should I increase oz during the day to eliminate night feed for 2.5 month old?

[cosmicangel007]

Hi,  I'm going to try and give you all the information as to get the best idea of what's happening.

my DS is 2.5 months old and weights 11.3 lb now (born 7.15 lb) 
he is bottle fed BM
for several weeks he was taking 6 or 7 bottles of 4 oz   I had been doing E.A.S.Y but didn't even know it.  the only thing i wasn't following was the 3 or 4 hour pattern, was just following LO signs

a typical feed schedule varied but was something like this:
sunday Feb 10
1:50am 4oz
4:30am 4oz
8:30am 4oz
12:00pm 4 oz
3:50 4 oz
8:00 4oz
11:30 oz

then a friend introduced me to this so the last 3 nights we worked on keeping some kind of a schedule to include the DF and at first i thought he should be on the 4 hour pattern and we could eliminate the feeding that occurs between 2:00-3:00am by increasing his oz's during the day but then i read that his age he should still have his 2 night time feeds.


Tues Feb 12:
12:00am 3.5oz
3:00am 3.5 oz
6:00am 3.75oz
9:15am 4oz
12.50pm 4.5oz
4.45pm 4.5oz
11:20pm 3.5 oz DF


feb 13
2:50am 3.5oz
6:20 5oz
9:30am 4.5oz
1:50pm 5oz
4.:50pm 5oz
10:30 4.5oz DF

feb 14
2:30am 4.5oz
6:45am 4.5 oz
10:40 5oz
2:40pm 5oz
5:50pm 5oz
10:20pm 5oz DF

Feb 15
2:00am 5oz
6:0am 5oz
9:00am 5oz
12:40pm 5oz
4:10pm 5oz
7:45pm 5:oz
11:00pm 5oz DF  (about to do...)

the reason i increased his oz was b/c we thought we could eliminate the 1st middle of the night feed, but wasn't sure how to increase during the day to eliminate that feed... so now i am confused

My questions:
do you think he is too young to loose that 2:00-3:00am feed so he can sleep until his 4:00 feed?
(could this be forming a habit / accidental parenting / which i don't want to get into.  although he does seem hungry..)
how do i change/increase the amount we feed day to to eliminate that?   or is he too young?
if not, do you think i am feeding too much 5oz 6-7x's a day which includes the DF -  that seems like a lot.30-35oz a day!
could this be causing his sleep pattern to have changed (including the last big bottle)?  He used to take great naps (that i did not wake him for a routine feed, now i do)

He finishes all his bottles, sometimes taking 20-30 minutes while other times is 10-15 minutes.  there is nothing consistent
yet when giving him less oz he didn't cry for more at the time.  now that i increased his oz if i go backwards i fear what may happen...

sometimes his naps are great full 1.5-2 hours while other times he goes down easy but wakes after 1/2 hour then struggles to get back down
i try and keep him stimulated during activity time but also read his signs if he is getting sleeping i dont push him.
also he wakes around 4-6am and is very fussy.  we try and eliminate all the possibilities, change his diaper, give him a pacifier, the 4 s's and until we give him a bottle he wiggles and cries.  we share the  family bed during the night and his naps he takes in the co-sleeper, still in our room, unless we are on the road which i time during his naps (he's a great car sleeper)

I'm hoping you can make some sense of all this and assist us in our feeding pattern for our LO.
thanks

[*Kara*]

Was he draining his 4 ozs bottles before you started to make changes?  If so, you do need to increase them as you want him to leave a little in the bottle, letting you know he has taken what he needs

At 2.5 months, I would offer 6 ozs just to see what he takes (likely will be around 5 ozs, but some feeds might be more).  After that, expect to feed him every 3 hrs during the day.  Personally, I never woke my baby at this age for any reason.  Some moms do, but I was very much of the mind that a baby will sleep when they need to and if that means a monster nap, so be it.  If he is hungry, he will wake up.

