3am feed....back again!!

[sleeplessinseattle]

DS- juts last week - had 4 nights in a row where he slept from 11ish (after the DF) to 5ish........his old pattern was to wake for a feed at 3am. In the last 4 nights he is now back to his old pattern again. he shows signs of hunger, and stirs for 30 min and then we feed him. We thought that we had turned a corner. Additionally he has reduced his total daily intake from 34-35oz to 29-32oz.... This seemed unusual as he is a big boy. His eating and sleeping schedule has remained basically the same. Here are the stats!!!

age- 3 months - 1 week
weight-  19.8 lbs wow
typical eating schedule based on 3 hour " not so EASY" yet
roughly eats at 6:30, 9:30, 12:30, 3:30, 6:30, 8:00, 11:00DF

1- should we be leaving him to sir longer?
2- is this a sign to go to 4 hour schedules with larger Oz's at feeding time??
3- just a growth spurt??

any advice is welcome.


D

[First Time Mom]

Hi Sleeplessinseattle,

I'm not sure why he would reduce the oz but I would look at the 8pm feed and try to eliminate it with the hopes of him taking more at 11. Does he need this feed, it's so close to 6:30? As for 4 hour, my dd has just switched to 4 hour, follow his lead for the change- he may change some feeds and not others at first. For weeks my dd was on 4 hour in the morning and 3 hour in the late afternoon before going to all 4. As for leaving him to stir longer, do you paci? If so, I would try to offer him the paci but I wouldn't let him stir longer than 30 minutes if he ends up crying.

[jsorrow24]

Oh my gosh, my ds is doing the same thing too. We increased his feeds a few weeks ago from 4 oz to 5-6 oz every 3 hours and he did so well with this for about 2 weeks and would sleep from 8pm - 4 or 5am and even slept through one night to 6:30am. But now, he doesn't want to hardly take his bottles and has started waking at 3am on the dot every night now for the past week. I have tried going to 3.5 - 4 hours b/w feeds but he doesn't cosume any more than he did when he was going 3 hours. He is a big baby also, almost 17lbs if not that now at 12 weeks. he was taking around 30-34 oz and now down to maybe 23-26oz in a day, then waking at 3am to take another 3-4 ounces.

I am thinking of trying wake to sleep tonight since he seems to be establishing a routine of waking at 3am. He really doesn't seem that hungry then even though he eats. I dreamfeed him at bw 10 and 10:30 everynight and he usually drinks 4 or 5 oz then. I think the 3am waking is becoming a habit and it is messing up his morning feed. This is supposed to be his growth spurt week, but no signs of this week unless he was in a little early when he was consuming the extra formula a few weeks ago. Who knows.

When it's time to eat he just plays around with the bottle. I mean it took me almost 45 minutes to feed him this morning, but he did drink 5 oz and I didn't force it either. He really wanted to suck the bottle, but it's like he wanted to look around at everything too while he was eating.

Has anyone every experienced this? I don't know what to do? I can go 4 hours and he still plays around with the bottle. But then sometimes he will just go right at it.

[LŠuren]

D

I think you have hit the nail on the head with either 2 or 3 - he was doing so well too 

During the day he is hungry when you feed him on the 3hour mark or does he now play and not eat as much - if this is the case, along with this new night waking the likely culprit is the 3 hour EASY now needing to change. DS also started to do it at 3month and 1 week, although I missed the cues and just thought he was off his food.  He has reduced his total daily intake from 34-35oz to 29-32oz.... this obviously contributes as well.

If it were me I would follow his eating cues for the next day or two and see how far he goes during the day, you may find he is hungrier after 3.5 or 4hrs, your new routine could then chnage to this;

age- 3 months - 1 week
weight-  19.8 lbs wow

roughly eats at 6:30, 10:30, 14:30, 18:30, 20:00, 11:00DF - it means dropping a bottle, however he should take more at each feed - you also keep your CF & DF.

Let me know how you get on.
Lauren x

[jsorrow24]

I think we are going to go to 4 hour easy, it has to be our issue also. And I did do wake to sleep last night and we slept unitl 5am instead of waking at 3am. It sure did work. I am going to do again tonight to see if he will go longer. Because when he woke at 5am...he only took 2 ounces. He is still taking dreamfeed pretty well, at least 5 o 6 oz. He does play around with the bottle during the day, but it seems in the evenings he takes his bottles pretty well and will consume the 6 oz I offer him.

Wish us luck on the night wakings....hoping to stretch it further. We wake at 6:30 and 7 for work so it would be nice if ds would too. 

[sleeplessinseattle]

thank you for the advice.  these lo's sure are fun to 'figure out' ...or i should say 'try' to figure out.  so - today - he at 3 oz. at 3 a.m.  woke at 5ish ...stirring until 5:30 so we got up.  But - didn't eat until 6 (4 oz).  But - then he started eating 6 oz. at each feeding at 9,noon,3,6...and I decided after 3 nights of being overtired at bed time that i'd put him down earlier.  so he went to bed at 7:30...just before he went to bed a 1 oz cluser feed (and i swear he would have had more but, it seemed so close to the 6 p.m. feed!?!??!)  hope that going to bed earlier doesn't change his sleeping.  Will let you know...sometimes i wonder if he'll just start doing better once he has some rice cereal in his diet?!?!

anyway - thank you so much..i'll keep you posted after tonight!!