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Nov
25
Dylan has been sleeping better the last few nights — he’s back to waking up just once or twice during the night, which compared to the multi-hour screamfests I will gladly take. Oh, I had grand ideas of getting him to sleep through the night with no interruptions at one point, but there’s nothing quite like comparison to get you on board with compromise.
Everything I read says he shouldn’t physically need a bottle in the middle of the night, and there’s the question of whether or not I’m creating a very bad habit of him 1) wanting a bottle to soothe himself back to sleep, 2) learning to be hungry in the middle of the night, and 3) continuing his broken sleep pattern by waking up his body with digestive processes and so on (that sounds weird but makes sense: our bodies are designed to be restful in the middle of the night, and eating switches on these bodily functions that are normally supposed to be chilling out), but on the few times I’ve tried to cut back on the milk he lies there afterwards howling in fury and he DOES. NOT. STOP.
I’m cutting my losses, though. One or at most two trips in there to plug his snoot with a bottle is survivable, while listening to him blat away for three-quarters of the night is not.
Speaking of milk, in February we can transition away from the beshitted formula, and I cannot wait. It stinks, I’m sick of mixing it, I hate the stupid container (have you seen this hilarious thing on their website? Warning: OBNOXIOUS TY PENNINGTON AUDIO) which is supposed to somehow make my whole life easier but comes with a foil lid that takes like half an hour to peel off, and most of all it’s been creating a year-long Similac-shaped dent in our budget and I would like to fill that space with, say, shoes.
(Quick recap for anyone new: breastfeeding was not an option for me, so no need to remind me of the cheaper alternative, mmkay?)
In our daycare if you are providing milk for an infant you have to send in filled bottles with the specific amount you think they’ll eat — for safety purposes they won’t mix anything up, nor will they keep anything left in the bottle. Over the months I’m sure this has resulted in a LOT of wasted formula, as I’ve tried to guess how many feedings Dylan will want, especially when he was younger and drank more often but ate unpredictable amounts each time.
In addition to the money we’ll save by buying regular milk instead of powdered heroin, or whatever it is, expenses will go down even more when Dylan’s a year old or so and moves out of the uber-expensive infant room at daycare into the ‘woddler’ room, so come on 2009! Mama needs a new pair of . . . okay, fine, Mama needs to contribute to her kids’ 529 plans and pay off the credit card. Bah.
In the meantime, we’re augmenting his bottles with the occasional cup of creamer-enriched extra-strong coffee. Wait, you think this has something to do with the not-sleeping thing?
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63 Responses to “Milking it”
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Stuff I Like:
Regina Spektor's "All the Rowboats".
She's almost unrecognizable in this video, but wow, what a song.
Smashbox brow tech.
Utterly foolproof eyebrow groomer/filler-inner.
Prada Amber.
My favorite perfume: sweet and exotic without being overpowering.
Blinc mascara.
I have tried all the mascaras and this is the very best one. Trust.
Formula and diapers. Couldn’t wait to get the kids off of them.
I love his face in that picture, like he’s contemplating the new flavor with the strong aroma.
Just this morning I went and bought a whole gallon of whole milk… we’ve gone through a couple of 3/4gallon jugs of lactaid, and I think my girls really don’t have a lactose issue after all. I’ve been mixing lactaid & whole milk in bottles this week and am going to just try regular milk now.
I’m still keeping formula on hand for those middle of the night freakouts. Yeah, I know they don’t supposedly NEED a bottle at 2am, but you know, I’m with you — a 10 minute bottle and solid sleep is way better than 2 hours of sitting in the dark while one or both girls point and say “Dat!” in the ongoing identify everything phase.
So we’re nearly done with formula… can’t wait to kick the diaper habit!!
(I have 16 month old twins)
Yea, I’m with ya on kicking the formula thing….March 2009 HERE WE COME!
