Sleeping FAQ: 4-6 months

My son will not sleep at lunch time. He goes off at 12.00 and wakes 30 minutes later and will not go back to sleep. I have been trying now for about 10 days doing the controlled crying method and it does not seem to be working. Sometimes he will go for one hour before waking and then will cry until it is time to get up. I have read all the case studies etc but I cannot seem to work out what the problem is. It is quiet in the house, we have blackout curtains and blinds, and he is feeding well and sleeps well at night time. If he does wake at night he will talk to himself for a while and will then go back to sleep. I follow all the rules and nothing seems to work. He has always had problems with this sleep but would go back to sleep after 20 minutes. Since he has starting sleep through the night the problem has got worse. I now dread lunchtimes and it is getting very depressing for us all.

My son feeds at 7am 7ozs, followed by 1.5 tablespoons of porridge cereal and 1 cube of fruit. 11.10am 5ozs followed by 3 cubes of sweet potatoes and 2 cubes of vegetables, 2.30pm 6ozs, 4pm a little water, 6pm 7ozs followed by 5 teaspoons of baby rice and 2 cubes of fruit puree.

He naps at 9-9.20am, 12-12.30pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

My son has never slept well at the lunchtime nap and is now waking up after 20-25 mins and screaming. Nothing will get him back to sleep. It is driving me utterly insane. I have tried everything in the books and case studies. It is now affecting my whole day and I have come to dread lunchtimes. It is also affecting my older child who misses out on having any time at all with me on our own during the day. We used to at least sit down to lunch together but now don't even manage that.
What can I do?

My son feeds at 6.15am 5-6ozs, 7.30am baby cereal mixed with 1oz formula, 10.30am 4ozs, 11.15am 3 cubes of vegetables[ with a struggle] consisting of 2 sweet potato and one other vegetable. 12midday 2oz top up. 2.15pm 3-4ozs, 5pm 4ozs, 2 cubes of fruit mixed with 1oz formula and baby rice, 6.15pm 2-3ozs and 11pm 5ozs. He weighs 15.5lbs.

He naps at 9.15-9.45am, 12.15-12.45pm and 3-3.30pm. He settles at 6.30pm.
Team Response

For the last two weeks we have had great problems with lunchtime nap. My daughter wakes up after exactly 30 minutes and can stay awake for 1.5 hours before falling back to sleep. She has always had her lunchtime nap in the carrycot when we are out for walks. I have tried to be in quiet places after the first 25 minutes of sleep, but have also tried more noisy places, either way she wakes up after 30 minutes. She never cries, only opens her eyes and is fully awake. Before this began, she would open her eyes slightly, and be in light sleep for about half an hour then fall back to deep sleep. It is really frustrating, especially since it was working so well before. She is not hungry, she gets food last thing before we leave the house.

I have tried twice to make her sleep at home, but she wakes after half hour then too.

My daughter is fully breast fed, taking feeds of 10-15 minutes at 7am, 10.30am, 2.30pm, 5pm, 6.30pm, 10.30pm and 3am. At 11.15am she has 5minutes before we leave the house.

