3 month old - how to tackle growth spurt NF

[Julia88]

Hello,

My 3 month old girl has been doing great on EASY, but recently started to wake up for extra feeds during the night. She now wakes up at 1, 4, 6, 7.30 (morning). She used to be able to sleep calmly from 7/8 pm to 4 am without dreamfeed. I suspect growth spurt. This has been going on for 3 nights now.

I have tried to give her more in the day, but she doesn't take it.. She is breastfed and I have been giving her extra from a bottle (pumped milk). She does take a lot of extra milk at BT, though, so bottle not the problem.

I have also just reintroduced the dreamfeed, as earlier she barely took a sip.. Now she takes between 0.25- 0.8 dl. She has a lot of milk at BT (7.30).

She was born 54 cm and 3.8 kg. And has continued quite big.

I don't know what I should do when she wakes up during the night.. Feed or not or feed a little? Last night I tried to give the dummy instead of feeding; she spits it out and does the hunger "cough-cry" for about 15 min and then starts screaming louder.. I then fed her, but removed her halfway from the breast - she would go back to sleep, but wake up again (3-1,5 hours) later..

Our day time routine looks like this:

7.30 E (wake up)
9 S
11 E
12.30 S
2.30 E
3.30 S
5.30 pm E
7 bath + E
7.30 S
11 E dreamfeed (just introduced)

She sometimes naps shorter for the 3rd nap. She goes down easily and is an independent sleeper, but sometimes I help her replace the dummy during naps, never during the night. I occasionally have to wake her up from a nap if it goes over the feeding time..

[Skadiver13]

Hi Hun, There is a growth spurt around 4 months so maybe she's hitting it early? I would say if she wakes  before 3 hours you don't need to feed her. And then as she transitions to a 4hr easy you'll be able to push that to 4hrs in the night. So if she's taking a full feed at the DF at 11 then I wouldn't feed until 2 then 5 etc. If she does take a full feed at that 1 feeding and the 4feeding then I wouldn't feed at 6.  Have you done the DF before or just now?

Does she take a full feed at all these wakings? Does she go right back to sleep otherwise?

[Julia88]

Hi! Thanks for the reply! As it turns out the past two nights she has been back to sleeping from around 7.30-8 pm til 4 am without the DF!
Problem solved.
So I guess I have managed to up her calories during the day- she did start taking extra from the bottle after almost every feed. I have been doing the expressing 1 hour after every day feed as Tracy's book suggests.

I ditched the DF again because I needed to go asleep myself earlier.. and because it didn't seem to help.. I had tried it earlier when DD was about 2 - 3 weeks, but mostly she wasn't taking that much at all, and would wake up the same times anyway, so I stopped..

And, yes, I think she was taking full feeds during the night, and would go straight back to sleep.

I really want to thank you for keeping this forum! I have found so many helpful tips for both my girl ( DD1 is just 2 years)! I think both girls are sleeping well because of this approach. DD1 was a nightmare at times, though..