On the sleep issue, I know you’ve gotten TONS of unsolicited advice, etc….so please disregard if you want to…but have you tried waking him to feed….rather than waiting to see if he gets hungry and then decreasing….that’s what we did with Felix (Big Lebowski on the blog) and he eventually did start making it through the night.
I would welcome some advice on how to get a kid to sleep longer in the morning though….Felix is SO tired from daycare that he hits the wall at about 6:30pm or so….which means that between 5:30-6am he starts waking up, talking to himself, thrashing around, gnawing on his crib, etc….He doesn’t usually cry to get up until close to 7am…but he is definetly AWAKE (and so is the rest of the house) a little early for my taste (and brain)….
Love, love, love that picture! Dylan’s face is so sweet!
Oh, that effing formula. I bf’ed for 9 months, and when my milk dried up at random it was on with the stinky stuff. I hate it muchly, too… glad to hear someone else being honest about it. CANNOT wait for February either… then it’s away with those freaking tins of grossness.
The coffee face is hysterical. Love it.
If it’s any consolation, my daughter (also my 2nd child) didn’t sleep thru the night until she was 22 months. I was up giving her a bottle (sometimes two) of milk in the night until she was 18 months old. I just figured if she was hungry, I was gonna feed her. She ate like a little bird during the day so it made sense to me that she was hungry during the night. At least, that’s what I told myself. Whatever. She’s 3 now and not still getting milk in the night and *mostly* sleeps thru the night. You do what you gotta do.
I know at some point I starting subbing a bottle of water instead of the milk/formula, but for the life of me I can’t remember when. Give me a break that was 3 years ago now and I’m lucky I can remember what I did this morning! I do remember that it helped her get over the whole night feeding thing. Although that may be a no-no now, after all the ridiculous list of “omg you can’t do that or you’ll scare your child forever” grows hourly.
Anyhoo…just something to keep in your back pocket.
*LOVE* the picture. Also, where did you get that mug?? WANT.
Ok so how about giving him a watered down bottle in the middle of the night? Sort of wean him off of it? Instead of the two scoops of formula, just do one? That way he’s still getting the comfort he wants, you’re getting the sleep you need and then slowly wean him down to just water and then nothing at all?
What I was always amazed me about the constant cost of diapers. Newborn come 500 to a box and last a week and toddler comes 5 to a box and last a week.
My son did something similar with wanting a bottle in the middle of the night, something I read said try giving him smaller and smaller amounts over a period of time. I really thought that would never work but was willing to try anything and I just gradually decreased what I was giving him till it was like only one or two ounces and then he eventually quit waking up. He probably just grew out of it, by that time, but I dunno maybe it worked…
Thanks for the warning about the Ty Pennington audio, he drives me CRAZY!
Also, I just want to squish Dylan’s little chipmunk cheeks!
My youngest grandson, the redheaded firecracker, age 1, has been intolerant, so far, of all milk formulas, including soy. Forget regular milk. Soy dream? No way… He upchucks them all. We seem to be headed toward the ultra-expensive organic goat’s milk. I told his foster mom maybe she should just get her own goat.
I say better a bottle, which can turn into a sippy cup eventually, than a pacifier! We finally got kidlet off them both, but it was a pain. Also, better you have him in a crib, because we still have a six-year-old climbing into our bed in the wee hours of the morning. This morning, he dragged his big soft cuddly stuffed doggie, T-Bone, with him. Four’s a crowd? I mean, the kid is four feet tall and weighs going on 65 pounds! It’s a queen-size bed! But back when he was Dylan’s age, there was NO getting him to sleep, and I took the “easy” way out and brought him to bed with us.
My daughter had those pajamas – I loved them! Thanks for the memories!
My son (the 2nd one) would not sleep throught the night either and it was very easy for me to BF him in the middle of the night and I worried too. Then he hit 1 year and now I don’t see him til morning. May-be it’s not the food, but the comfort you give. Your right though, the screaming is unbearable!
