My DS unwilling to bf

[2boysmummy]

My DS is 21 weeks old. He is on 4hour EASY and fully breastfed. He is gaining weigh steadily- actually he is quite big baby- around 20lb already. The problem first occured about month ago. My DS bfeeds for around 5 minutes and has enough. No matter what I do, he looks around, smiles a babbles and if I try to get him to feed dome more he get frustrated. I wouldn't even dream of forcing him to have some more but after I give him his dreamfeed at 10:30 (it takes him about 15 to 20 minutes to finish) he keeps waking up erratically- sometimes at half 12, then around half 2. At around 3 a.m. I usually bf him (again it takes him about 20 mins to finish) and he sleeps till around 5:30, 6:00 - talks to himself and waits for me to get up at half 6 and bf at which point it takes only 5 minutes again.
As I wrote it happened a month ago and again this week. Could it be gs? I have tried to tank up but my DS woke up erratically anyway.
Normally he sleeps well, can put himself back to sleep and wakes up only at aroud 3 to bf.
Please can you help?

[*Ali*]

Is it possible he is getting to that distractable age where he needs complete quiet and minimal lighting to feed? I wound mine fed best immediately upon wake up in the still dim nursery.

How does he go to sleep? Independently? I'm just wondering if he could be using the NFs to get back to sleep when he wakes in the night. Is he actively feeding (swallowing and suckling) the entire feed?

[Fiver]

Are you giving him a BF when he wakes around 12.30ish/2.30am, or are you getting him back to sleep some other way?  It wouldn't be totally unusual for a BF LO to require a couple of feeds during the night at 20w.

[Erin M]

With it happening now and about a month ago, it sounds growth spurtish to me.  My ds is a big boy -- well, he was born small (5 pounds, 12 ounces) but apparently wasn't meant to be that small and had quadrupled his birth weight by his 9 month check up -- and I felt like he had monthly growth spurts for those first bunch of months -- the 3 and 4 month ones are pretty textbook, but we also had a huge one at both 5 and 6 months as well.  And my kids (well 2 out of the 3) preferred not to eat more during the day, but would just wake at night more frequently for feeds.  I'd honestly give it a few days to settle down before getting overly concerned about it.  And Ali makes some good points too about independent sleep that would bear some thinking about as well. 

[2boysmummy]

Hi guys, thanks for your replies My DS always falls asleep indipendently- I swaddle hims and give him a paci and he's off to dreamland. He sometimes wakes at 10p.m. and if he can't settle by himself I go in, give him his paci and he goes back to sleep.
Two days ago I gave him df at 11p.m. and he woke up at around 5a.m. and after giving him a dummy he went back to sleep till half 6 and took nice full feed! The next night he was up every hour from around 2 till half 6 which is our get up time.
The important thing to say is that my DS had his jab the day before the night he'd slept till 5. I also think that he might be teething but I'm not sure. How long does it take?
I can't believe that my baby used to be such a great sleeper and now I don't know what to do to get him there again!

[*Ali*]

Teething for us normally takes 3-7 days until the tooth cuts and the fussiness subsides.

[Fiver]

Sleep was dodgy for us around that age, too, but straightened out in the end before the next hump in the road