Non-stop grow spurt

[Alenka]

My lo is 3.5 mo. Just recently he had a 3mo grow spurt: he was up hungry at night every 1.5 –2 hours and he was very fussy during the day. The grow spurt lasted for 8 days! Actually, I was not too concerned about it because his 6weeks grow spurt lasted over a week as well.
Before the grow spurt, he could sleep 5-7 hours straight at night. After the grow spurt he could not go for more than 4.5 hours. I was Ok with it as well because I though it would be temporary. However, after 3 days of the break, when I fed him only once at nigh, the grow spurt returned back: my DS was hungry every 2 hours at night. That lasted for another 3 days, then I had another 4 days break and right now he is very hungry at night again and wants to eat every 1.5-2.5 hours.
I think he is really hungry: he wakes up every time at different time and takes a good amount of food. I tried not to feed him but he got very mad and screamed. After I fed him he went back to sleep right away.
What is going on?  Also, I’m concerned that day's feeding go kind of strange: he can eat for 5 min and then starts crying. It’s very hard to put him back to the breast, he really refuses to eat. Sometimes I give up  and stop feeding him. He seems to be Ok with it, as soon as I don’t try feeding him anymore, he becomes happy again, even if he ate only for 3 minutes.
I feed him every 3-3.5 hours during the day. I tried to feed him more often but he wasn’t too interested in feeding.
Also, I tried to pump after I fed him. I can get only 0.25-0.5 oz.
What is happening? I’m very frustrated. 

 

[Erin (redstarfalling)]

A lot of moms notice a change in supply around 3-4 months - things tend to settle down and pumping might not be too indicative of what's actually going on in your breasts.  Are you single side feeding? If so, you may want to move to double sided.  It also seems like he's filling up overnight and therefore isn't so keen during the day - this is probably more likely at this point than a really long growth spurt.  You can try holding him off a bit overnight and see if he'll resettle and not need to eat. Might take some doing.

How is his weight gain?  He may be getting ready to move to a 4 hour routine during the day. Eating less often, he might be hungrier and take in more...

[Alenka]

I feed single side but tried double side too. Not sure about weight gain since we haven’t seen a doctor for a while, but I’m sure it’s Ok : DS is a very big boy (97% of weight)

I‘m very frustrated that he refuses to eat during the day. He screams, rejects the breast and gets very mad. I thought that may be he got used to very fast let-down and right now my let-down is not so fast, so I tried to feed him from a bottle – the same story: he didn’t want to eat and cried until I stopped trying. If he refuses to eat during the day and I try to feed him a bit later, it might be 4-4.5 hours between feeding and he still is not very hunger at this point.

Night feedings, on the other hand, are completely different: he eats sometime around  8pm, 12pm, 2-3 am, 4-5 am, 6.00 am, 8,00am. I also tried not to feed him at night but he refuses the paci and cries until he gets the breast. 

How can I change it? What to do?

Changing the routine to 4hours is kind of difficult as well: he can’t stay awake for more than 1 hour in the morning, so if I feed him at 8am, he is asleep by 9.15 and I don’t want him to sleep for more than 2 hours, so I wake him up at 11, which is only 3 hours after his last feeding. However, in the afternoon he can easy go for 1.5-1.75 hours of awake time. But than he will nap only for 45 min, stays awake for 30-60min and than nap for another 45min, which creates even bigger mess in the routine.

Btw, our routine is like this (if it helps):
E 8am
S 9.15 – 9.30

E 11- 11.15 am
S 12.30 – 1.00

E 2.00- 2.30
S 3.30  (wakes up and stays away for 30-60  min during this nap)

E 5.30 – 6.00
S 6.30 – 6.45

A Bath 7.00 – 7.20
E 7.30 – 8.00
S 8.00 – 8.30

Dreamfeed 11.30

E 2.00-3.00
E 4.00 – 4.30
E 6.00

This is right now. Before he used to eat only once around 5-6 am after the dreamfeed.

[RachelC]

It sounds very much like he is reverse cycling, which typically happens with working moms, but the idea is the same.  I'm not an expert on the subject, but maybe this link will help:

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/normal/reverse-cycling.html