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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Bfing on a routine - how do you deal with growth spurts?

19 replies

beartime · 05/03/2006 15:29

Ds is 4 mths and on a 4hr routine has been sleeping through 7pm till 7pm. But seems to be having a growth spurt every week at the mo! But there is different advice for what to do with it when you're on a routine - some people say go back to 3hrly feeding, others introduce a dream feed, others put them back on the first side to suck when finished to stimulate more milk etc. Others say don't do anything, they'll feed longer if they need more. And others don't feed longer or more or anything.

Can anyone feeding on a routine tell me what they are doing?

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Original poster

beartime · 05/03/2006 15:45

I mean 7pm to 7am! And I say growth spurt cos he's waking up in the night - could be teething too though...?

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Original poster

beartime · 05/03/2006 22:25

bump!

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VeniVidiVickiQV · 05/03/2006 22:31

He could be.

I didnt personally stick to a routine as such with mine. I fed when they were hungry and allowed them to feed for as long as they wanted to. It suited DD - she slept from 7pm till 7am. Did the same with DS and he has only just started sleeping through at 10.5 months.

Alot of babies, with all the feeding and routines just dont sleep through the night until later on.

notasheep · 05/03/2006 22:32

Sorry i didnt routine feed-wow what amazing ds you have going through night.
If he is waking i would feed him as much as possible,my ds would have one full breast then go straight back to sleep.But he was waking at 11pm and 3am.

Sorry this doesnt sound very helpful

Hattie05 · 05/03/2006 22:35

I didn't use a routine either, i don't really understand how a routine works when you are breastfeeding because you have no idea how much they have taken at each feed, surely feeding on demand ensures they get all they need.

I know an awful lot of babies (including my dd) who thrill their parents by sleeping 7-7 from 3months, but then suddenly as they get older, wiser, hungrier??? things don't stay that way.
My dd slept all night from 3 - 6mths and then started to wake for feeds and did so for sometime, hence the reason we co-sleep.

Original poster

beartime · 06/03/2006 09:17

just found out that this time i don't think it was a growth spurt cos he hardly ate in the morning. But still don't know wot to do if I don't feed him!

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tiktok · 06/03/2006 09:53

Er.....what to do when a baby wants more to eat?

Don't you just feed 'em???

The suggestions you have heard - feed more often, offer a 'third side', intriduce another feed - all make sense.

The easiest way is to follow the baby's lead and don't sweat it :)

After all - lets imagine a scenario when a grown up person changes jobs and instead of being an office worker, is now a lumberjack. He (or she!) finds their appetite surges - so what do they do? They just eat more, according to what their needs urge them to do - and they don't tell themselves they cannot eat before a certain time, or only for a certain amount of minutes.

I can't see the big deal in just responding to what the baby seems to want to do, sorry!

blueshoes · 06/03/2006 10:41

beatime, I did not respond earlier because I did not routin bf and cannot offer you any constructive advice. I am amazed that your baby is prepared to go 4 hours between b-feeds and still sleep 12 hours a night. Your storage capacity must be that of a diary cow (I meant that as a compliment) because I know my baby could empty both my breasts at 4 months in 10 minutes and be hungry again 1.5 hours later. AND woke through the night to nurse.

I am genuinely curious, but does your ds not cry in between the 4 hours? My dd lets me know, oh boy, does she let me know!!

blueshoes · 06/03/2006 10:42

Also, I don't go 4 hours between meals, always snacking when I am hungry, certainly drinking. Is it realistic to expect a baby to do go without for so long??

Original poster

beartime · 06/03/2006 12:06

Tiktok thanks for the reassurance that all those work - i was wondering about the third side thing if it really works or not, but if you say so then I guess it does! The reason I was puzzled is cos of the routine it can make a difference to that which method you use, tho' its only for a few days so I guess they probably go back to their old routine pretty easily. Like if you don't up their daytime feeds then they may get into a habit of waking at night.

Blueshoes - no he doesn't cry in between unless he's tired/overstimulated etc.He does cry on the dot of 4 hrs though! And he's putting on weight fine - sticking straight to the 50th centile. If you read the Baby Whisperer she recommends the 4hr thing, as well as others (though only after a certain age - I started at 8 wks)

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blueshoes · 06/03/2006 12:29

beartime, hats off to you and ds! Your ds is the baby I dreamt about before dd came along and burst my bubble. The BW and GF caused me endless anxiety, although I acknowledge they may work for others, yourself included.

