Growth spurt, habit or chaos theory?

[merryberry]

Hello hello, can anyone advise on relative likelihoods of ds' recent change of feeding behaviour please? A bit more insight may help me cope with growing sleep induced rattiness.

DS starts his 16th week today, fully BF. Weeks 6-12 he fed every two hours 2/3rds of the time both breasts during the day , off to sleep at 8pm, drained one boob once around 5.30am and slept again til 7am then 8am when he had a massive breakfast of two both-breast feeds.

He then spent 9 days doing the same in the day PLUS a 1am 4am and 6am double breast feed. Progressed for two days onto big feeds every 2.5 hours in the day and only one at night. Also progressed to regular 7pm bedtimes. Since then has returned us to the dark ages of three meals a night, on top of rather patchier feeding in the day - more frequent but lots of it, he just gets distracted half way through feeds. A lot. You know how it is - a tree, a sound, the same patch of wall he's looked at 100 times, a butterfly beats its wings in the amazon.

Any useful experience or knowledge please? Growth spurt to end all growth spurts? Eating loads at night to compensate daytime?

Should I fuss him into a change of behaviour or just put up and see? Am getting tired, will start to suffer after another few days of this.

have you thought about the possibility that he's maybe ready for solids????

Four months = growth spurt. Definitely. However, it also sounds as if he is eating during the night instead of the day.

noooo not solids!
They all do this at this age. It is a phase, just go with it and it will settle.
Maybe try to get a few good feeds in the quiet in the day, maybe out a muslin over his head so he can't see much
but no need for solids yet, thay aren't as calorific as the milk you are producing anyway, so won't help anything
i know how tiring it is, but go with it and you will soon be back out of the other side again
congrats for bf for so long, btw

Thanks ladies. I've considered both these possibilities. I'm reluctant to intro solids until he has finished his 17th week re: that old research on gut ability. I also can't think of how to improve day feeds and reduce night feeds without introducing a shed load of crying into our usually peaceful life. So I'm going to go another week, but try to shorten his night feeds again (when I first did I simply increased the frequency of them...but I only tried that one night as it was so much more knackering).

So I'll persist a bit longer. Any other advice very welcome as well, xx

i think the research now recommends 26 weeks before giving solids. I'm sure somebaody has a link to the WHO reccs
anyway, good luck , i don't have alot of advice but i do have sympathy!

Noop, we just x-posted. Gawd the simplest things make sense, of course, limit his vision. We don't do much in the day compared to many I've met but I'll cut that back further as well until this passes. At least I won't get so knackered.

Thanks for your encouragement.

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