feeding by routine or on demand??

[Liis]

hey, I have a active post under naps, but I developed a question about feeding, so will post it here

my 11 week old has been on easy since birth and for a long time we had a system where he wakes up, eats around 60-70 ml formula, is up for 45 min and then I put him to sleep and after 1 h he usually wakes up and we repeat the cycle. I was told by my paediatrician that he should sleep longer and eat every 3 h and a bigger amount. so for a week or so I tried to extend his naps with a paci (maybe got another 30 min out of him, but not consistently). and the awake times got longer too, but still we were really far from the classical 3 h easy. so I tried to wait 3 h from the last feed and then he did eat more, around 100-120ml.  but this also means that there is a lot of guesswork going on, as sometimes he is hungry also after 2 or 2,5 hours. I have also accepted that at this point..and up to 6 months it is normal that he has 45-60 min naps. so my question is...is it OK that I go back to a system of easy, starting with the feed and have him regularly eat a bitt less (but the right amount per day) or should I try to feed when he seems hungry and push for 3 h, which starts to be kind of tricky with routine all over the place....hope it makes sense! I'm just afraid I guess that I will be feeding him when he is not hungry...

he has gained weight nicely the whole period and has no issues with that...

thank you in advance

[Lolly]

It does sound like he is snacking through the day rather than taking proper feeds. I would expect a 3 month baby to be taking at least 150ml at a feed really. More activity time will mean that he should be able to nap for longer than 45 mins nd a bigger bottle will give him the ability to sleep for longer.

I would work on extending the time between feeds, you will need to distract him to stretch him as far a possible towards the 3 hours. Are you still using the first sized teats? If you are changing teats to a faster flow will help, if the flow is too slow they don't take a full feed as it's hard work!

What do you think?

Laura

[Liis]

hey! thanks you for the answer! so yes, if I wait until 3 hours then he seems to take a full(ish) feed. at the moment he is happy with around 1 h awake time and starts to show sleepy signs at that time. by how much should I extend it? I guess I'm just afraid he would get overtired and then sleep worse because of that. i m just confused as everywhere it says that it important to follow the sleepy signs...

so basically just wait until 3 h has passed from the previous feed even if we run into a sleep time... ? because if I start a day at 6, then by 12 the feeding is at the same time as sleeping time already, calculating with 80 min awake time and 1 h sleep, which is his max at the moment....

he eats from Medela Habermann bottle, with which you can change the speed/amount

[Lolly]

The trouble with sleepy cues is that they aren't always reliable as they get bigger and sometimes you need to push through those cues to get more awake time and then better naps. They do get used to sleeping at set intervals and sleepy cues can sometimes mean they need a change of scenery. What we aim for is just  tired enough to sleep and hungry enough to take a full feed!

I just had a check in the FAQs and some babies are up to 1 hour 45 by 12 weeks, some less. Here's the link in case you haven't seen it.

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164027.0

You need to increase A times slowly though, by 5/10 mins a day per A time then hold for a couple of days then increase again. If you start your day at 6 am, I would expect first nap to be around 7.30am for 1.5 hours which takes you to the next feed time and so on. It might be that you need to feed right before a sleep time until you can extend the A times and nap length which is ok, just try to keep him awake on the bottle and have even 5 mins A after so you don't start feeding to sleep.

By 16 weeks/ 4 months the A times extend to 2 hours and they drop a bottle (4 bottles a day plus DF and nightfeed if needed) so he needs to be taking bigger feeds over the next few weeks to get a more age appropriate EASY.

Laura

[Liis]

thank you again for the answer!!! I will definitely look into extending the awake time for him according to your recommendations!

I realised that as we are at the moment on more of a 2 h schedule.....would it make sense to have a routine like this:
7 am eat 30 ml+ activity
8.10 sleep
9.10 eat 130 ml+ activity
10.20 sleep
11.20 eat 30 ml + activity.....
so I extend the awake time, but he has a proper big feed every other round?

sorry, I'm just so confused...as we seem to be do far from the "expected" routine...

[Lolly]

I wouldn't to be honest I think you will tie yourself up in knots and it will be harder to extend things. You really need to start extending from the first A time and work the day on from there if that's possible.

I would just start fresh tomorrow morning, work on getting as big a feed in him as you can then try and get his A time to 1 hour 15/20 and take it from there.

Laura

[Liis]

OK, I will keep you posted on how it goes tomorrow.... today the max activity time I got out of him was 70 min....