Eating too little to sleep through?

[lamcg]

My son is 4 months old, not sleeping through. I feed him every three hours (so five feeds a day, and sometimes an extra one before bed)-- almost entirely formula at this point. All the books say he should be taking more formula/breastmilk in the daytime at this point than he is. He takes variable amounts at each feed-- average is 4 ounces, but sometimes will take as little as 2 or as much as 7 or 8. However, he is a big boy and growing just fine. And when he's done eating, he is absolutely done. Tracey's book said to spread out the amount the baby is taking at night across his daytime feedings, but our little guy wouldn't have that.

We dream feed between 10 and 11-- he takes variable amounts, anywhere between 3 and 7 ounces. We are down to one feeding in the night (between 12 and 7), and that's a pretty small one-- he may no longer need it? He can wake any time for it between 1 and 4-- and since he often wakes more than just the one time, we are always trying to determine when he wakes whether he's hungry or just waking for some other reason.

Does this sound like an eating issue or a sleeping issue? Any advice?

Lauren

[Katet]

With my first ds, I found that at 4mo he was feeding every 3 hours & it was suggested to me that I stretch it out to 4hours (this was before I found BW) as in a big 4mo (my boys are both very big) if they eat too frequently they snack & they will carry that forward to night waking. Well it worked for me & within a month ds #1 was sleeping longer stretches at night. with Ds #2 who is also very big (8kg at 3mo) I have occasionally fed him at shorter intervals (2.5 -3 hours) & with out fail those are the nights he wakes up 2- 3 x between 7pm & 7am. If I keep him at 3.5-4 hourly feeds (he is bf) I can get 8-11 hours overnight from him.

Night waking is not just related to food, but also good sleeping habits, does he go to sleep on his own, are his day naps 45min, or 1.5-2 hours, how long is his awake time? at 4 months old most people would expect a bottle fed baby to go 4 hours (2 sleep 2 awake) & that in theory should also help night sleep & you should get a longer stretch overnight.

[cwolff]

Holy cow, I'm going to do that!  I've been feeding my dd sometimes twice in one awake time trying to get her to eat a full bottle.  And sometimes she does and sometimes not.  But I've been having trouble deciding if she needs to eat every 3 hours or 4 hours.  She will eat at the beginning and end of A time though.  And sometimes she really seems hungry, but then won't eat more then 3-4oz.  It's driving me nuts.  And she's been waking more in the night to eat too.  I think no matter when she wakes up from her naps, I'm going to do the 3.5-4 hour thing, because that's when she seems to eat the most.  Do you think that's better then feeding her 2x in one A time?

[Katet]

From my experience feeding 2x in an activity time = snacking.

It is hard to get past the mind set that feed more = more sleep, as it doesn't necessarily follow. If you were to eat one slice of bread, rather than your full lunch you would be hungry sooner & might just take a small snack, which might then put you off dinner...follow what I mean.

I would suggest offering the feed, give 10min break if you don't think she took much & offer again. then that is it for 3-4 hours, if after 3 hours you truely think she is hungry feed again, but try to stretch it out if you think she will last longer.

[cwolff]

Thanks, I'm going to do that from now on.  I used to do that, but then got into well maybe I should try and just see if she'll eat more, etc. etc.  She's up usually once at night, plus the DF, which I guess isn't so bad.  She took almost a full bottle in the middle of the night last night, so she's definitely hungry.  She's not a crier though, so it's hard to read her hungry cues during the day.  I suspect that if I wait, she will start giving me cues.

[lamcg]

Thanks for this suggestion. I was reading through BW the other night after I posted this message and started transitioning Gabriel to a 4-hour schedule yesterday after something in her very first chapter on the EASY routine. I was also operating under the assumption that more opportunities to feed (i.e. the 3-hour EASY) = more food = more sleep. Like cwolff, he just continues to wake, but last night after one day with 3.5 to 4 hours between feeds, he had only one waking for about a minute at midnight, and otherwise slept straight through from about 8 pm to 7 am. It was like a miracle. I haven't slept that much since before he was born!