he's stopped sleeping through!

[1sttimemum08]

My 17 week old baby has always been a good sleeper but the past coupld of weeks he will not sleep through he keeps waking up crying in the night. I'm giving him hungry baby milk at the minute and he is having 7 bottles a day now all with 8 oz in! I'm worried that he is being fed too much, and the fact he is not sleeping.. does this mean that he's still hungry.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm really worried about him.

I really don't understand how a couple of teaspoons of baby rice or puree is going to fill a baby up more than a bottle of milk. I just don't get it.

Is it possible to give a baby too much formula? Why is it that some people think a baby can have too much milk but, at the same time, still be hungry and therefore needs to be weaned on to a tiny amount of solids which has much less calories.

I'm not flaming btw I am genuinely curious at the reasoning behind early weaning.

Lurkinaround, I told my HV what had been happening and it was her suggestion. I didn't even mention it to her, i just told her what had been happening.

If you're not doing the 'dream feed' I would definitely introduce that. The idea is that you give them their last milk feed when you go to bed (around 10.30) and then they sleep through from then. It saves you being woken up for a feed in the middle of the night.

17 weeks is a wee bit early for solid food I think. Babies should be able to sit unaided so that their oesophagus is straight and the food goes down the right way. I think others have already mentioned teething, I'd also add growth spurt! 3 months-ish is a classic time for a growth spurt and that's always really unsettling for them. Not very helpful, but it might explain some changes. Hang in there, try all the excellent suggestions and it will pass!

I really would go with giving more milk. Your hv is going against government guidelines and shouldn't be telling you to wean at all. DD woke up more between 7 and 13 months than she did before weaning, and she woke up a lot then! It's what they do at this age, and it's much better to give him what he's asking for i.e. more milk. It won't last forever. Dream feed could also be a good idea.

My DD1 did same as your LO, and we started weaning her at 16 weeks. Did no harm at all, and she started sleeping through again straight away. I say go for it, government guide-lines are exactly that - guide-lines, not rules set in stone. You know what's best for your baby.

1sttimemum08, sorry I wasn't having a go at you. I was more thinking out loud sort of as it's something I've been wondering about for a while. You have no reason to question the HV, why would you? She's a professional. But they don't always know what they're talking about.

If I hadn't heard about this place I probably would have weaned my DS early as I did with my DDs (weaned them at 4 months as the guidelines said to do back then) and HVs seemed to expect it even now. I waited until 6 months though and he seemed quite happy on breastmilk anyway (still is!). I did worry that I was doing the right thing especially when he showed signs of being 'ready' before 6 months but even now he doesn't eat a huge amount of anything. Oh, and he will rarely go for more than 4-5 hours in the night without waking and he's almost 22 months!

I think the best thing is to read up about the guidelines, maybe see if more milk will see him through this probable growth spurt and then review the situation again. At least then if you decide you want to try weaning him you'll have made an informed decision.