Wasn't sure where to post this - General Sleep, BF, EASY - but here it is, and feel free to move it if it belongs elsewhere.
Anyway, Natalie's daytime schedule is so darned variable, mostly due to varying nap lengths, that a real 4-hour cycle happens rarely. She WON'T eat much during the day when she wakes, won't eat much later, too busy looking around and being 4-1/2 months old.
She'll usually eat well first thing in the morning, last thing before bed, and one other good feed sometimes during the day. During these half-baked feeds, I'll go to her room in the dark and just about STUFF my nipple into her mouth, but she won't have any of it. (Of course, she'll be fussing for the boob an hour later and STILL take a lame excuse for a feed. :roll:)
At night, though, it's a whole different story. She wakes before her dream feed more often than not - I'd have to go up there by 9PM to forestall it sometimes - and then wakes AT LEAST twice more during the night, taking good feeds when she does wake but rarely snacking any more.
So.... I need her HUNGRY enough during the day to want to eat and fill herself up, but if I don't feed her at night she'll eventually cry enough to wake the dead (i.e. the other sleeping people in the house and possibly the neighbors LOL). I know she's also teething, which is probably responsible in part for the night wakings, but she's taking both sides most of the times she wakes, so she's hungry then. She's hungry enough on waking to stuff herself stupid, and she stuffs herself again at bedtime and is awake 3-4 hours later looking for more anyway (she just now took both breasts after a HUGE bedtime feed).
Not sure how to get more food into her during the day. The snack feed before naps idea doesn't work, because if she decides she's not hungry, nothing I can do will induce her to consume more, including a bottle. :?
HEEEEEELLLLP!!!!!
