Hi,
I am new to this forum and I may have a few things going on with my little girl at the moment. She's baby #2, my son is two so I have him to care for as well. My daughter is now 14 weeks old and for about 6-7 days, her routine has more or less completely gone wild! She is EBF and used to feed every 3 hours, nap very well and settle on her own with a dummy and sleep from 7pm til around 4am (with a dreamfeed at 11pm)
Now however, she wakes from her naps early (sometimes doesn't go back over), wants feeding a lot more, every 2-3 hours, waking for averagely 2 feeds during the night (2am - 4am-ish) as well as waking about 4-5 times for her dummy to be put back in too! (I'm shattered!
) Her cry always sounds like a hungry cry (little coughs etc, routing around when I touch her face, so it's hard to know if she's hungry or wants comforting) When I try her just on her dummy during the night, she'll then wake more (every 30-1hour)
I've been thinking it's either a monster growth spurt, or she needs transitioning onto the 4 hour easy, or both! I have been trying to see if she'll follow a 3.5-4hr easy to see if this will help her take more food at feeds to last through the nights. She's an efficient eater though and feeds for abut 10-15mins, emptying my breast, she always stops when she wants to and will not take any more food if I try and offer her more, she just looks up at me cooing and smiling.
Her activity times are approx 1.5 - 2 hours, although the day seems to start well and we seem to get off track in the afternoon if she wakes up early or wants feeding earlier as a result of waking early etc. If she won't go back to sleep should she have activity time before her feed or what? I don't really have the luxury of spending ages doing PU/PD as I have my toddler to look after too. Where she's now wanting us to come in to put her dummy back in, I think it's now maybe a prop for her? She goes mad if she doesn't have it though, I got rid of my son's dummy around 4-5months old as he went down the same path, but I had to do a bit of CC with him, he was fine after 3 days but then attached himself onto a toy teddy that he sucked instead and has only just got out of that habit at 2 years old! I don't really want that to happen again, so any tips on the dummy too?? How to stop it if I need to? Or keep her on it until she's a bit older?
Any advice, hints, tips? am I on the right track, should I just ride it out? It's getting me thinking all-sorts (should she try formula etc) as I'm not sure what to do for the best. She seems to be growing well so she must be getting enough food, but i'll be weighing her tomorrow to double check. I just don't want her getting used to this new erractic schedule, hoping she'll get back to normal.
Thanks in advance! x