My daughter naps at 8.45-9.15am, 11.45-12.15pm, 1.45-2.30pm and 4-4.30pm. She settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My son sleeps well at all other times and manages 10.30pm until 7am. He does wake but settles himself back easily. He cries at lunchtime after 45mins. Some days he does resettle, some days he doesn't but will cry until he's due to get up. It doesn't affect the rest of our day or night if he only sleeps 45mins but I am keen to get him to sleep longer at lunchtime. In the other letters it talks about retraining and I have done controlled crying with him but he continues to cry until he has to get up (although I never pick him up when he's crying). He won't sleep being cuddled or held in order to retrain him, the only method is driving and that would involve driving for 2 hours every lunchtime - expensive and tiring! He's not hungry or seems to have any other problem, and I have cut his morning nap to 25mins. Should I persevere and is my only option to continue with the controlled cry, I have been doing it daily for 2 weeks to gain some consistency? My son is fully breast fed. He has full feed at 7am, 10.45am, 2.30pm, 6.15pm and 6ozs of expressed milk at 10.15pm. He weighs 16lbs 2ozs and I am thinking of starting to wean him next week. He naps at 9-9.25am, 12-12.45pm and 4.30-5pm. He settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My 4 month old son is struggling to sleep through from the last feed at 10 - 10:30pm until 6 -7 am.
We started him on the routines at 4 - 7 weeks quite successfully - he really responded well.
But at 7 week we traveled to Australia from the UK, and for the next 6 weeks it was incredibly difficult to stick to the routines. For a start, it took him 10 days to swop day and night around, it was extremely hot, and nobody supported our decision to have a routine. We also traveled in Australia, long drives in the car leading to oversleeping and also jumping time zones. All the time I tried to get him on the routine. He also had some of his 8 week immunizations in Australia. He wasn't very difficult throughout the whole trip, as him 'own' routine is not far off yours. But since coming back to the UK almost a month ago, I have not been able to get him on a routine. He was quite content until a week ago and now he wakes twice during the night seemingly hungry, he seems to also want solids but I'm confused as to whether I should first get him to have a routine for his age, or to try to introduce a bottle or solids. He won't take water or formula or expressed milk in a bottle at all.
Overall he is bright eyed, laughs a lot & is interactive, wants to stand up and look around most of the time, and plays for short periods with toys on his mat.
I'm struggling to cope emotionally and physically with little sleep, and can't always wake at 10pm to wake him, when he only feed for about 5 - 10 minutes.

My son breast feeds at 7am Breast last fed from 10mins, second breast 10mins. 9am cries for food, sometimes can wait until 10am. 10-11am 10mins from breast last fed on, 20mins second breast. 2pm 10mins and 20mins, 5pm one side, 6.15pm second side, 10.30pm drinks for 5mins, 1-2am feeds for 10mins, 3-4am feeds for 10mins.

My son weighs 6.4kg [14.1.5lbs]

He naps at 8.15-9am, 12-1pm, 4-4.45pm and settles by 6.30pm
Team Response

My 4mth daughter has been the best advertisement for the Contented Baby book there is. She has been sleeping through from 11pm to 7pm since she was 6 weeks old. We have followed the plan religiously and she is a very happy baby who never ever cries.
However, 2 weeks ago she started waking up at 6am. Then around 4 days later she woke at 4am and then again at 6am. For the last 4 nights she has been waking up at 2am, 4am and then again at 6am.
When she wakes she makes a noise mid way between a loud whinge and a cry. She is in our bedroom so I suppose we react as if she is crying and feel that by dealing with it quite soon we can all return back to sleep.
We didn’t feed at first, when she woke, as we did not want to encourage her to feed in the night. Instead we tried to settle her instead. However, after a few nights we did feed her and she readily took it. She is a good feeder.
Unfortunately we were strongly advised by the Health visitor not to begin weaning until she is 6 months. However, we have bought the Contented weaning book and are on day 3 of the plan today. We also replaced her 10.30pm breast feed with an expressed feed of 7ozs to make sure she was having enough at this feed.
Sometimes she settles herself, but we are more inclined to help her by “shushing” and stroking her head. This helps us all get back to sleep faster. It takes about 30minutes to settle her back to sleep.
Can you advise how we are best suited to tackle this and return her to her regular routine?
My daughter is fully breast fed taking both breasts for 15 minutes on each side at 7.15am, 10.30am, and 2.15pm. At 5.00pm she receives one breast for 15mins and takes the second breast at 6.15pm. At 10.30pm she takes 7ozs of expressed milk. At 4pm she takes 4ozs of water.

Following the weaning plan we are day three giving her 1tsp of organic baby rice mixed with 2 tablespoons breast milk at 11am.

My daughter weighs 16lb 9ozs.