I love your writing so much and look forward to your posts! Thanks for keeping it real.
My one year old son JUST started sleeping through the night without a feeding, and everyone else be damned, I think he truly was hungry until recently! I know that “science” says they don’t need food at night at this point, but my kid eats like a horse, never stops moving, and isn’t even on the growth charts. I think he’s burning a few million calories a day and needed a little boost at night! Maybe Dylan is the same?
Oh, January 2009 isn’t coming fast enough. Rocco decided last month that breastfeeding was so last year and stopped all the sudden. It freaked me out, but he loves him some formula. I hate the shit. It stinks, it’s messy and that effing powder is like super glue if you get it on your hands and you hands get a little wet. Here’s the part I am dreading, switching over to whole milk and the doctor telling me that he can’t drink from the bottle and making me feel like crap because I let him do it. So, I will have to lie for about 6 months to the pediatrician while I try to get him to drink from my second most hated thing, the SIPPY CUP.
OH! I just saw your piffle about Santa being a pirate. My daughter is totally obsessed with Pirates right now and we got her this book http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Night-Before-Christmas/dp/1402742576/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227639337&sr=8-1
Reccomend it if you have a Pirate Lover! :)
The diapers/wipes thing sucks cost wise so I cannot imagine that in addition to the cost of formula. BAH HUMBUG to that! Glad that an end is in sight for you!
Also glad to hear the wee tot is sleeping a bit better. I swear it is something about boys – our three point five year old is still not sleeping well – he’s suddenly afraid of the fracking dark (she says sobbing into sleeve.) SO for the record he has slept peacefully in his own crib/toddler bed/big boy bed for about 2 months total since he was born. The baby sleeps better then he does (she says wailing into her proverbial sleeve this time!)
The only kid that I had that slept through the night, starting at TWO WEEKS of age, is the one that I used to mix cereal stuff (banana flavored pap) in with her formula.
But, that did not work with Erica. Nope. But at least with Alix, I knew she wasn’t hungry and I didn’t have that issue with her.
It’s a damn good thing because if Erica had been my first child??? She would have been an ONLY child.
Awww! I love babies in widdle pajamas! And when do we see video of the new-and-improved crawling? Hmm? That’s good for one NaPoBlows post!
Okay, so I don’t know *shit* about babies, but I thought you weren’t supposed to leave them with a bottle of milk in the night?
The reason I ask is because I was always told that this was what made my teeth rot when I was younger, my mom not knowing better and leaving me with a bottle of milk in the night. If this is wrong, and I do ever end up having children, I’d like to know so I’m not all “Ack! The milk! No! Your teeth! Starve!” for no reason.
So excited for 2013 – no more kids in daycare, no more car payment (that I know of). Only 2 more years for 1 kid in daycare. Phew. Whatever will I do with the $1600/month that I pay in daycare and car payments? Maybe take a vacation? Maybe stop popping Valium when I pay bills? The world never knows….
That picture is so adorable. It looks like he is cooling it off before taking a gulp.
Also, I know you aren’t “supposed” to do this but I know both my sister and I were on cow’s milk at 5 months old. And I know several other mothers who have made the switch around 9 months no problem. Since it is just for allergy purposes, I’d say make the switch slowly right now? But I’m all about the least path of resistance (and cost).
Psst: Here’s a secret I learned from research and consulting The Wise One (my mom). If your baby is heavy enough (18-20 lbs?), and otherwise normal, you can quit the formula and switch to whole milk.
In most countries, they advise switching to whole milk at age 9 mos. It’s only the wee little babies and kids with unusual digestive systems who need formula longer.
I switched my wee one gradually from 10-11 mos and she did great, even though she was previously on soy formula. The switch even fixed her constipation issues.
As for needing a bottle in the night, this is again dependent on the child’s size, usually. A child Dylan’s size generally does’t need a late-night feeding. I’d try reducing the milk or watering it down gradually. Also, have you tried mixing in a spoonful of rice cereal with the bedtime bottle? This makes them feel fuller longer so they can sleep through the night.
