Needing to eat, or am I just a sucker :-)

[hatshetsut]

Kate will be 5 months on Monday and she is a fairly big girl for her age. She was 14 lb 9 oz at 4 months, and I  just weighed her the other day and she was about 16 lb at not quite 5 months. Between 2 and 3 1/2 months she was sleeping through w/o eating. But after 3.5 mo she started waking to feed again. We switched to a 4 hr EASY between 3.5 and 4 mo because her sleep was all goofy and that improved. But the needing to feed at night started.

She wakes at different hours nightly, so I don't think it is habitual. Usually it is between 2:00 and 4, but can be as early as 1:30 am. We always try to resettle her first, and sometimes she will resettle for an hour or so. Then she wakes and the crying escalates and she won't resettle at all. She has also never been a good DF baby. She won't DF with a bottle at all, and will usually only nurse one side. When she eats at night she will empty both sides, then generally goes back to sleep until 630 or 7 am.

Our EASY is below. Do you think it is me just being a wimp and feeding her, or does it sound like she really needs to eat?

7 Eat
9 Sleep
11 Eat
1 Sleep
3 Eat
4 Cereal with formula
5 Cat Nap
6 Baby food, 2.5 oz jar
715 Bottle & Nurse, the bed
10 or 1030 Pathetic DF

I should also mention she is a refluxer and on Zantac 3 x a day.

All ideas are welcome!

[~ Vik ~]

I would say that she needs to feed. One night feed at this age in an ebf baby is actually great! My ds was nearly 18 pounds at 4mo and we were doing a dream feed and at least one other feed.  If you want to try and resettle to get another hour or so and make sure that it's hunger than give it a go, but I definitely believe she's hungry with that full feed. Have you thought about eliminating the df if that's a poor feed? I wonder what that would do to her remaining night feed? Not suggesting it's something you need to try, just thinking out loud...
Hth

[hatshetsut]

Thank you for the post Vikki. It seems like she needs the feed to me too. It also makes me feel better that for a EBF baby 1 night feed is not unusual. I kept reading the part in Tracy's book that said a 4 month old on a good routine shouldn't eat at night, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get more food in the kid!

What I have found is if I don't do the DF she wakes about 2-3, with the DF between 3-4. I might drop it entirely and just go to bed earlier :-)

[~ Vik ~]

I kept reading the part in Tracy's book that said a 4 month old on a good routine shouldn't eat at night

Unfortunately, since Tracy's untimely passing, a lot of research has been done in the area of breastfeeding and we now know more about how breastmilk is produced, how quickly it's digested, and about the growth and needs of ebf babies.  Tracy was so focused on following babies' cues and meeting their needs that I know if she was still alive she would ensure that the information in her books was updated

I would say that as long as she still takes a full feed at 2-3, and still wakes at roughly the same time in the morning, you're ok to drop the dream feed since it's really a small feed anyway.  If you notice though that she's waking earlier in the morning too, you might want to reinstate it just to keep your daily routine in order   Good luck!

[hatshetsut]

Thank you Vikki. That is what my instincts have been saying, but I'm not the best at trusting them sometimes. I appreciate the help.