She naps at 9-9.45am, 11.45-2.00pm and 4-4.15pm. She settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My daughter of 4.5mths is waking constantly at night. Her daytime naps are also a bit weird (wakes at lunch, won't resettle), I guess the problem is one and the same, but it's the night we really can't cope with!
She goes down well at 7-7.30pm and I wake her at 10-10.30pm. She's hard to keep awake at first so I feed her a little sleepy then she wakes up afterwards, usually going down at 11.15/11.30pm quite well. She drinks an 8 oz at the 10pm feed, more than any other feed. Then it starts. Last night she woke at 1.30pm, always whiney at first but builds up until I get up and calm her. This involves giving her a dummy! I'd like to get out of that habit as soon as I am able to. She settled back then woke at 2.30-3am, I offered some herb tea, she didn't want it, turned her head and went back to sleep. Then woke at 4am, where I fed her both breasts, no top up. She went back to sleep, only to wake at 5.20am, 6am, 6.30, eventually going back to sleep at 7 until 7.25 when she woke happy. At 5.20am she was cooing and gurgling not only moaning. Each time I get up, probably too quickly, and stroke her, give a dummy and stand there for a minute until she sleeps again. These kinds of nights have been for the past 4-5 days. At 7am-ish, she's not that hungry. This morning at 6 and 6.30am, I left her 10 minutes before going, she didn't settle herself, just gets worked up. It is the same at lunchtime where I leave her a whole 20mins before going in. She's always waiting for the dummy I guess. Shall I just leave her completely? We sleep in the same room which doesn't help anyone. Her skin is good so I wouldn't say it is the irritation from eczema waking her. She has had wind lately and I feel that with the cot blanket pulled across, she can't wriggle her legs and get the air out. Not sure, I guess she'd kick around too much without but wouldn't she get used to that? How shall I deal with this, I'm going a little bit mad?
Also I feel like I do split feeds all day! Should I start giving her solids now even with her sensitivities?
My daughter has a mixture of breast and formula [goats’ milk] feeds.

She feeds at 7.30am, breast, 10.45am breast, 11.50am formula top up 60-90mls. 2.30pm breast and top up of 60-90mls, 5.30pm breast, 6.15pm formula 120mls, 10pm 240mls, 4am breast. She weighs 12-13lbs.

She naps from 9.15-10am, 12-2.15pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

My son who is 5mths has just started to wake 3/4 times in the early hours. I am a single mum and am finding it difficult to cope without the sleep I have now become accustomed to! I know he is getting enough milk as a dummy seems to settle him and this is the first time since 12 weeks that he has decided to awaken. I seem to now be in a vicious circle as he awakens to find his dummy and although I am giving it to him I do not want him to associate sleep with the dummy. He has always settled straight away but recently he has only been down for 45 minutes and then he wakes.

Five days ago he came out of hospital whereby he got spoilt with cuddles and his dummy as he had bronchiolitis. He is still very wheezy and his lungs will still be full of mucous for some time to come - or so I have been told. So I am reluctant to give him his dummy as I want to maximize on his oxygen intake. But I am frightened that letting him cry will mean he will work himself up and this will be reduced anyway. His feeds are slightly out also as cuts back on one feed per day and each day brings a different feed time story. On any one day he will reduce his 11am, 2pm or 5pm feed. But I have reduced his 11am solid intake and that seems to have worked. Today he has taken 7 oz at each feed apart from his 7am feed where he always takes 8.5 oz. He is also teething so on the feeds he rejects he tends to chew his bottle instead but yet will take food from a spoon! He was born 4 weeks prematurely.

My son feeds at 7.30am 8ozs, 11am 5-7ozs followed by 1 cube cauliflower/ broccoli cube, 2 sweet potato cubes with a teaspoon of rice and ½ oz milk. If my son only drinks 5ozs before his solids I increase the milk content. 2pm 5-7ozs, 5/6pm 5-7ozs, 2 cubes of apple or pear puree mixed with 1teaspoon of rice and 1/2oz milk. Again if he takes a smaller feed of 5ozs I increase the milk content. My son weighs 15lbs.

He naps at 8.15-8.45am, 10-10.30am, 12-1pm 3-4pm. He settles at 7pm. He can wake at 10.30pm, 3am, 4.30am and 6.30am although goes back to sleep until 7am at this time.
Team Response

For the past month my son who is almost 5mths wakes up between 5 and 5.30am.Most of the time he cries for a few minutes and goes back to sleep. Sometimes he will scream for about 30minutes. He will then wake up again around 6.15-6.40pm and yells on and off until we go in at 7am.

