Since my last post there’s been plenty of learning on my end when it comes to the baby world. Transitioning from breastfeeding to formula has allowed me the opportunity to track my baby’s trends closely and I thought it may be helpful to some of the newer mamas to see what worked for me. I documented my baby’s nap and feed schedule to better understand my baby’s cues. I highly recommend that you track your baby’s activity to help you train him or her or modify any habits that you want baby to venture away from.
4 Month Schedule
I want to preface this by saying that 4 months marked a milestone for Mila. To begin with she started sleeping more through the night but would still require the occasional 1:30a.m. or 2:00a.m. feed along with a 4:00a.m. feed. I slowly began to taper down the amount of ounces down to 3 ounces before she began to sleep through the feeds. This also marked the month that I introduced solids to her. She showed signs of preparedness for introduction to solids as recommended by her pediatrician.
Wake Time: Generally 6:30a.m.
Wake Time between Naps: Average of 2 hours. These would be spaced out in between feedings. I read a lot of material that talked about an eat, play, sleep routine but baby never really got a handle on that routine so I just listened to her cues. Sometimes she would wake and eat other times she would have the bottle before nap time. Through my routine, my baby never developed any habits such as requiring a bottle to sleep, etc. My advice, read up as much as you can on the web to see if you find any similar scenarios that fit your baby’s needs. But most important of all, listen to your baby’s cues. He or she will let you know what you need. The way I looked at it was, as an adult even I can’t stick to a strict regimen. There are off days where I wake up more hungry then others and then other days where I want to eat a little later. Babies are no exception to this rule. Give them some leeway.
Feeding #1: 7:00a.m. 5 ounces of formula
Feeding #2: 8:30a.m. 1 TBSP Rice Cereal
Feeding #3: 10:30a.m. 6 ounces of formula
Feeding #4: 2:30p.m. 5 ounces of formula
Feeding #5: 6:30p.m. 5.5 ounces of formula and small serving of vegetable solids.
Feeding #6: 8:00p.m. 5 ounces of milk
Bedtime: No later than 8:30p.m.
Please know that I had some lessons along the way. I had no idea that she would slowly but surely want to bump up her bedtime. Again, pay close attention to cues. My baby hates it when we deviate from her night time routine. If she misses bath time, she just doesn’t rest as well through the night.
5 Month Schedule
By this time, I returned to work. So I knew that I had to be careful to listen to her cues and not disturb her sleep if at all possible. My position at work allows me the flexibility to arrive any where from 6:30am to 9:00am. Before returning to work I thought that I would be going into the office closer to 8:00a.m. or 9:00a.m. My baby surprised me with how well she adjusted to my return to work.
Wake time: 5:15a.m. during the week, 6:30a.m. on weekends.
Average Wake Time between naps: 2-2.5 hours.
Feeding #1: Anywhere between 6:30a.m. – 6:45 a.m. (weekends can be 7:00a.m.). 6 ounces of formula.
Feeding #2: 10:30a.m. Either Rice Cereal or 1 ounce of fruit. 6 ounces of formula.
Feeding #3: 2:30p.m. 1 vegetable serving (about 1 ounce) and 6 ounces of formula.
Feeding #4: 5:15p.m.-5:30p.m. 1 vegetable serving (anywhere from 1-2 ounces) with 4 ounces of formula.
Feeding #5: 7:30p.m., 6-7 ounces of formula.
Key takeaways from her month 5 schedule? She definitely showed signs of setting into a routine. For example, even if on weekends she woke up later she would have her bottle but would then want to follow the same feed times for the remainder of the day. This worked out great for her caregiver once I returned to work! It was easy for us to communicate and track her progress. You’ll notice that at month 5 I introduced an extra serving of solids. To be honest, she eventually eliminated the rice cereal and opted to have a solid instead. One interesting thing that I learned was that she went through a short spurt where she was rejecting her fruit serving in feeding #2. Instead of giving up on her, I decided to provide her with a vegetable serving and that did the trick! Because I wanted to re-introduce fruits to her, I did so exactly a week and a half later. She’s back to enjoying her fruit serving in the mornings. You’ll notice that feeding #4 and #5 don’t have a full four hour wait period. That’s because I began to notice that she was overtired so I decided to give her an earlier bed time. I switched bed time to 7:30p.m. and it did the trick! I wanted to make sure she went to bed with a full tummy so she could rest through the night and it worked. Don’t get me wrong there were still the occasional times where she would wake up at 1:00a.m. or 3:00a.m. but it wasn’t for a feeding. She needed comfort to fall back asleep. During her last week and a half of month 5 she hit a little rough patch where she started to wake at these times but it wasn’t a pattern. It only happened about 5 nights (I know still scary right LOL) and three of those nights I offered her about 4 ounces of formula which helped lull her back to sleep. I account this to the possibility of a growth spurt. So generally speaking she’ll sleep anywhere from 7:30p.m.-5:30a.m. So about 10 hours of rest, that’s pretty good if you ask me.
Formula She’s Using
Okay so one thing I didn’t talk about was the formula she’s on. When we fully transitioned her from breast milk to formula at about 3 months we were using Enfamil Neuro Pro, but for some reason she was going through a bit of a colicky phase but it wasn’t sufficient enough to label it as colic. Then something scary happened. A couple of times when I observed her nap, I noticed that she started to take long pauses in between her breaths…particularly during bedtime. There was one instance where I literally had to sprinkle a little water on her hands just to get her out of her sleep to take a breath. That’s when I had it. I was sleep deprived and my baby was just not happy with her feedings, the crying was not routine but inconsolable and I knew she was having tummy pains. The lapse in breathing was just too much for me to handle.
After an emergency call to her pediatrician, her pediatrician recommended that I change her formula to Enfamil GentleEase to see if that helped with the fussiness. It helped a bit but the breathing problem still persisted. When I returned to her pediatrician, she mentioned it could be acid reflux which was causing the difficulty in breathing. She mentioned that some moms shared with her that a regimen that worked for them was using two different formulas. She said it was up to me but that I could use the Anti Reflux Enfamil formula for evening feedings and early morning feeds and then GentleEase during the day. I had tried adding a little rice cereal to her milk prior to this but since it hadn’t made a difference I figured I could try this mom recommended regimen. And you know what, it worked!
I want to backtrack and say that after the first breathing observation I immediately went on Target’s website and ordered The Owlet. The Owlet is a heart rate and oxygen monitor that tracks your baby’s vitals. My pediatrician said she didn’t recommend it due to false positives but it gave me the peace of mind I needed to be able to rest at least for the few hours of sleep that I was able to muster in the beginning. There was once instance where it did detect a low oxygen level and that was the data that I used to speak to my pediatrician about my baby’s concerns. My observations and the data produced by the Owlet reports checked out. The Owlet provides you with nightly reports that even track the baby’s sleep pattern. I highly recommend the product. I still use it to this day. Again it helped me identify wake times at night and allowed me to track the times she would fall asleep earlier which ultimately helped me make the decision to bump up her bedtime.
I hope you’ve found this post informative. If you have any questions, feel free to email me directly at thesunqueendiaries@gmail.com or leave a comment below.
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xoxo,
the Sun Queen