Need advice on a few things regarding my 5 month old -- Self Soothing in baby who uses a pacifier & Feeding/ Sleeping schedule.

What is your feeding, sleeping schedule for your 5/6 month old?
Our younger DS just turned 5 months & I will start him on cereal this weekend. On a daily basis, lately we are on this kind of schedule:

Baby wakes at 4:30-4:45am (way too early & kills me since by the time I can get him back to bed after the bottle, my older ds will wake for the day around 6:30am) I try to hold him off at least 30 min before feeding. He will not go back to sleep without eating.

5:15am - 7oz bottle
6am to 7:30am - nap
9am - 6.5oz bottle
10:30am to 12:30pm - nap
1pm - 6.5oz bottle
4pm - 6.5oz bottle
5pm to 6 - nap
7:15pm - 6.5oz bottle
7:30-7:45pm - bed

I am wondering if when he starts to eat cereal, he'll sleep later in the mornings? This 4:30am wake up time is getting old.

Another problem that I am having is the damn paci!! I hate that thing & I wish he'd suck his thumb (I know what they say about how hard it is to stop the habit but I am comfortable in dealing with that as I did for my first child) The baby sucks his thumb a little but it's not enough to fully comfort him the way his paci does.

Whenever the paci falls out at night or he pulls it out by accident, he wakes up. How old until they can put it in themselves?? I want to begin sleep training him (maybe using ferber) because I still rock him to sleep while holding in his paci but I would feel terrible about it if he couldn't pop the paci back in for comfort. What do I do?

We sleep trained our first ds around 4 months & those first few nights is when he really learned to suck his thumb & it helped him with sleeping & I just checked his old schedule & he was sleeping until 7:30 sometimes even 8 am probably because he was able to get himself back to sleep if he woke during the night. Both kids were eating the same daily ounces as well. I don't get it.

Message edited 11/9/2012 10:55:38 AM.

Need advice on a few things regarding my 5 month old -- Self Soothing in baby who uses a pacifier & Feeding/ Sleeping schedule.

Quick question, why do you wait to feed him in the morning? DD sometimes wakes around 4:30 too but I treat it as any other nighttime waking. Lights stay out, no diaper change, just nurse and back to the crib and she goes back to sleep until 730 or 830.

Re: Need advice on a few things regarding my 5 month old -- Self Soothing in baby who uses a pacifier & Feeding/ Sleeping schedule.

Need advice on a few things regarding my 5 month old -- Self Soothing in baby who uses a pacifier & Feeding/ Sleeping schedule.

Wake 7:30 and gets bottle and solid
nap 10:30-12:30
12:30 bottle and solid
nap 2:30-4:30
4:30 bottle and solid
Nap 6:30 and wake at 7:30 for last bottle and right back to sleep for the night. She is 5.5 months and at 6 months I will drop that 6:30 nap.

I used this schedule for my older DD and it worked great so I went right to it for my younger DD and she has also taken it to it naturally. There has been no feeding or wake time between 7:30pm-7:30am since she was 10 weeks old.

I started a modified CIO at 10 weeks old with my 5.5 month old. I don't rock her to sleep, I put her in her sleep sack, kiss her, tell her I love her and will see her in the morning or after her nap. That's it. It took my younger DD about 3 days to get it and my older one i did this when she was older and it took much longer.

Message edited 11/9/2012 2:01:35 PM.