I am pretty sure that it is not hunger as he stops crying the minute I go in at 7am to turn the light on. Also I sometimes have a struggle to get him to finish his 7am bottle.

He sleeps in a sleeping bag, it is still dark during these hours at the moment and I don’t know what to do. I go in every 15minutes to pat him but this sometimes makes him cry even louder.

My son feeds at 7.10am 7ozs, 10.45am 7ozs, 2.30pm 7ozs, 6.15pm 8ozs, and 10pm 6ozs. He drinks 1oz of water at 4.15pm.

He naps at 8.55-9.15am, 12-2pm and 4.30-4.45pm. He settles at 6,45pm.
Team Response

My son used to wake at 7-7.30am. He now wakes 5.30am since the clock change and poos then so I have to change him and offer five minutes on the breast. He is changed in the dark, no eye contact or talking. He then goes back down. I wake him at 7.30am for other breast and to start the day. He also wakes at 1.30pm at lunchtime nap after going down at 12pm. Sometimes he wakes after an hour. He has only had full 2 hours once. When he wakes after one hour, I offer his NUK dummy and he goes back off until 1.50pm. My other son is 2 years 9 months and goes to kindergarten twice a week from 9-12pm. My youngest son sleeps in the car from when I leave the house at 8.40am until 9.45pm when I wake him up. He is in a lie down matrix Jane car seat. I have to pick my son up at 12pm so leave the house at 11.40am. We are back in the house by 12.10pm.

What will I do when I have to start feeding the baby at 11.30am? I won't have time. My son could stay at kindergarten longer now that he has been going nearly 5 months and have lunch at school and be picked up at 1pm but then the baby will be disturbed from his lunchtime nap, so what do I do then? My elder son naps from 1-2.30pm on school days.

My son is fully breast fed. He was weaned at 19 weeks. He weighs 15lbs 15ozs. He feeds at 5.30am, 5 minutes one side, 7.30am 5 minutes second side; 11am 7 minutes on each side followed by 3 cubes of vegetables; 2.15pm 5 minutes on each side; 6.15pm 8 minutes on each side followed by 3 tablespoons baby rice mixed with 3ozs formula and 1 cube of apple, peach or pear; 10pm 5 minutes on each side or 3ozs of formula. He naps at 9-10am, 12-1.30pm and 4-4.30pm.
Team Response

For the past few weeks my daughter has woken between 4.30 and 6am whatever I try to do. She eats well, sleeps well during day and at night, has both blackout blinds and curtains so it is very dark, but still she wakes.
I am leaving her from the time she wakes until 6.45. This can mean up to 2 hours of grumbling then crying but is this just teaching her that if she cries long enough I will go to her?
She has a breast feed at 6.45am, followed by ½ weetabix with 1 cube pear at 8am. 11am 2ozs formula,11.30am 4 cubes of chicken casserole and 4 cubes of fruit. 2.30pm 7ozs formula, 5pm rice cake,5 cubes of veg, fromage frais, 6.15pm 8ozs. She weighs about 21lbs.
She naps from 9-9.45am, 12.15-2.00pm and is settled by 7pm.
Team Response

My son of 4 months has been following the CLB routines now since he was 6-weeks-old; we had a few problems initially but now he is a real contented little baby. He has always woken up at around 3.30-4am, but always gets himself back to sleep again as we have sleep trained him to do so. However, when we visit family and friends, the room we have is never as dark as his room at home, which has black-out blinds. So when he wakes during the early hours, he cannot get himself back to sleep. My son is such a good little baby and loves his bed, but is there any way that I can also train him to go to sleep in a lighter room environment, other than the pitch black room that he is used to, so he can get himself back off to sleep when he is in lighter rooms?
Team Response

