No idea what to do?!

[Superdaad]

Hello,
Baby is like 2.5 weeks now, and seems to like cluster feeding in the night. We were told it was a growth spurt but it is every night between like 11 and 4. Been the same for over a week now.
She will cry for feeding, be fed using expressed milk in a bottle, then not want milk. So we settle her. Then 5 mins later cries for milk, so we get her up, but then she doesn't want any, so we put her down, she cries, but doesn't want milk, then the only way we can stop her crying is to hold her, but we are so tired it is hard to stay awake, so we have to put her down. But then she cries.
In the middle of all this she needs constant nappy changing, and in the end she ends up wanting like 20ml every half an hour on top of her last feed. We can't wait to give it to her but have to give it in small bits and wait in between for her to have space in her stomach even though she is hungry.

At the moment nights are really hard as we can't get any sleep.

Now in the day she is not waiting the 3-4 hours and gets desperate for feeding, but can't take more than 60ml. So we're feeding less more often, which is starting to look a lot like what is happening in the night?

I go back to work this week and at the moment we won't be able to cope if it stays like this.

Should we try to wait it out and suffer her desperate tears to try and spread her feeds out? Is there anything we can do to make this easier for us please?

Feeding in demand is horrible

[JingleJohnsJulie]

You go back to work this week OP? I take it you're not in the U.K.?

I'm not sure it's actually cluster feeding that's the problem, rather that she wants to be close to you.

Have you tried using a T-shirt DH has worn as the sheet in her crib? Swaddling and white noise might help her to settle more.

If that doesn't work, have you tried feeding her lying down in your bed? You could get sone rest and she may well go straight to sleep.

I'm not sure wanting to feed more than every 3-4 hours for a BF baby at this age is classed as cluster feeding either. BM is digested much more quickly than formula so she will likely to be very hungry after 2 to 3 hours.

Also, BF babies take roughly 30 mo an hour, so if her lady feed was 2 hours ago, 60 ml is a reasonable amount.

What to expect in the early weeks is a good article and full of information on what she's going through right now

[JingleJohnsJulie]

*30 ml an hour

[Lilice]

In my experience, when babies are that small, their hunger cues and sleepy cues are very similar. Are you sure she's crying because she's hungry? It could be that she's tired but needs your help to get back to sleep. A lot of babies will only sleep when held during the first few weeks. I know it's hard overnight, but have you tried cosleeping?

[Superdaad]

Thank you. We wouldn't want to sleep with her in the bed because we've been warned about this and suffocating her in our sleep!?
When she cries it is hard to know why, if the hand starts going to the mouth and she starts sucking and searching her head about then we're calling this hunger.
Interesting that perhaps we do just need to be feeding her more often with breast milk than with formula, but at the minute we just get like 4 hours in the dead middle of night with constant crying or attention required!

[JingleJohnsJulie]

There's no need to worry about suffocating her. As long as you follow the safe sleeping guidelines there's actually less risk of SIDS.

I think feeding her more often is a good idea. Did you read the article on Kellymom on what to expect at this age? I think they typically feed 12 times a day?

There's a good guide on feeding cues here.

If she's awake for 4 hours in the night, what do you do to try and settle her?

[Lilice]

Could you take turns holding her during those 4 hours, so that at least one of you gets some sleep and then switch over the following night ? Break down the night so one person sleeps 7 to 11 pm, then holds the baby 11 to 3 while the other one sleeps? I know it doesnt sound appealing but babies grow so fast and this wont last forever.

[Lilice]

As to the feeding cues, my babies would also root when tired so if I had just fed them, I'd try to rock to sleep instead of feeding again. I was lucky with mine (apart from baby number 1) as they would space out their feeds to every 3 or 4 hours so i had a better idea of when the next feed would be due. Baby 2 was formula fed and baby 3 breastfed