Wondering whether to supplement for a 9.5 mo old.

[katriona]

Hi ladies,

I'm coming to take advantage of your wide knowledge-base and advice 

DS is 9.5 months and waking wanting to feed in the middle of the night. We're currently working on reducing the minutes.

My ped queried whether I supplemented b/f through ebm or formula as she wondered if the night-wakings were caused by a low supply during the day. However, as DS has never fussed in hunger, and voluntarily pops off the breast at each feeding, I always assumed he was satiated. In fact, his feeds have been getting shorter during the middle two of the day, and less satisfying for me, as he gets more and more distractible. So today, just for grins, I gave him 1oz of ebm in a sippy after our 3pm feed, which had been particularly truncated. He drank it all. I managed to squeeze out another 1oz this evening and offered it to him after his bedtime b/f. Again, he drank it all.

I really don't want to get started on the slippery slope of supplementing, as I feel that if I have supply issues in the first place, this will just compound them.

Any thoughts on what I can do? How can I tell if he's getting enough during the day? It sure does feel ridiculous to be asking this almost 10 months into the game, but like I said, he's never fussed in hunger. I thought about expressing perhaps 8oz worth and giving it to him -- once -- as his bedtime feed, just to see how much he would take. I could pump after he'd gone to bed for that night to minimise the effect on my supply.

Of course he's never taken a bottle, and is like a puppy in a water bowl with a sippy, but that's a whole nuther story 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

TIA!

Katy

[jbepko]

What's your schedule like? I found with my LO that a good dinner of solids (but not too much) followed by a good nursing one hour later made ofr a good night of sleep. Let us know his nursing/solid schedule. If he had previously been sleeping the nights, he should be able to return to that behavior.

[katriona]

Thanks, Jeni! Congrats on the Mod stars 

We're currently on:

6.30am wake
6.45am b/f
7.45am solids
9.15am nap #1

10.00am wake
11.00am b/f
12.00pm solids
1.30pm nap #2

3.00pm wake
3.15pm b/f
4.15pm solids
6.00pm b/f
6.30pm bed

Unfortunately he hasn't previously been sleeping nights. We were in a phase of one feed after 3am, but some teething-related AP screwed that up, and it's now up at 11pm ish (b/f down to 4 mins) and 4am ish (b/f down to 3 mins). We're now working on the NWs, but I feel badly about doing this if he's not taking enough bm in during the day at the moment. There's the nub of it.

Thanks again!

Katy

[kim&savannah]

I would say that rather than supplementing, esp. since you don't actually want to start the bottles, I would work on getting him to take a full feeding at each of his feedings.  You said he's been popping off because he's distracted--so do you think he isn't actually finishing the feeding?  Is there anything in particular that's distracting him that you can try to eliminate?  I think this is a pretty common thing around that age because they are so interested in their world.

You also might want to think about cluster feeding for a little bit if you think your supply actually needs a little recharge--his requirements may have changed and he's trying to get to you make a little more.  Although it sounds like you feel full still at the ends of the feeds, so that is probably more of a distraction thing.

I also think that as you work on eliminating the night feeds, he may be hungrier in the day for a bit which might encourage him to take a full feeding each time.  I know its hard to find that balance since you obviously don't want him to be hungry all night, but its probably more habit than anything.  It took us awhile to get all the night eating switched to day time (dd was about 10 months by the time we got rid of the last one), but once they were gone, she stopped expecting to eat at night, even though we fought the night wakings for another 10 months or so.  So I know it wasn't a hunger thing at that point.

Good luck!  And as he eats more and more solids, this will probably get easier too!

~Kim