I have just started following your routines with my baby girl, who is four months. I know in your books you say it is important that the baby is allowed to settle itself to sleep so they do not learn the wrong sleep associations. Can you explain this in more detail? At the moment I am cuddling my baby to sleep then putting her in a crib, which is slightly larger than a Moses basket, and smaller than a cot. Sometimes she will settle to sleep quickly and sleep the times you recommend. Other times she wakes up within five minutes, and I have to rock the crib to get her back to sleep. Other times she will stay asleep but wake after 30 to 40 minutes and not settle back to sleep unless the crib is rocked. Should I stop doing this and try reading her a story or play music to her instead, until she falls asleep, of just leave her to cry until she eventually falls asleep?
Team Response

At 4 months my son is still swaddled for all his naps and sleeps. He recently has been getting out of his swaddle during the night. His Moro reflex is still quite strong. Once awake he cries, unable to go back to sleep. What is the best way to wean him from being swaddled so he learns how to resettle himself without help?

For the last three nights he has woken around 4.30am, having got himself out of his swaddle. I allowed him 45 minutes to see if he was able to settle alone but then re-swaddled him and he settled back to sleep quickly.

Feeding details

7.30am: 6ozs formula
11.30am: 6ozs formula
3.00pm: 6ozs formula
6.30pm: 7ozs formula
10.00pm: 6ozs formula

Daily milk total: 32 ozs

My son naps at 8.50-9.50am, 12.00-2.00pm and 4.30-5.00pm.
Team Response

I have a very unusual problem with my four month old baby which is driving me crazy! My daughter is a great CLB except for one thing - she is terrible at settling at 7pm. She often cries and refuses to settle a few minutes after being put down or, if she does settle well at 7pm, she usually wakes up yelling 45 minutes later. This is really perplexing as, for all of her other sleeps, she settles herself off easily. Indeed, for her day time sleeps she is put down wide awake and babbles herself off to sleep within a couple of minutes and sleeps through until I wake her. After the late feed she is drowsy but certainly not asleep when I put her down and she settles off really well until I wake her at 7am the next day.
Since starting the CLB routines I have never had to walk the floor with my daughter or cuddle her to sleep.
She has been sleeping through the night for the past three weeks when I introduced a late feed. (I did not do the late feed until this time as prior to this time, she was waking only once between 7am and 7pm and I found it easier to go to bed early myself and feed her whenever she woke) . At present she is woken at 10.15pm and put back down by 10.45pm. She is given 7oz of formula however we are slowly knocking this back and winding back her waking time to 10/1030pm.
Despite being absolutely perfect for the rest of the time, my daughter is difficult at 7pm and has been for the past couple of months. We have tried everything - putting her down earlier (6.30pm), later (7.30pm), putting her down asleep, putting her down wide awake, rocking the crib, letting her scream (for 1hr and a half before we gave in) and just going straight to her for a cuddle. In the past few days we have thought that it must be hunger waking her as she is so good the rest of the time so we have topped her up after the breast feed with up to 4oz of formula. But nothing seems to work!
She usually settles after one or two attempts but some nights we have two goes to get her down at 7ish and then have to go back to her 45mins later.

We have not yet started solids yet as she sleeps well through the night and seems to be happy on milk.
We don't know what to do. We have been reluctant to let her cry as we can't help thinking that there is something wrong, given that she has no sleep association problems and is great for all other naps. When we did let her cry last week she went totally berserk for almost and hour and a half and made herself sick. We are concerned though that the current pattern at 7pm might cause bad habits that flow onto other sleep times.

My daughter is breast fed throughout the day taking 30 minutes at 7am, 11am and 6pm. She takes 20 minutes at 2.30pm. At 6.15pm she takes up to 4ozs of formula after her feed and 7ozs at 10pm. She weighs 15lbs 6ozs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.30am, 12-2pm and 4.45-5pm.
Team Response