Original poster

beartime · 06/03/2006 12:40

oh I'm sorry to remind you of the anxiety - I do acknowledge babies r different - mine hates the GFnaptimes for instance.

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cornflakegirl · 06/03/2006 13:29

beartime

we used gf in a kind of relaxed way - so v similar to bw.

my ds started sleeping from 11 - 7 at three months, only to start waking in the night again at 4.5 months. he clearly was hungry, so i just fed him in the night. it kept going for a while - when it became obvious that he didn't really need the feed any more (only feeding for a couple of minutes), i stopped feeding him and used pu/pd to get him back to sleep instead. shortly after he stopped night feeding, he also dropped his 10.30 feed (ie only fed for a couple of minutes, so i stopped waking him and he slept through). he was about 7 months by this point, so i had also started weaning him in this period, but it took a long time before he could eat enough solids to not need feeding in the night.

would say that dream feeding is good if it works - although we used to wake our ds up properly - think dream feeds work better for bottle feeds? offering 2+ sides also good. don't limit the feed times - but do check that the baby is still swallowing.

just go with what you feel - remember that the routine is there for you and the baby, not the other way round! :) (not suggesting you don't know that :) )

Original poster

beartime · 06/03/2006 19:16

thanks cornflake: how many feeds a day were you doing after 4 mths then? D'you think maintaining the milk supply has something to do with needing to feed more often? Sounds like yours wasn't a growth spurt but a permanent more hungry thing. I wonder if that will be the same with mine too...

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cornflakegirl · 07/03/2006 13:53

Beartime - at 4 months we were feeding at 7am, 11am, 2.30pm, 5pm, 6.30pm, 10.30pm. At 4.5months, he started feeding at around 4am as well.

Have to confess that I was never very good at spotting growth spurts - I did all the stuff Gina says about expressing so that when you hit a growth spurt you've got the extra milk there ready - but I never really found a point where I needed to do that!

I know lots of people say there is a growth spurt at around 4 months. But it certainly didn't feel like a growth spurt at the time.

It actually got quite a bit worse at around 5 months - he started waking twice in the night, couldn't make it to the next feed in the day, which started throwing his naps off (had never been a problem before). I actually started weaning him at that point, and he went back to one night-waking after a couple of days. Don't know whether that was a genuine growth spurt that I overreacted to, or what!

Thinking about it the night-waking thing some more, I think I lied to you about him starting to drop the night feed. I know he did that the first time he started to sleep through at 3 months - but I think at 7 months it was a bit more confused. Certainly his nights were erratic for quite a few weeks - he'd sleep through one night, then wake for the next four. Sometimes he seemed to be genuinely hungry, other times if I fed him, he wouldn't be hungry at 7am. He also cut his first tooth at around 7 months, and I remember being unsure how much of the night-waking was down to that (I was tempted to think very little, since he didn't seem at all bothered during the day! :) )

Sorry that's a bit rambly - trying to brain dump anything that might be relevant!

Smellen · 07/03/2006 20:37

What's this 'offer the third side' thing? (Now I really feel inadequate!)

Do you mean start, for example on R boob, then offer L, then back to R? Or do I need an implant?!?

Prufrock · 07/03/2006 20:58

beartime I routine fed- relaxed GF version. I found that during growth spurts both dd and ds would wake during the night because they were hungry, and I would bf them. After a few nights the nighttime wakings would stop (presumably becasue my milk supply was increased) and we would be back to normal.

IME, if you have got your baby into a good routine and sleeping through, a few nighttime feeds (done in the dark and with no stimulation) will not make them into bad sleepers. Like cornflake, I could tell when my ds was really ravenous in the night - he would slurp hungrily for 10 minutes and then go straight back to sleep - and when he was just fussing -when we used to just leave him to fuss

cornflakegirl · 08/03/2006 09:57

smellen - lol for implant! yes, just go back to the first side, to stimulate production :)

Original poster

beartime · 08/03/2006 15:52

Cornflake - thanks for the brain dump - it helps to know that weaning doesn;t help too

Smellen - you haven't had an implant yet??!

Prufrock - I will try that next time - sounds v. sensible - esp. because I don't really like to upset his daytime routine too much so feeding in the night for a few days would be great if it was only a few nights. I guess I can try it for a few nights and if he's still waking up after that I could up the feeds in the day. Also sounds good because if its teething the food will comfort him too. Thanks for your help!

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