Apologies if this has been addressed previously - I couldn't get the search function to work.
Since around 8 weeks, my 14wo has stopped taking big feeds - she would previously feed around 20 minutes, but it suddenly dropped to 5-10 minutes. I realise that they can become a lot more efficient at feeding but a lot of the time she now needs 2 feeds during an awake time.
EASY routine is basically like this:
E 6:30
S 8:00
E 9:30
S 11:00
E 12:30pm
S 2:00pm
E 3:30pm
S 5:00pm
E 5:45pm
A bath 6:00pm
E 6:30pm
S (bedtime) 7pm
E (DF - bottle of EBM) 10pm
LO usually doesn't have an overnight feed. A lot of the time sleeps right through, and if she wakes (sometimes once, sometimes more) I'll try to resettle her with dummy - if that fails 3 times I feed her.
With the EASY routine I have written, that is just an approximate. At least half of the A times would have 2 feeds. Once she has finished feeding there is no putting her back on - if I persist in trying she starts crying. Sometimes she starts getting cranky around half an hour after a feed and will take an additional feed then; sometimes it will come time to put her down for her nap and she won't settle and I'll feed her then. She only rarely (once every couple of weeks) would feed to sleep. If she's only had a short feed I'll try to feed her next time on the same side, but if she starts pulling on and off I switch her to the other side.
The last couple of days she has been getting really cranky about 45min-hour into A time and I know she's hungry but she just won't latch on and eat (after having a short feed early in the A time). She gets more and more worked up and eventually eats but that is after some screaming! I think at those times, maybe letdown is too slow for her - but then again, sometimes she won't even close her mouth around the nipple at all and will just turn her head away.
Sometimes I feed her as soon as she wakes up (still swaddled, in her darkened bedroom) and sometimes I let her play for a bit until she seems hungry (as she often has eaten just before a nap so really it is only 1.5 hours since eating), but it doesn't seem to make a difference to whether she snacks or takes a full feed. Yesterday I fed her at 5:30am and that was the biggest feed she's had in weeks - she ate one side for 10 minutes then the other side for 5. Usually the first feed of the day is still only a short one (and I express the other side for the DF bottle).
She is putting on weight (sticking around 50th percentile) and has lots of wet nappies but dirty ones have dropped significantly - used to be one almost every feed, now about one a day.
Is there anything I can do to stop her snacking? I was okay to go with the flow but since she has started getting so upset from hunger I want to do something about it.
Thanks!