I KNOW you aren’t supposed to give kids a bottle in the crib but you can’t tell a “spirited” one that. My son never took a paci and used the bottle to soothe himself. Thankfully he mostly slept through the night. At the end (age TWO), I started cutting the milk with water more and more until it was just water, which pissed him off, but he’s seven now and we’re almost over it and he’s THANKFULLY got great teeth.
You do what you have to do and brush your teeth often!
We switched my girl to water at the nighttime feedings, and it helped a lot…mainly because we could leave it with her in the crib, and she could get a drink whenever she wanted one. *ducking to miss the tomatoes thrown at the lazy mother*
I still miss Dylan’s apple cheeks, but his eyelashes are INSANE!
holy crap, that’s a cute baby.
I should clarify we don’t give Dylan a bottle to have IN the crib — hell, he can’t even really hold it yet.
Leslie: the apple cheeks come and go, it’s weird. Lately his face looks a little scuffed because he often sleeps flat on his forehead, butt up in the air.
i got 9 days til my boys turn ONE and i’m off the formula! but we get WIC, so budgetarily, it doesn’t really make a difference. having triplets really does pay!
(but still…i can’t wait to stop MAKING it.)
We give Owen beer almost every night at dinner and he isn’t sleeping through the night either. Just can’t win.
Also, that child is so damned cute I am fairly sure it is illegal in 14 states.
My niece is about the same age as Dylan and her mom just got a hell of a tongue-lashing for still feeding her during the night. She said it would lead to obesity?? Um…I guess I can see the logic, but I imagine it will involve quite a few nights of screaming hungry baby hell to get past the habit. Not that you wanted another piece of not-so-helpful information, but something to consider, I guess.
Oh, I meant to say the tongue-lashing was from the pediatrician. That’s an important piece there.
I hate Ty Pennington now because the default volume of that Flash piece on the Similac site is set at THE HIGHEST LEVEL. My ears are dead.
I had a large starving child wake me at 2 am for 22 months, until his dr. suggested watering down the formula, which I did in only three days…and it worked GREAT. He slept through the night until he was 6, and that’s when his friends started telling him about scary movies they’d seen. I’ve not slept more than 4 hours in a row since. Bring on college!
He totally looks like he’s reading the newspaper with his morning coffee.
Uhh… what the heck is Ty Pennington doing hocking formula? Is he a carpenter and a pediatrician in his spare time or something?
And that coffee cup is as big as his head! :D It’s sink or swim in the caffeine department, huh? ;)
I wish I could go back and edit my comment from “i got” to something that sounds a little less rednecky. Sorry ’bout that.
Oh man – what does it say about my little guy who wakes up in the middle of the night demanding, of all things, a banana?! And just like Dylan, he WILL NOT GIVE IN if he doesn’t get what he wants. I figure 10 minutes of snuggling with him while he crams a banana into his cute little pie-hole is much, much, much easier to handle than half a night of screaming and hollaring for his blessed banana. Thankfully he goes right back to sleep as soon as he eats. And did I mention that Dylan gets cuter every time I see him?
Actually- if the formula truly was powdered heroin, you wouldn’t be having ANY sleep problems with the little one. I was lucky- my girls were good sleepers and still are at ages 12 and 23.
Why do they think that Ty Pennington is who mom’s want selling them formula. Just don’t get it.
We just switched my youngest to the Costco brand, $10 bucks cheaper and my peditrictian said it was the same.
My son was on formula (I had a breast reduction and the doctor wanted him to gain more weight – he is a teeny shit) until 18 months old – from a bottle 3 times a day (one of which was 3am each night).
He always woke up screaming to eat until we weaned him off the bottle and formula completely (screw the Doctor my kid is small, so are we too bad). The day the bottle vanished is the same day he started sleeping all night for us. It was a long 18 months.
