Sudden change of routine. Advice please.

[Newmummy1212]

My DD is 24 wks and has slept all night 8.30pm-8.00am from 8 weeks old. She has been formula fed from 13 wks due to a cleft palate causing her fatigue when breastfeeding. Her routine has been so predictable until this week. She used to feed 8am, 11am, 2.30pm, 5.30pm 7.30pm (half feed), bath, then rest of feed and down about 8.30pm (give or take an hour or so here and there). This week she has just not been interested in her last bottle at all. She takes a few sucks and then bats away the bottle and refuses to drink. We have been bathing her there and then in the hope that she will take it after the bath but the same thing happens. I just wanted some advice because being a first time mum, I am always so nervous when the routine that we are so familiar with changes. She just seems exhausted by the time we come to give her the bottle. I wondered about waking her earlier to start the day about 7am but again I hate waking her up when she actually is sound asleep until between 8 and 8.30am. Please help because I'm just so nervous about it all. Thanks in advance. X

Perhaps she doesn't need as many feeds during the day? At 24 weeks my twins were having a feed every 4 hours from 7am to 7pm ie 4 feeds a day.

I wouldn't worry about routine changes btw as when you start weaning it will all be up in the air anyway!!

As Ceeveebee says, perhaps she is just ready to drop that feed? Perhaps you could try spacing the feeds out a little more - maybe 3 1/2 or four hours apart? My DS also dropped his last feed around this age and decided he'd rather be sleeping and if she's happy to be asleep, I wouldn't mess with that too much!

Also, will you be weaning her shortly? You might want to think about how that will impact on milk feeds now, just to get your head around it.

With regard to routine, babies seem to lull you into a false sense of security and then decide they want to change everything around. This is fairly typical and my 1yo DS still likes to shake things up for me every so often!