Moving from 3hr to 4hr EASY

[jjstar]

I have question about switching to the 4 hour EASY. We're there except that now he is waking up at night hungry. In the book it says to add an ounce to each bottle. Since we're breastfeeding I don't know how to get him to take enough during the day to go without this night feeding. Any suggestions?

[annamum]

How old is your baby? Some breastfed babies don't do well on 4 hour EASY too early. Mine started stretching her feeds to 3 hourly only when she was older and still sometimes wanted to nurse more often than that at 4 months.

It is really an independent thing how well your lo is able to tolerate a more spaced feedings. I know Stacy aka Gracekellymom didn't introduce 4 hourly schedule till her Max was much older, 7 or 8 months, if I remember well. I never tried as in the first book I read, Tracy wasn't talking about it and to be honest, we were OK with every 3 hours.

So it boils down to the fact if your lo would be willing to cooperate more in the evenings and eat more often, I assume he is around 4 months old, so you can still offer him cluster feeds. Do you do dreamfeed?

[Erin (redstarfalling)]

I also waited to space to 4 hrs - probably at around 5 months, but some days we'd still do every 3 or 3.5 hrs, even up to 6 and 7 months.  With a breastfed baby, it's hard to increase their intake during the day without increasing the frequency of the feeds.  As Monika suggested, cluster feed in the late afternoon (every 3 hrs or even more often) and you can try a dreamfeed to see if that helps.  If it doesn't, then he might just not be ready to stretch to 4 hrs during the day. HTH!

[jjstar]

He will be 4 months on the 5th. We started the switch because his naps were getting really short because his activity time stretched out. Today he ended up doing 3.5 the first two times and then a 3 hr and then ate a little over 2 hours later for bed. So today I did get 5 feeds in already. We do dreamfeed which seems to work for him. I'll see how he does tonight. If he doesn't wake then I'll go back to 5 day feeds instead of pushing him to only 4. Activity and day sleep wise I just thought it would be best. Oh the fun of figuring out the puzzle of baby!

[Erin (redstarfalling)]

Seriously!! :roll:  Some moms also find that they don't follow a strict EASY for a while too when feeds and activity and naps don't allow.  As long as you're not feeding to sleep, you can always do a top up before nap time.

[jjstar]

Thank you ladies! I have to contantly remind myself that I don't have to follow it exactly. I was feeding to sleep for the first 7 weeks before I discovered the book so I guess I went so far the other way that I have to constantly catch myself. I just don't want to mess him up in the long run.