My 4.5 month old daughter has always has problems settling at 6.30/ 7pm but in the last 2 weeks it has got increasingly worse. She goes off to sleep well but then always wakes after 45 minutes. I have tried leaving her to re-settle but her crying becomes more persistent and when I go in and pick her up she burps up wind and then cries persistently for up to 30 minutes when she will then take another 30 minutes to fall back to sleep- sometimes longer. I can't understand why this is happening as I will sometimes wind her for up to 20 minutes and she will burp and spit up several times. She has been sleeping through the night from 11pm since 6 weeks and continues to do so. She also settles well at every other nap time including lunchtime when she might sometimes wake after 45 minutes but will re-settle herself after a few minutes. I've tried to cut back on her afternoon nap but she gets really over-tired and is no-where near being able to drop this nap and can only really stay awake for and hour and three quarters maximum. She also suffers from mild eczema but this doesn't seem to keep her awake overnight or at any other nap time other than the evening when she will get over tired after waking and start scratching her head. Please help! I have thought that she might need weaning but my health visitor has said that due to her eczema to hold off until she starts waking in the night for food.

At present she takes 7ozs formula at 7.30am, 11am, 2.30pm and 5.45pm. She takes 6ozs at 10pm. She weighs approximately 16lbs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 11.45-2pm and 3.45-4.15pm. 6.30-7pm.
Team Response

My 4 month old daughter had been sleeping from 7pm to 7am but now has started to wake at 6.30am. She is then ready to sleep again at 8.30am which affects the whole day. She has also started to wake in her lunchtime nap despite being offered a top up feed before going down. She still naps for 40 minutes in the afternoon and I wonder if this is the cause of her waking at 3am, although she manages to re- settle herself but then wakes early

For the last week she has started to wake several times during her lunchtime nap. I have stayed in the house to try to crack the problem at this time but as yet have seen no improvement. She naps in her pram when I go out at 4pm.

She has been nasally congested for the last few days.

Feeding details

7.00am: 8ozs formula
10.30am: 7ozs formula
11.30am: 3ozs formula
2.30pm: 8ozs formula
6.00pm: 8ozs formula
10.00pm: 6ozs formula

Daily milk intake 40ozs
Team Response

My daughter has been on the CLB routines since her 7th week of life and taken quite well to them.
However, one area of concern has always been her sleep, she always seemed to need more sleep than the routines suggested. Even now at 4 months and 3 weeks old I do not seem to be able to keep her awake for more than 2 hrs at the time. She settles well at all nap times and after the 9:45pm feed provided she has her dummy, during the night she will occasionally even settle herself without the dummy. She does not cry, just moans and grunts a little. She will go to bed in the evening at 6:30pm and we still have to wake her at 7am, I am confident she would sleep near 8am if we left her. At bedtime at 6:30pm, settling is a bit harder even though she is nearly falling asleep on us or in her chair. She will cry on and off until 7:30/8pm. Once she has fallen asleep for good we have to wake her for her feed at 9:45pm after which she falls straight back asleep. Nap times are about half of the time taken in her pram since we are out, when we are at home she sleeps in her cot in a dark room and this mixture has never posed a problem.
Feeding has after initial problems gone very well in the past even though I feel that the amount of time she spends on the breast is rather short. Up to now she seemed to get enough though, putting on 5-6oz a week with exception of the past two weeks where she only put on 3oz each week, but still being a very happy and contented baby for the first week at least.

