3-month-old wants to feed all the time!

[hmmmum]

My breastfed 3-month dd seems to always want to feed, usually it's every 2 hours (less often through the night). She's mostly been like this since she was born. She's quite a big baby. Is this normal - most of my friends' babies go for 4 hours without a feed. I'm worried I'm "comfort-feeding" her - or is there no such thing at this age? I'm going to carry on feeding on demand, but just wondering if anyone else had this experience of a very, very hungry baby who keeps growing and growing! (She's already in 91st percentile).
Any wisdom would be much appreciated! Thanks!!

I had a constantly-feeding baby too, and I was the only Mum I knew in this situation. I tried (on the advice of my HV) to try to make him go longer between feeds as everyone told me he must just be "grazing" or sucking for comfort. Spacing out feeds resulted in him being upset and his weight plummeting down the percentiles so I went back to feeding on demand. He is now 9 months old and has 3 huge meals per day, a breastfeed and 30 oz of formula per day. He has stayed on his percentile so now I can confidently say that he was just hungry.
My advice is: do what your baby needs and don't listen to others if what they say feels wrong to you. I don't think you can over feed an EBF baby (which mine was until 7 months old).

DD is also 3 months and bfs eveyr two hours with some cluster feeding in the evening which is even more frequent! She is in the 95% percentile so I assume she just needs the food. If you do a search on here quite a few mums report equally frequent feeding patterns, so I wouldn't worry. At this age I think they are supposed to eat on demand.

thanks - very reassuring to hear of other mums who are experiencing the same thing!

Normal! Dd fed often all the time from birth to about 4mths. Hindsigt shows a gradual decline though to now (9mths) where it's first thing, lunch, dinner and two evening feeds and one mid overnight feed. Feels constant at the time but it does lessen as they get bigger and able to do more things.

good am looking forward to a gradual decline...Am pretty knackered. She gets up quite a lot through the night too. i guess i just need to get through the next couple months or so and it'll hopefully ease up

Hi, was about to start a similar thread! 4 week dd2 feeding every 1.5 to 2 hours since birth. Also 9+ pounds at birth and 91 percentile. Guess that's how it is with big babies. Can sympathise - lack of sleep is exhausting! Very reassuring to have others in the same boat...

Yeah, I know it doesn't really help you but it will get gradually better.

Then teething starts.... ;0)

Hey, my girl is 9 weeks and feeds constantly. Very tiring. During the day she hardly sleeps but does suffer with reflux too so makes it harder. She feeds every hour sometimes less. During the night she does sometimes sleep for 3 hours at first but then up every hour or 2 if im lucky.
They do have growth spurts though so maybe yours is growing through that too? Increasing the supply.
I did try to hold mine off for at least two hours to see if she would have a big feed next and then hopefully go longer before the next one but didnt last long cos her reflux has got worse. but maybe worth a go....although its tough.

Goodluck though

I am so glad i found this site! I have a 9 week old baby boy (who was 5 weeks premature) who does nothing but feed and no one else i know seems to have the same issue. I moved him onto hungry milk 4 weeks ago as we had 4 days where he didnt sleep, i didnt sleep and my husband didnt feed as we were literally finishing one bottle and he was screaming for the next (i couldnt produce enough milk to keep up and he has reflux to boot!). Worse still was the fact that as soon as you gave him the next bottle (be it two minutes or an hour later after the last bottle if i could stretch him through the tantrums!) you could hear the milk hitting his tummy. Once i used the hungry milk we managed to get into a pattern of him feeding all morning but then snoozing in the afternoon and then sleeping for 6 hours during the night. Now we have went back to the same situation and the hungry milk no longer seems to satisfy him and again, you can hear the milk hit his tummy after polishing off each 7oz bottle. Im being told i cant wean him till he is 6 months old but i dont know that i can leave him for another 4 months without trying baby rice powder as the milk alone just does not seem to be enough anymore. Any advice would be most welcome as i feel im damned if i do and damned if i dont when it comes to his feeding. I should add that he was 5lb5oz when he was born and dropped to 4lb12oz in the hospital and is now 11lb!

Hey '78, The problem I think is that NCT/NHS/GP/books etc all state that newborns want feeding every two hours. Some no doubt do, but in my admittedly limited experience not immediate new borns. But people forget what newborns do, and refer to babies. A baby I feel is something a newborn grows into, not begins as. Sounds weird Im sure but you will see what I mean as you go! Many newborns Ive heard of on here seem to want much more frequent almost every few minutes feeding in the first few days which slowly stretch out til roughly 6-10wks which was the nearest point to birth that it got to 2hrs.

2hrs for us then stayed til about 4mths when it altered and moved to nearer 4hrs with an occasional top up if we weren't doing much. (i.e. out and about a mid am or am was forgotten about but if sat in lounge then well, rude not to have a drink eh mum?)

Best medical advice would be from your GP. Best anecdotal advice is probably from here. Start your own thread? Worth it.