Night time feeding

[boyandgirl]

My LO is 4 months old next week.  I have a couple of queries, one of which may overlap with other topic boards so apologies if on wrong place, it's been a while (i.e. since last one was baby, 2years ago) since I have been on.

Firstly, she is still waking up for feeds in  the middle of the night.  Currently she is on 3 month Easy (see below re query on this?!) She gets dream feed around 10.30/11pm and is then up at 3/4am looking for feed (different time each night, has been 2am sometimes).  I have tried not to give her a feed just in case it's not really what she wants but she continues crying and bottle settles her.  I am not convinced she needs it but she does drink it (3-5fl oz). The last few mornings she has only had a little at 7am hence my query as to whether she really needs it.  I know advice is to increase feeds during the day but she will only drink the amounts she wants even if I try to get her to drink more.

Secondly, I have been trying in the last few days to transition to 3.5 Easy but not really happening.  She is fine on the Eat bit i.e. can go 3.5 hours but it's the sleep /Activity bit.  It has always been diffcult to get her to stay up long.  Usually after an hour she is yawning so best we normally do is 1.5 hours...any later and it's some serious crying.

Any advice on the above two gratefully welcome. Thanks

[oilerbaby]

I would tend to agree with you that she doesn't need that 2/3 am feed if she's not eating much in the morning.  May be more of a habit now?  Is there another way to soothe her at that time?  Does she have a soother or anything?  You could also just try offering her water in her bottle at that time and see what she does with it - she may drink some but the water won't fill her up as much as the formula would or she may just snub her nose at it.  It could be more the sucking that she is looking for than the actual feed? 

If you've tried getting her to eat more during the day and she's not then she just may not be ready to increase her amount. 

For the 3.5 transition - just keep working on gradually increasing her A time by 5 or 10 minutes  every couple of days and slowly but surely she'll switch over and by that time she'll have given you something else to ponder about...

[phoebesmom]

Hi 'Boyandgirl'
Have you had any success? Although my DD2 is only 10weeks old she is exactly the same! The last two nights she has gone from her DF at 10.30pm till 4.40am. She then takes anywhere between 80-120ml. Of course, when she wakens for the day at 7, she's not at all hungry.
We are on the 3hr EASY simply because she can't stay awake any longer than 1 hr!!