I never did a dreamfeed.  It works for some babies and others will actually wake more often (or the same as they did without it).  I generally went to bed by 9pm so I wasn't setting an alarm to get up and feed the baby.  The idea of the DF is that you feed baby before you head to bed for the night, so if you are up anyways, it's worth a shot.

I wouldn't expect that any night feeds are habitual at this age.. the general rule of thumb is to assume hunger if it has been at least 3 hrs since last feed.  I also am not a fan of actively weaning any feeds at this age.  It's normal to have a bedtime feed, a DF and up to 2 NFs at this age.

I do see that you have a day with a feed at 450pm, then nothing until 1030pm DF???  Did you not do a bedtime feed?

[cosmicangel007]

hi  thanks for getting back to me

there have been very little bottles where he leaves BM in them but sometimes when he is near the end he slows down and after the last sip he actually pushes the bottle away...?  not sure what that means.  I guess we can try to do 6oz. it seems like a lot 6 oz 6-7xs a day =over 36oz for a 2.5 month old

i did cringe the few times i wok him from sleep to stay on the 3 hour rotation and like it better if i don't have to.  So are you saying that i don't have to be so strict about the timing?

the day i did the 4:50 feed his sleep pattern was way off, he had a 1/2 hour nap from 3:50-4:20 (couldn't get him to go down any longer) then we did the bottle, had some activity and he was tired at 7 and went down until 2:15 with the dream feed at 10:30
maybe thats where i could have tanked up?   if you 'tank up' do you do less oz's for that bottle?  i was under the assumption that at this age you stop the 'tank up'

Is there a place where i wouldn't be giving him a 5-6oz bottle?  say the ones in the middle of the night, should they be a little smaller?

you say the general rule of thumb is to assume hunger if it has been at least 3 hrs since last feed. -  sometimes it's less than 3 hours and i've ruled everything out.  still baffled.

thanks again

[*Kara*]

I guess we can try to do 6oz. it seems like a lot 6 oz 6-7xs a day =over 36oz for a 2.5 month old

Chances are he won't drink it all and may drop a feed because of it

i did cringe the few times i wok him from sleep to stay on the 3 hour rotation and like it better if i don't have to.  So are you saying that i don't have to be so strict about the timing?

Absolutely.  If he is soundly sleeping, nothing terrible will happen if a feed gets pushed out a touch   I never woke my baby until her naps started interfering with bedtime (she was about 7/8 months old and I started to wake her from her PM nap to preserve BT).  She survived just fine.

you say the general rule of thumb is to assume hunger if it has been at least 3 hrs since last feed. -  sometimes it's less than 3 hours and i've ruled everything out.  still baffled.

  The best part of babies: no instruction manual!  Sometimes they are just hungry... at this tiny age, if baby takes a feed, you are totally safe to know that it was hunger.


Overall, the best advice anyone will give you for this phase of tinyness - trust your maternal instincts.  Babies do move into sleep patterns a lot more around 3-4 months.

[Alexian28]

Kara is a fount of knowledge and I just wanted to chime in with a bit of support =)  We recently did this with DD at 2 months of age, upping her feeds from 3-4 oz to 6 oz over the course of a couple of weeks as her reflux got under control.  The first day she would drop two bottles but add one back within two days.  So, she dropped a bottle each time; we went from 7 bottles a day at 3 oz - 6 bottles at 5 oz - 5 bottles a day at 6 oz.  We just bumped her up again to about 6 1/2 oz per bottle yesterday as she was still draining the 6.  Once again she dropped a bottle but I'm sure it will be back tomorrow =) Incidentally she started sleeping through the night when we got to the 6 oz bottles but I think that's just coincidence. 

[*Kara*]

Incidentally she started sleeping through the night when we got to the 6 oz bottles but I think that's just coincidence. 

I doubt it   She is having twice as much just before going to bed...

[home alone]

Just wondering
How do you up the feed ? EAEAS?

[*Kara*]

Nope, stay with EAS and increase volume.  This will only work if your LO is draining bottles already though.. you can't make a baby eat more than their tummy allows.