got home and on weekends. By 5 months she stopped napping while out, and instead would take 2 long naps during the day (a 3 hour nap and a 1-2 hour nap).

[daisyd]

Thanks for sharing. How long did it take to reverse the cycle -a month or so?

[Philly Mom]

I started doing it around 6 weeks actually and then kept it up until 5-6 months when she started to need to be in her crib for a nap and was not napping at daycare so I let her sleep as much as she needed on the weekends. It only took a couple weeks for her sleep to greatly improve at night. She basically went from waking 3 times a night (11, 1-2, 4-5) and up at 7 the first week to sleeping through the night within three weeks. She was formula fed by that point and we always waited a couple minutes before going into her room. We found that by waiting a couple minutes she often would just go back to sleep. Until I started this, "must keep DD awake and entertained for 1.5-2 hours" routine and then ending naps at 2 hours, she had no difference between night and day. My ped was the one who suggested it. She had done it with her DD and it had worked for her.

[daisyd]

Thanks, that sounds doable. I'm guessing it will work even if DC is only BF (I exclusively pump) at this point?

[Philly Mom]

I would imagine with possibly an extra waking because BM digests quicker than formula.

[daisyd]

Thanks, I started doing this yesterday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.