So maybe once he is on milk and off the powdered crack from a bottle things may get easier?
when I was young my mom would give me coffee to calm me down it made sleep through the night or would calm me down so i would not be screaming all the time so go for it
We finally got my daughter to sleep through the night–at 10 months old–by switching her to nighttime bottles filled with water. She still got the comfort of sucking and being held, and she still went right back to sleep afterwards, like she had with the formula. She was a big baby, so there was no chance she really needed to eat. After three or four nights, she figured out she wasn’t getting the yummy stuff and just started sleeping through the night. Might be worth a try…
I’m in the exact same phase right now- Similac mixing hell. Although I am transitioning to whole milk and right now we’re about half and half. I’ve noticed a difference in sleep pattern- could it actually be that the Similac is more filling than the milk? I’m not sure if that’s the reason, but the sleep waking does seem to coincide with the milk transition timeline.
My son is also transitioning to the cheaper toddler room on Monday, but get this…he’ll be 13 months when he start in the toddler room, but I have to pay infant prices until he’s 15 months. I call BS!!!!
I’m breatfeeding, but in a similar situation to you when it comes to feeding during the night. Toby is 7 months old and manages 4-5 hours without food during the day, so I’m guessing that he doesn’t need to eat every 3 hours during the night. But I’m afraid I’m a pushover at 3 am – as you say, it’s either quick nurse and back to bed, or 90 minutes of rocking, singing, screaming etc. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Plus I’m not 100% sure that he isn’t hungry, and I guess it’d be worse to deny him food than feed him for 10 minutes too long…
God, he’s cute. My daughter is going to be 11 months on Thursday and I hate to say that she still wakes up 6 nights out of 7 and sucks down at least 4 ounces of formula. She generally goes right back to sleep but STILL. My son slept consistently through the night by the time he was 4.5 months old or so, and we’re pushing a year! GRAAAAAAAAAAAH.
I’m looking forward to weaning off formula too. Especially since Little Miss Sensitive System needs the kind in the purple can.
You must, must, must read this book!
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Night-Sleep-Tight-Helping/dp/1593153562/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227664007&sr=8-1
At 10 months old, our first born son was waking every TWO HOURS to nurse and I just brought him in bed with us because it was the easiest thing to do. Nap time sucked, meal time sucked. We had a very overtired kid and we were sleep deprived, too. We tried EVERYTHING…every “sleep training” method known to mankind. Nothing was working…he was too far gone and way too stubborn. In a last ditch effort to save our sanity, we picked up this book.
In two nights, he was falling asleep on his own and sleeping through the night! I hope it works for you, too.
Good luck.
Oh I love his little face! I want to SMOOCH it!
Oh, at like 3 months old the pediatrician was saying the baby shouldn’t need to eat in the night anymore, and I was all, “WHATEVS, buddy, as long as I can call you at 2:30 and you can come over and show me how easily the baby will go back to sleep after you explain to him that he doesn’t need to eat.”
So I just nodded like I totally agreed, and then I continued to feed the baby in the middle of the night if the baby cried, and then we could all go back to sleep.
what an adorable photo! I remember being happy to be done with formula days too! Good luck
Great photo! My son, Max, loves coffee. We joke up him growing up and becoming a barista.
http://www.lovethatmax.blogspot.com
I wouldn’t worry about the milk-at-night thing, just do what works for you (coz there’s nothing worse than kids that WILL NOT SLEEP – and believe me, I know what I’m talking about here!).
And, because I’m sure you’ve got absolutely nothing better to do, I just tagged you for a (very quick) meme! Hope you forgive me!
More unsolicited advice. For what it is worth, this worked really well with my daughter:
I read a book that said that once they are old enough and heavy enough (I think 11 pounds?) they no longer need a night feeding. So when she woke up for her 3am feeding, I rocked her back to sleep.
The book made a good point that yes, she probably is hungry. But since you don’t feed her, she’ll eat more calories the next day to make up for it. Which she did!
