help ladies

my LO was having a feed every 4 hours in the first week of birth, then it went to 3 hours and now she sometimes wants some after 2 hours.
were completly confused now.

we upped the feed amounts which seemed to get her back on the 3 hourly mark but now she either falls asleep mid feed or after we wind her the first time doesnt want anymore.

I think shes quite a sucky baby and im thinking of changing teats to medium flow and then see if she drinks all of a larger feed and therefore go back to the 3-4 hourly feeds??

any advice on this? pleeeeaaasseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

xxxxxxxxx

Some babies do want to feed sooner than the 3-4 hour mark anyway (Earl eats every 2.5-3 hours)

How old is your LO? Could she be having a growth spurt? How long is she sleeping at night? All of these things can have a bearing on how often and how much they eat during the day.

I would try the medium flow out as she is falling asleep mid-feed. Sounds like she's getting bored and tired by the effort it's taking to eat.

She may well be tired rather than hungry so you can try to soothe her to sleep for a little bit to eek out the time between feeds - if after 10 minutes she's still crying for food then she is actually hungry.

Personally, as long as he goes over 2 hours, I'm happy at the moment. He's due a growth spurt, slept right through the night for the first time EVER last night and is a big boy! I would also try keeping a diary for a couple of days to see if there are any patterns to when/how much as you can see more if you have a definite set of times in front of you....this really helped me!

I feed my daughter whenever i think she's hungry, which can be anytime from 2 - 4 hours between feeds (except at night where she goes 5-6 hours or sometimes sleeps through the night). I think this works best and did the same with my first 2 babies. if we were hungry we wud go eat and not wait until a certain time has passed so why should baby? It all balance sout when they start weaning and get into a regular 'meal' pattern. I find if u feed on demand they are much more contended as babies.

shes only 11 days old, but im concerned that were not feeding her right hence her sometimes going for 4 hours and the every 2 hours.
ive brought some vary flo teats to try her on in hope shes feels more satisfied.
im worried im over feeding her, especially as she didnt do the usual losing weight after birth thing, she put on 90grams in the first week-which is good im told but i dont want to make her ill but stuffing her too much!

x

ps- can u tell im a first time mum! lol!

My LO didn't loose weight either, he gained an ounce by day 5 and he's been piling it on since.

I dont think you can feed them wrong, they cry when they are hungry and stop feeding when they are full.

Hopefully the variflow teats will work out better for you.

My LO falls to sleep mid feed too so I may try the next teat up on my bottles ( glad you posted this ) lol

xx

Earl didn't loose weight either. put on 2.5oz in 10 days

You can't over-feed a really little baby like that. I would try just making a note of what she eats and when, then you can see what she is eating. Only you can say whether or not she is happy and that's the important thing. I would try the soothing thing as Earl is a terror for getting himself over-tired and you end up feeding a tired baby, which makes them worse.

I too hope the vari-flow works.

ok so the vari flo teats didnt work, she covered herself in milk cos was sucking too much out!!

god im getting so stressed out with feeding.. sob sob sob sob.

Brady did this a lot at that age and still does it a bit, but the next stage up teats are just too much for him.

Try blowing on her face when she starts to fall asleep. If she's just dozing this should wake her up, if not then there's no point trying to force it down her. Sometimes I leave Brady for 20 minutes or so and then try and get the bottle back in his mouth, if they're hungry they're instinct is to suck so she might go a bit longer this way.

In the night though I find it too frustrating to do this. I tried dreamfeeding before I went to bed but this actually made Brady wake up earlier because he would only take 1-2 oz so would wake up for more. Now what I do is change his nappy before I go to bed and have a bottle ready, if he stirs while I am changing him then I feed him afterwards and he seems to be just awake enough to have a full feed and will then go straight back off to sleep for 6-7 hours.

Aimee-Lou is right though, a lot of babies have a growth spurt around your LO's age so she might stop doing this after a few days and settle into more of a pattern. tbh, Brady's feeding pattern is still changing, he can have anywhere from 4-6 oz during the day and go from 2.5-4 hours between feeds in the day.