"Hello-

I have been having many issues with my almost five month old son. He is exclusively breastfed, although we have been including formula 1x a day recently in order to encourage him to have more satiety at night. The addition of the formula has not promoted longer night sleeping, nor has it abolished frequent night waking.

My husband believes that we should be pushing him to a later bedtime, rather than the 7:00 pm time established. This is the time within his 2 hour wakeful period. What are your thoughts on keeping my son up later in order to help him sleep at night? (He will get up to feed once, then wakes multiple other times in which he is not fed)…..He will potentially stay up for 2 hours and struggle with return to sleep.

He is generally a good napper, although at times when I put him down within his 90 minute window and have observed his sleepy signs, he can become very playful, talkative, at which point I take him out, then try again later. Should I leave him in there until he can relax and fall asleep?

Please help, as I am not sure how to proceed from here.

Thank you"

- Era

Hi, Era,

As I'm sure you read in the book, many parents besides you and I have noticed that putting more food into the baby does not always lead to the baby sleeping better.

This is because (I believe) they are not awakening due to hunger. It's easy to be confused by their willingness to take the breast or bottle in the night after an awakening, but remember sucking is calming and focusing for a baby, and they use it for comfort and not nutrition at least some of these times.

Have you tried pushing bedtime later as your husband suggested, and if so was it successful? My prediction would have been that it would not be, but if it was, then by all means, stick with it.

As I describe in the book, my advice is usually not to push bedtime later, nor to keep the baby up during the day. It is folly to think this will lead to deeper sleep at night; for most babies, the opposite seems to be true.

If you're following the 90-minute clock and it's helping you to recognize your son's sleepy signs, that will help him to get MORE sleep during the day. I realize this is counterintuitive, but when babies sleep more during the day, they will awaken less during the night.

Polly.