She woke up the next night and I rocked her again. And the night after. But by the third night, she slept through!
Some parents are lucky and their babies figure out the whole eat during the day/sleep at night thing. Other babies need a little prodding to get on this schedule.
Oh, and I do still give her a “dream” feeding around 10pm.
Try giving him water in his bottle instead of formula, if he is truly hungry the water will fill his stomach.
If he just needs the soothing of the bottle, he can still get it with the water..
If he is just visiting the cafe, he might not want to bother waking up for the water
Woddler! Hah!
We’ve got a few weeks to go until the one year birthday, but we made the switch to cow’s milk this week. We started mixing the formula with cow’s milk at 10.5 months and we were using it to make cereal even earlier. He had no problem with it, he’s a big healthy kid in the upper percentile ranges and he’s still getting some breastmilk each day. So when we ran out of formula, we decided not to buy any more. So far, so good – and it is a relief. HOwever, I’m just now realizing that milk gallons do take up a lot of room and the fact that powdered formula doesn’t spoil is a benefit.
That’s a bummer that your daycare causes so much formula to be wasted. We treated ours like gold!:)
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who found that freakin’ foil lid infuriating.
And those containers hold less ounces and yet mysteriously are the same price if not more expensive.
Bastards.
My son was a formula baby from 9 months to 12 months and I liked that I could a) give it to him in a bottle, wherever I wanted to and b) I knew he was getting the vitamins and lipids and proteins or whatever the hell he was supposed to get. Breastmilk doesn’t have enough Vitamin D in it and I was always nervous about getting him out in the sun enough. Also I used to let him lie there and cry his heart out in the night, after he was nine months old, so it helped me to know that he had drunk x amount of formula and I knew he wasn’t hungry. There is always a little bit of doubt with breastfeeding as to whether they got enough, for me. My daughter won’t drink formula – she stays mad for HOURS after whenever I’ve tried to give her some, so I just bf her and I started her on whole milk when she was like nine months old. I wouldn’t have done it early but since I’m pg again my OB recommended I start to wean her early. Maybe Dylan could go to whole milk a skoshe early?
I hear you on the night waking thing but I am always nervous about dealing with night wakings when they’re older so I like to break their spirit by the time they’re nine months. My ped told me early on with my son that the goal is not for them to sleep through the night, the goal is for them to be able to put themselves back to sleep. Sometimes, for my demon children, that means hours of yelling. I wish they were different but they’re not, what can you do?
I agree with the watering down. We would just leave the bottle in the crib with him and he would “find” it. Over a week or so it became just water, at which point he had no interest. No crying, no getting up in the middle of the night. Very nice.
In our day care, they were apparently required by law in the infant room to change the babies every HOUR (plus, of course, every time they noticed a stench.) What kind of insanity is that? This meant we went through 8-9 diapers a day there, plus the formula. When Matthew hit a year, learned to walk, changed to milk, and moved to the “pre-toddler” room, where they change them a mere four times a day, we suddenly got a whole lot more room in our budget. Brand-name salad dressing, here we come!
I know I’m not supposed to admit this but I’m really looking forward to the day I stop nursing my daughter. I mean – I feel really lucky that I am able to do it at all (it was really freakin hard at the beginning) but I kind of have a one-year cut off point in my mind and am really looking forward to that. I’m also happy I don’t have to deal with formula but I’ve never been able to pump an ounce either and my daughter doesn’t understand what a bottle is for other than as a chew toy or something to ignore (probably should have introduced her a little earlier to it) so we are pretty much joined at the hip (or nips as the case may be) these days.
i love it! i was just getting ready to do a post about similac’s ty pennington ad i saw in parents mag! it cracks me up! i am a horrible mom … nurse my babies next to me like an all-night milk bar, so they can’t fall asleep without me until they’re like 3 years old. naps, too. i’m horrendous.