Over the past week, everything seems to be going pear shaped. She will not settle well at nap times, even the 9am nap which was never a problem, is a struggle. During the lunchtime nap she will wake up several times, wide awake and ready to play, most of the time I manage to settle her back to sleep but other times not. The afternoon nap I understand some babies cut out and she has done that twice but as a result feeds even less at 5:45pm (which should really be 6pm but I do not dare make her wait that long because she is too tired by then, I tried it before, even with a split feed at 5pm and 6pm she would not be any better). In an effort to make her have the afternoon nap I settle her and let her sleep in my arms for 10-20 mins which I do not really want her to get used to. The 11:00 am feed I had to bring forward to 10:45am most days this week because she was very restless. The 2:30pm feed is as usual provided she sleeps ok. The 5:45pm feed seems to be always the shortest feed of the day, I think due to tiredness (or maybe a low milk supply?). I leave her on the breast until she has finished. Once she is done, she will let go, look at me, then go back on it for just a quick suck, let go again, look at me again, go back on it, this goes on for a little while until she will be looking to the other side or at her dad when I then take her up to burp her. I have tried topping her up with expressed milk at this 5:45pm feed but this has made no difference to the fact that in the evenings, when we before always had to wake her for her late feed, she will now wake anytime between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. We have given her the late feed bottle as early as 8:30pm and she did go straight back to sleep at 8:50pm and did sleep through to 7am when again we had to wake her. Is she maybe ready to drop this feed but rather than having less and less milk at 9:45pm she demands it earlier and earlier to eventually coincide with the 6pm feed?
I have not started weaning her yet since I really want to make sure that she is ready. I had planned to maybe start when she is 5 months in order to avoid her becoming a fussy eater but not any earlier if she did not show any signs. She has been sucking and chewing her hands since she was 2.5 months old, and she does not show any interest in our food. Therefore I thought she might not be ready yet. However, if hunger is causing all those disruptions, maybe I should start weaning her? However, the top up of expressed milk at 5:45pm did not make any difference, in fact that day she woke up earlier than ever for the late night feed, so is it hunger or could it be something else? She has 9oz with the late night feed and is incredibly excited when she sees the bottle which she empties in 5 minutes flat. If you try and take it away to give her a little rest and a burp, she starts screaming hysterically and will try and reach for it to put it back in her mouth. I have a feeling that she would have more if we gave her more. Yesterday evening and this lunchtime I literally fed her to sleep, something I never had to do before, because she would scream the minute her back touched the mattress. I realize that this has only been going on for a week now but since last night the situation seems to escalate and I would be grateful if you could give me your opinion on how best to continue before the whole routine gets out of hand.

My daughter feeds at 7am form both sides taking 15minutes in total, 11am both breasts, feeding time 10minutes, 2.30pm feeding time 8-10minutes, 4pm occasionally 1.5ozs water, 5.45pm both breasts feeding time 8minutes, 9.45pm 9ozs emptied in 5minutes.

My daughter weighs 14lbs.

She naps at 8.50-9.45am, 11.50-2.15pm and 4.30-5pm. She settles at 6.30pm
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Now that my twins are five and a half months old, their different personalities are really starting to show. My little girl is pretty sanguine about most things and cries very little. She can amuse herself for up to half an hour on her mat or in her chair alone and sleeps well. My boy, though, is getting more and more demanding. He has started waking up from his nap after an hour (despite my gradually almost completely dropping the morning nap) which leaves him grumpy and overtired. Two of the three days that this has happened I have put him back to bed after his 2.30 feed for an hour, but he has still then ended up zonking out for an hour in the afternoon when he only usually took 30 minutes when his lunchtime nap was working. So he is plainly still tired when he wakes up after his extra hour at 2.30. In addition (and most importantly), he is becoming more demanding. He used to be almost as good as his sister at amusing himself. Now, though, he cries as soon as he’s put down and is constantly a little bit whingey. He was always more spirited than his sister and although I'm more than happy to embrace that I don't want to end up with a difficult and insecure toddler. As he has changed I feel it must be something I'm doing, but I can't work out what I'm doing differently. What can I do with a baby this young to help him feel more secure? I don't want to be negative, but he just seems a bit moody! Help! The food and sleep details below are for my little boy: my girl eats a little less and sleeps 16 hours a day and seems ok on it.

My son feeds at 7.45am 7ozs, 8am, 3 tsp porridge and 2tbsp fruit puree, 11am 5ozs formula , I have tried to reduce this to 3-4ozs but he isn’t happy without the extra oz. 11.30am, 5tbsp vegetables as per weaning guide 5-6mths. I have tried to move him on but cannot get him to wait beyond 11am for his milk so give solids at this time. 2.30pm 6ozs, 5.30pm 7ozs formula, 5tsp baby rice and 2tbsp of fruit puree. My son weighs 18lbs.

He naps at 9.40-10am, 12-1pm, 2.30-3.30pm, 4.30-5pm. He is settled by 6.30pm and sleeps through to 7.30am.
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I have 17 week old twins (11 weeks adjusted). I use the routines with their adjusted date of 11 weeks. The biggest problem is the morning nap is too early and also taken twice. This makes the lunch time nap at completely the wrong time.

