PLEASE HELP!! Nighttime feedings increasing not decreasing!!

[geekbreath]

My DD will be 4 months in one week. She is starting to refuse her bottles during the day and only eating 2-4 ounces at a time. She is fidgeting and pushes the nipple from one corner of her mouth to the other and just plain refuses to eat during waking hours... as a result she only eats 3 times a day for a total of 12 ounces at the MOST. I know she can eat more than that as she was eating 6 ounces at a time a few weeks ago.

At night she goes to bed between 7 and 8pm and sleeps really well only she is now waking 4 times a night to feed!! I can't even do a dream feed because she wakes up before I have a chance to feed her!! I have tried using a soother when she wakes but she wakes up every hour after that wanting to feed. I'm really at my wits end... I almost want to start putting some rice cereal in her bottle before bed because I don't know what else to do!

Has anyone had any similar problems? I really don't know how to fix this!! Could this be a result of teething or something I'm doing wrong? HELP?!

[LŠuren]

Welcome to the boards 

Possibly sounds like she has here day/nights feeds mixed up    have a look here (1st post from SKibbit) and tell me what you think  https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=57221.0

Do you think she could be teething at the moment? That would also make them take less milk as the sucking action hurts.
Have you tried giving milk in a sippy?
Waiting 5 - 10mins and trying again?

Is she still taking the same amount of total oz's in a day/night?

Putting rice cereal in her milk won't make any different (except maybe clog the teat), formula is more calorific then baby rice.

Can you post your routine and amounts she is taking? Are you on a 3 or a 4hour EASY, if you are on a 3hr EASY this may also be the problem, in so much as she isn't hungry after 3hrs and would take a full bottle at 3.5/4hr.

Let me know
Lauren

[geekbreath]

Thank you so much for the link! I have done some reading on top of that and I will make a few changes and I'll let you know how it goes...

First off: I changed the nipples to a faster flow to see if she is in fact getting bored with eating

Second: I will switch and feed her every 4 hours instead of 3

Third: I will remove ounces from her night time feeds to get her to eat more during the day.

I ended up feeding her so much at night that she didn't even need to eat when she woke up in the morning! Thank you so much for responding to me. This board has been such a great help!!

[LŠuren]

Good luck - do you have any of the books?

[Leah's Mom]

I ended up feeding her so much at night that she didn't even need to eat when she woke up in the morning!

That was exactly what I was going to say! Good luck!

[geekbreath]

I do have the "solve all your problems" book. We started her on EASY right away and everything has been great! I just wasn't expecting the feeding change from 3 to 4 months... anyway, the changes i made have been working! She went to bed at 8pm and slept right through until 5:30am!! So the switch to feeds every 4 hours has made all the difference! She is still not eating as much as she used to but she is happy with the amount she is taking now (4-5 oz, used to be 6oz) so I won't push her as long as she is happy! 

[LŠuren]

that sounds fantastic