NW and feeding

[Sunnyday01]

Hi, hopefully this is the right place to post this!

My little boy is 19 weeks old and is on a 4hr easy with bottles at 7,11,3 and 7. He also has a dream feed at 10.30. We offer him 9oz bottles at each feed where he generally takes about 8oz. He sometimes finishes the bottle and we do offer more.

I have 2 concerns now

1. The dream feed used to be easy, we would wake him, change nappy and then feed him (can't just pop bottle in mouth as has a bit of reflux so needs to be propped up for 20 mins) and he used ti whinge a bit, he is now really hard to wake up and then just screams as he is unhappy at being woken - shoukd we stop the dream feed and maybe offer a feed at 6.30 instead then have a short activity, bath and change of clothes then offer him another feed - I guess cluster feeding instead of a DF

2. His NW is getting earlier and earlier, on the 3hr EAST, he was having 6-7oz at 7,10,1,3 and 7 and would not wake until shot 4am, over the past couple of weeks its moved early and earlier and it's now 2am. He generally takes a whole bottle still. I have tried offering more milk in day to reduce/delay NW but he doesn't take anymore. He also tends to stir around 5am but I don't think that is hunger related but often it's hard to resettle and we are doing it e ery 20 mins or so until around 6.15am.

I'd be grateful for any advice, I feel with the amount of milk he is drinking u he should be able to go longer than 4 hours at night!!

[becj86]

Can you write out your EASY? He might need a touch more A time to sort out that 5am-ish waking.

You could try cluster feeding instead of DF - you could even just drop the DF and see how far he goes through the night.

[Sunnyday01]

We've been tinkering with A times already but it makes little difference. Current easy us generally this

6.15ush - get up
7am milk
8.45-9 sleep -  30-45 mins wakes up happy whatever we do in terms of a time
11 feed
1145ish nap - 1 1/2 - 2 hrs
3 feed
4.30ish nap - 30-45 minutes
6.30 - bath bottle bed
10.30 DF

I have wondered if we should feed at 6.30 then do bath and change and maybe small activity then feed him again.

Tonight we are leaving him to see how long he goes for

[becj86]

Ok, so I can see that he *can* sleep a longer nap but doesn't at the ends of the day, might just be how he is. Its pretty early but he might be ready for 2 naps... I'd definitely push that first A time a bit further given what you've said about being difficult to get to sleep after 5am. If he can do 2:15-2:30 off a short nap and then sleep a good nap, he can do a bit longer A time in the morning.

WRT waking for a dream feed, you could be interrupting his sleep pattern and thus stopping him from sleep longer. I think if you drop it and see how long he sleep without it, you may well be surprised. Lets see what happens tonight

With the feed creeping earlier, he could just be having a growth spurt - how long has it been going?

Were you doing a DF when he was doing 3hr EASY?

I have wondered if we should feed at 6.30 then do bath and change and maybe small activity then feed him again.

Possibly, I guess with this, he's only got so large a stomach and only digests so fast, so if there's not much time between feeds, he may not take much more. Worth a try though. I just would be a little concerned if you make BT much later he may be OT at BT and wake through the evening. Its a possibility, he might be totally fine.

[Sunnyday01]

He went to sleep at 7 last night and woke at 1 for a feed. Then woke an hour later (easily resettled) then again at 5 where he took ages to resettle again. I'm going to try and pyshthat first a time but I'm Vincennes if I'm pushing 3 hours his sleep will coincide with the time his feed is due. Plus we do quite a few morning groups which his sleep would coincide with.

The feed has been getting earlier over the last month, and yes we did a dream feed with 3gr easy too.

[becj86]

Its reasonable for him to feed twice in the night at this age, I believe.