how long do growth spurts last?

[goneHaywire]

DD is 6mo I know that they have a growth shurt at 6 months but how long does it last? a week? the whole month? she doesn't turn 7months for a few more days, should I continue to feed her when she wakes up at night until then? she's waking up every 3-4 hours

Babies can feed unpredictably and differently at any age - no real evidence for growth spurts happening at specific ages (or we would see 'spikes' in the growth charts and we don't :) ). They do have individual spurts and need for extra feeding at any time and these periods last varying amounts of time - no big deal, if you just continue to feed responsively according to her 'requests', as it will settle down when the need goes.

Waking 3-4 hourly at night is normal for a baby of this age. Babies usually need the comfort and closeness of a bf to get back to sleep, as well as the food/drink aspect.

Is there a reason you are thinking of stopping the night feeds at 7 months gone?

took dd to the clinic a couple of days ago. she's lost a little weight since our last visit so hv recons that she's hungry and suggested that I give her an extra solid meal and feed her as long as she wants at bedtime instead of taking her off when she falls asleep.

in answer to your question jilted being woken up every couple of hours is getting to us... I'm having dizzy spells and DH is hallucinating

Sorry, just thought from your post that you thought that night feeds should stop at 7 months. Can totally sympathise with the sleep depravation but the bad news is that stopping the night feeds doesn't mean she will sleep better, what it will do is remove the thing that helps her get back to sleep. If you do want to help with the sleep have a read of 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep and 12 alternatives for the all night nurser.

If she is loosing weight and you want to continue bfing Ihink you need some RL help. Is there a Bfing Support group near to you or have you called one of the Bfing helplines? Has dd been checked for tongue tie?

How long was it since she was last weighed? Was it on the same scales? Do you trust the person weighing her?

And you might like this book too

thanks for the links.

I got them to weigh her twice to be sure.

the previous time was a month earlier at the same clinic but saw different hv, she said I was giving her too large a portion of solid food (but she was still average weight for her age). I would have ignored her but dd was having such bad wind at night that I cut down so her digestive system could get used to the solid food. so I'm going to increase her portion side again, give 3 solid meals instead of 2 and give gripe water during her bedtime bf and see what happens

My DS was very windy and it was tongue tie, did you read the link? Has she been checked?

she was checked while still in hospital

Ok, it's so easy to miss and you seem to be experiencing a very similar thing to us with DS