Reverse Cycling HELP

[darcys mum]

 Hi,

DS is wanting to move the bulk of his feeds back to the night time.
He is just on 4mo on a 4hr EASY.

If I feed him during the night he is not interested in the first 2 feeds of the day, I know that you are supposed to add the calories to the day feeds but how do I do this?
He has always been a super quick feeder, about 5-10mins since he was born and always puts on great weights.
If I try to get him to feed for longer he just starts pulling off and crying and wants no part in feeds spaced closer together in the day either, he has also never cluster fed, I do a DF at about 10.00 or 10.30, but I do have to sort of wake him for it a little or he just falls asleep and won't latch on.

I have tried not doing the DF, but then he wakes at 11.00 or 11.30 anyway....

We get lots of NW anywhere from every hour to two hours all night long !!

Last night it was every 15-30mins from midnight onwards! I didn't feed him because I didn't want to mess with his already short day feeds, so I waited until 6am and he didn't really take all that much anyway and only from one side....

How do I get him to fill up properly during the day? I'm losing my sanity with all these NW for nearly 7weeks now

[Tay]

Hi there,
How does your LO fall asleep? Independently?
You say that when you feed him at night he's not interested in the first two daytime feeds, but how does he react when you don't feed him at night? Does he fall back asleep and wake up a bit later or does he complain until he gets fed?
The 4hr EASY: is that at night too? Would you post roughly his routine (mostly the times for E)?
xxx

[darcys mum]

Hi and thankyou for the reply!

He is put down sleepy back still awake and does use a dummy.

His E times are

6am
10am
2pm
6pm &
10pm
give or take 1/2hr.....

If I don't feed him during the night he will go back to sleep quite easily, but yes he will wake up again later on. He doesn't really complain that he's not being fed It's just that sometimes after a few wakings I think perhaps he is hungry and so will feed him, resulting in the non interest in the morning!

I actually went to our child health nurse yesterday and she thinks he may have a little bit of silent reflux making him uncomfortable and causing him to wake at night?

[Tay]

And when he wakes up at night, does he cry a lot? I remember with DD that sometimes I jumped too quickly and if I left her she would babble for a bit and then fall back asleep. Could that be the case?

[darcys mum]

He just fusses a lot to start with, tossing and turning but then it turns into a full blown cry and becomes fully awake, so I tend to let him fuss for a bit just encase but as soon as it starts to escalate I go to him otherwise he becomes too awake and upset making it difficult to settle him....

[Tay]

If it is silent reflux then the wanting fed is more as a way of soothing than real hunger. And it'll be hard for you not to feed because he'll be in pain otherwise. Have you got that checked yet? Has the doc prescribed anything for it?

If it's not it's a matter of getting him used to feeding during the day. What I always done with mine re night feeds was:
- first I wouldn't feed in intervals smaller than the ones they could handle during the day, so let's say, your LO can go 4hrs between feeds during the day I would avoid feeding any less than 4hrs during the night (again, it didn't work all the time with DS because of the reflux)
- if it had been over that time I would first try to resettle without feeding, but if they weren't asleep within 5 or 10min I would just feed tbh
What do you think?