The only part of the routine that I seem to have got right is the bedtime side of things. I cannot keep the babies awake in the morning past 8:30am latest - I have tried everything. They are so tired that I can be in the middle of playing with them and they will just nod off regardless. If they don’t have a quick nap before the 11:00am feed, then they have the 11:00am feed and are ready for the "big" lunch time nap. This means they sleep from 11:30am - 12:30pm.

Maybe this is a lost cause and I am beside myself as my son especially seems so miserable all day and never plays for more than 1-20 minutes on his own before crying again.

As there is a difference in their weights, their feeding reflects this:
Twin 1 16lbs
7.30am 6ozs with 3tsp rice cereal
11.00am 5.5-6ozs with 3tsp rice
3.00pm 5.5ozs with 3 tsp rice
6.45pm 6-7ozs with 3.5tsp rice
10.45pm 3-4ozs with 3tsp rice

Twin 2 13lbs
7.30am 5ozs with 4.4tsp rice
11.00am 4.5-5ozs with 4tsp rice
3.00pm 4.5ozs with 4 tsp rice
6.45pm 5ozs with 4.5tsp rice
10.45pm 4.5ozs with 4tsp rice
Rice cereal is added to their bottles due to reflux problems

They nap at 8.30-9.10am, 10.30-11am, 12.50-1.50pm, 3.45-4.00pm and settle by 7pm.
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My four-month-old baby is following the routines really well, and sleeping through to nearer 7am from his 10pm feed. We are soon to spend our first long weekend away from home with him since he was born, and I am getting very anxious that we will not be able to keep him in such a good routine when staying with friends. Is there anything I can do to ensure that his routine doesn't go totally wrong?

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I simply want advice on how to alter the routines gradually to take into account the time change when daylight savings are introduced. In Australia at the end of October, we lose an hour. Should we simply wake my daughter up an hour earlier or do it gradually over several days.
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My baby is such a light sleeper, it is driving us all mad. Your previous advice (when I was visiting relatives who live on a noisy road) was to have a little background music on which did help. When I have background noise (music or a fan or white noise) Anna will sleep well most of the time, following the correct nap times and sleeps through the night, although some noise will still wake her (cars going past, people talking outside the house, the doorbell etc). But if we try to have her sleep without background noise, it is just impossible, everything wakes her up. It means we are constantly creeping round (even with the background noise on); we can't have the washing machine or dishwasher on when she is sleeping; we are always shushing guests and neighbours.
Also we are due to move house soon and will have to live in a hotel for a week while our stuff is transported. This will cause huge problems because I know noise will stop Anna sleeping.
We are fed up with the situation and are desperate to resolve it. I can't control other people's noise and even having to control ours all the time is frustrating and becoming unacceptable. I accept the problem may be partly my fault as I have tried to keep her environment quiet so she can sleep, but now we need to reverse the situation.
Is Anna just a light sleeper and it will always be this way? Or is there something we can do? If we go cold turkey on background noise how long will it take before she might become better able to sleep through noise?
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I follow the routines to the letter. At home we have the perfect child – she is five months old and eats exactly what and when she should, sleeps exactly when and for as long as she should. My problem now is the inflexibility. She will not sleep anywhere but in a moving car/pram (as all babies do) or in her cot in her dark room. I have never used rocking/pushing pram etc to get her to sleep. Once I put her in her cot, I never pick her up again. I put her down and she normally cries herself to sleep in a minute or two. My husband and I switched from dinners to lunches out when Thea came along and that has worked well until recently. The last four times she has screamed. We have had to leave restaurants so as not to disturb everyone else. We’ve let her cry at friends' houses but that doesn't end up being fun for anyone. Today I let her cry for an hour and then picked her up to find she was bright red and boiling hot. She's not a baby that gives up. She doesn't tire from screaming, she just loses her voice and stops to catch her breath occasionally. Having no social life is not good for my marriage. Please, please help. She's so good at following your rules.
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