Author Topic: Do I really need the 4 hour (instead of 3 hour) EASY? A BF 5 month old  (Read 1004 times)

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Offline involvedad

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My child is 5-months old, he is exclusively BF, and he is on a 4-hour EASY routine as follows:
E 7AM
A 7:30-9 AM
SY 9:-10:30 AM
Here he ends up having some light activity until his feeding time
E 11AM
A 11:30AM -1PM
SY 1-2:30 PM
Here he ends up having some light activity until his feeding time
E 3PM
A 3:30PM -5PM
SY 5-5:45 PM (short nap)
Bed time routine starts at 7PM with bath and two cluster feeds: one before and one after bath.

During the night he has always had three meals, which are more or less on a three hour interval.

At night he does seem hungry, and we are afraid of eliminating a meal (or two meals) because he might not have had eaten enough during the day. We would feel more comfortable feeding him every three hours during the day so that we are more confident that he has gotten the right amount of calories.

So, question: is it really a bad thing to have a five-month-old on a three hour routine?

THANKS!!

Offline becj86

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With an EBF LO, sometimes they do need to feed more often. The 4hr EASY is actually about the average A time for a 4 month old being 2hr, not about having to feed 4hr apart for any particular reason, though for most babies it can be alright as they can take in more calories in a feed. Or you can simply do what I did which was to do a topup feed about an hour after the initial feed, so it became more EAEAS - that way DS got the intake he needed without losing the benefit of EAS for me (the independent sleep).

Just WRT the routine: the A time looks fine if he's truly taking 1.5hr naps, maybe needs to be increased a touch soon or you could end up with all sorts of issues dropping the catnap (I would usually see more like 2:20-2:30 A times across the board at this age, heading for 3hr or just short at 6 months around the time the CN drops and you go to 2 naps). What you'll find is you can feed more frequently if you need to but if you still only give 1.5hr A times on the 3hr EASY, he'll end up OT from insufficient quality naps during the day. The 2hr A time in the morning could start to give you early wakings in the morning, so I'd be working on increasing that.

You can do something like this:
7 - E
9:15 - S
10:45 - E
1 - S
2:30 - E
4:45 - S
5:30 - E
cluster feed
7:30 - BT (asleep)
With this, if you were to slowly increase A times, your feeds would extend slightly too.

OR
7 - E
8 - topup
9:30 - S
11 - E
12 - topup
1:30 - S
3 - E
4 - topup (optional - Cluster feed can be compromised having this one in here)
5:30 - CN
6 - E
7 - BT routine for sleep at 7:30

Above all, you know your LO best, so work with what works for you all as a family :)

Offline *Ali*

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Welcome. Lovely to see a dad on here :) We don't get enough.

I think his A times are 2.5hrs after the first one which is 2hrs because A time is really from eyes open to eyes closed rather than starting after the feed as listed above.

I'd definitely at least feed him when he wakes rather than waiting the half an hour unless he doesn't seem hungry of course.

Is he already having both breasts at each feed? If not maybe try offering the second side after burping.

Also, how is he falling asleep? If not independently then gently teaching him to self-settle could help.
Cadan Dec 2009 and Colby Aug 2011