Is this ok or am I being paranoid?!

[TraceyAC]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking for a long time and have found all your advice invaluable, but I now find myself needing advice for me specificially!  Please help!

I have a 10 week old girl, Amy, who is around 12.5lbs now (9lb 4 at birth).  I have her pretty settled on a 3 hour EASY and she has recently dropped the 2am feed (yay!).  However in the last few days she's been a bit all over the place in the middle of the day.  I am aiming for this routine:

Awake and E 6am
A
S 6.30/6.45 (she won't stay awake very long here)
E 9am
A
S 10/10.15am
E 12pm
A
S 1.30pm
E 3pm
A
S 4.30pm
E 6pm
Bath 6.30pm
Top up 7pm
Bed by 7.30pm
DF 10pm-ish

Most of the time we actually do the 6am feed at somewhere between 5am and 5.30am but she goes til 9am quite happily after that.  I want to start the day at 6am for when I go back to work - I won't have to change her routine then.

However, my question is around the middle of the day.  I have to wake her up for feeds or she'll just sleep (she's swaddled as she's an arm-flailer - smacks herself in the face).  She's stopped taking much at the 12pm feed - maybe 3oz if I'm lucky, and then she's starving at the 3pm feed.  She then doesn't settle properly for her nap after the 3pm feed. Is this ok, or should I let her go a bit longer for the 12pm feed, feed her a little later and push back the 3pm feed?  Or am I just being paranoid about the no of oz she gets in a feed (isn't it amazing how you get obsessed by this when you didn't have a clue when BF!!)?

Thank you!
Tracey

[AnnaBenwell]

Hello and Welcome! I really do understand you can get far 2 obsessed! Is she happy in the afternoon? I would say that maybe she is just not that hungrey at the 12 0 clock feed. Does she look for more at the 3pm feed or ask for it early?

[TraceyAC]

She does have 2 big feeds of 5 or 6oz each before 12, and then picks up again from the 3pm feed.  So I guess I'm probably being paranoid!  And have answered my own question?!  Apart from not settling for a nap after the 3pm feed properly, she's a very happy baby.

Tracey

[* Paula *]

Hi Tracey,

Welcome to the BW Boards 

Do you think she would sleep a lot longer or do you think it would be no more than about 1/2 an hour - if this is the case I would let her sleep a bit longer, but don't let her go longer than 4 hours between that feed, and see how she goes from there.

Paula

[TraceyAC]

Thanks Paula.  I'll try leaving her for 1/2 hour tomorrow and see how she goes.  I'm not worried if we go a half hour later in the afternoons.  She just smiles and goos at me round the teat if she's not hungry - very frustrating but cute at the same time !

Tracey

[TraceyAC]

Well, she woke up at 12.10, but we didn't feed her straight away as she'd been late with her 9am bottle (her nappy leaked all over us both - joy!).  She was quite happy chatting with us for a while, and then she took just over 4oz which is better than the last few days, so I feel a bit better now!  Hopefully the rest of the day will be more settled too.

Thank you!

Tracey

[* Paula *]

That is great news.  Keep us posted on how the rest of your day goes.

[TraceyAC]

Update on yesterday - somehow I ended up with a seriously overtired baby who was so wired she couldn't go to sleep after the last feed!  I ended up giving her a cuddle with her face turned into me and once she had the world shut out she went off, poor little thing!

Anyway, I worked out that she didn't get enough food over all her feeds yesterday and expected her to wake in the night ... which she duly did at 4.15am yelling for grub!  So I have made sure she has fed properly today and she's managed full bottles all day.  I guess she must have had an off day yesterday and has been hungry today.  She has woken up exactly on schedule today which she doesn't usually do either.  Hopefully she'll go through to 6ish tomorrow.

Thank you for your help - fingers x'd we're back on track now.

Tracey

[* Paula *]

Hugs, sorry to hear that yesterday was not a great day.  Unfortunatley they have their off days just like us.

Fingers crossed, let us know how tonight goes.

Paula

[TraceyAC]

Guess I was being a bit optimistic!  She woke at 3am hungry, so could this be a growth spurt?  The routine has therefore been a bit all over the place today, but I'm going to cluster feed tonight and see what happens.

I can't seem to get her to take much more food than she is already, so I'm not sure how to up her feeds during the day.  And according to the guidelines she's having what she should anyway.  She uses the Haberman feeder due to the seriously strong sucking reflex that she has and it was fab for us following bf.  So she has control over what she takes.  I have taken to feeding until she's 'had enough', giving her some A time and nappy change, and then sticking the bottle back in - it seems to be working as she takes the rest at her leisure, but am I making a rod for my own back as most of the time she then goes down for a nap fairly quickly after the top up.

Thank you!
Tracey

[* Paula *]

She could be going through a growth spurt early, she is probably due one at around 12 weeks.

I would say as long as your lo is not snacking i.e. taking a few sips here and there, that it is fine to offer her the rest of her feed before she takes a nap.  Just make sure that you are not feeding her to sleep.

As she gets older, she will probably take in a lot more per feed and then you will not have to feed again after her A time.

At 10 weeks it is still very common for her to have night wakings and the fact that she is only waking once is fantastic.

You are doing a great job 

Paula

[TraceyAC]

No sign of her turning into a snacker at the moment.  I am making sure we still have some A time after I top her up, so she's not going straight down after the bottle.  She was early with her last growth spurt, so maybe it's just following that she's early with this one too.

She cluster fed ok last night, but then wouldn't take the DF, which is what happened when I first started EASY, so I had followed Tracy's advice to just DF.  However, although she was showing signs of hunger at about 2ish, she actually went through til about 4 again before she woke up for a feed.  I think this is really good, so instead of stressing about it I'm just going to follow her cues during the night until this lengthens out. 

The other thing I've discovered may be causing this is a change of formula.  I had been feeding her one of the 'Comfort' milks, but I found it was glucose based which I don't want for her.  The new milk which I've been weaning her onto has a few less calories in it, so she'll need more of it for a while.

Thank you for your help and support, Paula, it's such a minefield for 1st-time mums!  I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for BW!

Tracey

[* Paula *]

Sounds like she is doing well going through until 4 for her next feed.  That is fantastic.

With regards to the new formula.  You may want to make up an extra oz and offer it to her per feed, just incase she does want it.

Keep us posted on how you get on

[TraceyAC]

Wow - how quickly things can change in a few days!  She started protesting vehemently at the DF, so rather than stress her out while she should be sleeping I have dropped it.  Since then she has gone through from 7pm to 3am, 4am and 5am in consecutive days!  She has also upped her intake during the day on her own, and is now consistently taking 6oz and 1 7oz.  I guess we'll have a couple weeks of settled sleep and then she'll get sick, or start teething....or something will happen .....!!

Tracey

[* Paula *]

Tracey,

That is fantastic news about her intake.

The DF can either work for your lo, or it can end up interferring with their sleep.  Sounds like it was interferring with her sleep.

Have you tried clusterfeeding to get an extra few calories into her before bed time?