Transition from 3 to 4 Hour Feeding

[Jenifer]

My 12 week old daughter seems to be transitioning from a 3 hour need for food to 3.5 hours.  However, she is only really doing this in the morning - tends to want to eat closer to 3 hours in the afternoon / evening.

I'm trying to think how I would fully transition - considering the start of our day and bed time.  We start our day at 7:30 am .. so the next feeds would be 11:00 am, 2:30 pm, 6:00 pm   Is 6:30 too early to be her last feed before the dream feed (around 10:30 pm)? 

Transitioning from 3 to 4 hour feeding eliminates one feed throughout the day, right?  She currently feeds 7 times (including once in the middle of the night).

Should she be transitioning from 3 to 4 hour and STILL be waking up through the night?  Should I be trying to get rid of the night feeding first?  And if so, how do I do that?

TIA

[Carter'sMama]

Tracey doesn't suggest going to a 4 hour schedule until your baby is closer to 4 months old.  At your lo's age they may still need to feed 7-8 times a day.  If she is willing to go 3.5 hours in teh morning then let her and in the afternoon you can stick to a 3 hour routine.  What I used to do was similar to what you are doing but then at bed I would do a cluster feed to help get rid of the night feed.  So our routine would look something like this:

7:00am - wake and bf
10:30 - bf
2:00pm - bf
5:00pm - bf
7:30/8:00pm - bf then bed

When it is time to switch to a 4 hour routine, you will be trying to get her to 4 feeds a day.  Many babies aren't able to do this until 5 or 6 months.  I was at 5 feeds until solids were established because of the cluster feeds.

I hope this helps!

Let me know if you have any more questions!

I never did the dream feed but I found that the clustering helped immensely in getting my DS to sleep longer stretches at night.  Once we started solids it was easy to get rid of the extra cluster feeds because we just replaced them with dinner (fruit/veggies etc).

[Jenifer]

I agree that she isn't ready now to go to 4/4 now, but I do think she's working toward transitioning herself (I see it in her sleep and activity time too).  I was just wondering what it looks like as you transition ...

How did you decide when to start solids?

[Carter'sMama]

I didn't want to start cereal until Carter was 6 months of age but he was having some severe GI/pooping issues (lack of poop actually but not constipated) so the GI specialist we saw told us to start at 5.5 months.  I think it is a good idea to wait until atleast 6 months because you are able to provide all the nutrition your baby needs with breast milk.  There are a few things that you look for as well such as being able to sit well in the highchair, lack of tongue thrust, size of your baby and how hungry they seem to be etc.

When you start to transition you will begin adjusting the feeding time by putting it back 15 minute increments every few days until you reach your goal.  I found with my guy that I didn't really have to do that because he could wait 4 hours and I just didn't know it because I had been feeding him every 3.5 hours for so long.  It will take a few days/weeks to get the A time, feeds and sleep all figured out and on a good routine.  Tracey outlines the process of going form 3hr to 4 hr in her "Solves all Your Problems" book.  I would give you the page reference but unfortunately we just moved and all my books are still in boxes 

HTH