Coffee Catchup 25th November with Dorothy Waide

Hi Dorothy
What time would you recommend bed time for my 7.5m old? currently it is anywhere between 7:30-9pm.
Wake up is between 8:30-9:30 and on 2 solid meals per day. She wakes at least once and always around 5. (I try to settle without a feed first but if she wakes within the hr again then I will feed her) and often again a couple of hours later.
She is having lunch and dinner but think i should make it breakfast and dinner?
Thanks

Edited by Susan97631 - 26 November 2013 at 10:12am

Hi. I have two questions. My daughter is 6 months old. She is breastfed 5 times a day and on 2 solid meals a day (about 2-3 tablespoons). She is a good sleeper. She wakes at 7am (though sometimes I am unsure exactly when as sometimes she is already awake and playing in her cot when I come in), is down for nap at 9-9.30, sleeps for 1.5-2 hours. She then takes a second nap at 1-2pm and sleeps for 1-1.5 hours. I have just recently dropped the 3rd cap nap though give it to her if the 2nd sleep is short or ends before 3pm. The bedtime is the main issue - she sleeps from 7pm till 7am BUT will cry for half an hour to 1 hour pretty much every night when put down. She is put down awake into her sleeping bag and close the blinds to let her know it is sleep time and is left to go to sleep. I check on her 5 mins after and she is usually asleep. But I don't know why at bedtime, she cries for that long when she doesn't do it for any other sleeps. I dread bedtime everyday as she cries even harder when my husband tries to put her down! My second question is I currently dream feed at 10pm so how do I remove that? Thank you for your help.   

Hi. My baby boy is 14.5 weeks & doesn't sleep through the night. He is in bed 6:30/7pm & I dream-feed at 10pm. He then wakes around 3-4am for a feed & awake for the day between 6-7am. If I drop the dream-feed & try to re-settle him, he wakes between 12-2am & again at 4-5am & won't re-settle at these times unless I feed him. What is the best way to drop the night feeds?
Thanks for yesterday, it was very informative :)

Hi Dorothy,
Thank you for such an interesting & informative seminar yesterday!
Just after tips for my 3month old to extend her awake times during the day.
I notice on you recommend an hour & a half for her age, but we find she doesn't want to get out of her newborn routine, and if we keep her up longer she gets grizzly & grumpy! (of up for an hour & sleeping for 3.) She is gaining heaps of weight, so I don't think its because she doesn't get enough food. And she sleeps around 10pm-6am at night consistently.
(not that Im complaining, as her routine is pretty awesome! just aware she does need to start being up longer & longer during the day!)

Thanks for the session yesterday. I have 2 questions. During the day my 12 week old daughter sleeps for 45 mins at a time. I'm trying your settling in the arms technique today&it seems to work well to settle her initially, then I put her in her bassinet. 45 mins later, I've tried to shsh her back to sleep when she stirs but she ends up ramping up to a full cry very quickly. I can get her to sleep again using the holding technique you showed us, but she wakes as soon as I try to put her in the bassinet so I start the feed cycle again, but she's clearly dozey when feeding. Any advice on this please?
2nd question is at night, she goes to sleep around 9pm and usually wakes around 2am, but has had the odd night where she's gone through to 4am. This past week, she's waking more e.g. 1.30am, 3 & 5 last night. I tried resettling but she gets worked up so I end up feeding (she only feeds for 5-10 mins then dozes)& I try sneak her back to bed. Any advice? Should I try the settling in arms then put her back in bed or is this defeating the purpose of her self settling.
Thanks for your advice!

Hi Dorothy,
Thank you for a useful session yesterday.
My little boy is almost 11 weeks old and weights 5kg. I am told he should be heavy enough to being able to start sleeping longer through the nights.
During the daytime he catnaps- 25-45 mins and then awakens. I find it hard to settle hime back to sleep in the cot- if I catch it early I can place his pacifier back in and he can resettle. But I usually end up having to carry him and place him in a sling- he will sleep happily there for an hour. Please can you give me more tips on how to resettle- he likes to suck his pacifier and fingers.
At night he still wakes up 3 times post being pout to sleep. Bedtime round 7- likely needs 30min to sleep. I do the Feed-bath-feed- sleep routine before bed. Then wakes at 10pm, 1am, 4am. he then wakes up around 5: 30 but I have been stretching out this time to 7 am with a pacifier- How do I make him sleep longer?
Also I remember you mentioning that during the day I should offer a top up feed to the baby before putting him down for a nap- how much off a top up?
How long should I take to try and resettle him before giving up!? Sometime its almost time for his next feed!
Thank you for your help

Hi Dorothy,
Your seminar was awesome - learnt lots :) Thanks heaps. My daughter Maria is waking up almost every 2 to 3 hours during the night. She used to only wake up once or twice (6 months old). I spoke to you briefly yesterday and you mentioned she needs more calaries during the day i.e solids. I tried to give her rice cereal couple of times after a breast feed but she wasn't interested. Its been hot today so wondering maybe their appetite reduces in the heat? She also wasn't too interested in the breast as she normally is so wondering if it could be due to the heat as well. During the night shes very interested in the breast! Because she wasn't eating a lot today I thought may as well try kumera (shes had it before). Two hours later she power chucked it up (shes never vomited like this before and her vomit was huge and very smelly) from memory I don't think she had much milk before the kumera. We also gave her some Welida teething powder maybe couple of hours before her meal. So wonder whether that caused her vomit or could it be that maybe shes not ready for solids? How do you know if shes not ready for solids? She watches us eat, does the chewing motions and has enjoyed food (just past couple of days has been a bit different) Shes a big growing baby? She didn't have a temperature from the vomit and my friend who is a nurse checked her out when she visited. Was a bit scary seeing her power chuck like that. Could the waking up in the night be also because of the heat? she still sleeps in our room and we obviously need to move her. Could that be a reason too? How many solids a day? If shes too young for kumera when should I start? Only stick with rice cereal for a month or so? Mix it with breast milk or water? Thank you very much for your help. Regards Lynda

Hi Dorothy

I have an 11 week old who is a good night sleeper but she normally wakes at 6 for the day and I'd like to push her out to 7am. We have just put black out material up which has helped. She normally goes down about 8pm. We had been waking her at 10 to feed but dropped that after hearing you speak yesterday. She normally wakes about 5am to feed - and then wakes again around 6am. She has slept straight to 6 a couple of times this week. When she wakes at 6 she is very awake and won't easily resettle in her bassinet without feeding. If I lay her on me in bed she will go back to sleep though.

Also i would love to know how to successfully transfer her to her car seat when she's asleep - she hates her capsule so if she wakes she often won't resettle.

Thanks so much (and thanks for all the info yesterday!)
Betsy

Hi Dorothy,
Would you be able to please let me know what a good daily schedule would be for a 5 or 6 month old, i.e. nap times and for how long, when to feed etc.
Thank you :)

Hi Dorothy,
Goodness, what a lot of questions you have to answer! Hopefully at some point you'll get a chance to get to mine. I have a 14 week old who is sleeping well at night (8pm-5am) but is not so great at napping during the day. It often takes a while to get her to go down and then she'll only sleep 40 mins max. My two questions are 1) how do I move from settling her myself to getting her to fall asleep on her own and 2) how do I encourage resettling when she wakes after one sleep cycle? Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions.