14 week old - little and often

[DressMe]

Ebf dd is 14 weeks old, and feeds 2 hourly. Nothing I've tried can help her go longer than this. She will only feed for 5 minutes and will never take the other side when offered. Her weight is just below the 9th centile and although she was at the 50th at birth I'm trying not to get too hung up on weight so haven't had her weighed for 3-4 weeks now.

She's bright, happy and alert (most of the time!) though is being investigated for torticollis.

I wonder if I could persuade her to have a little more each feed, would she go a bit longer? Every 2 hours at night is killing me and 18 month old ds is missing out as I'm tired. We co-sleep (out of necessity) but I don't sleep well because of it and wake up tired and achey.

Is there a way to make her feed longer?

DressMe - you have already tried the only obvious way : offering the other side. She refuses. The only other thing to try would be to wait 5-10 mins and try again....but you have probably tried that, too.

You could try giving her a stern talking-to :) :)

Joking of course....sounds like this is her pattern reflecting her own individual physiological needs.

You might want to think of other ways to be more comfortable at night - work out what it is that makes you wake up achey, and see if you can change that.

Would a bedside crib help?

Thanks Tiktok. Will try the stern talking to . Something tells me she won't listen though!!

We recently bought a 6ft bed to make it easier at night. I worry about squishing her so find that I sleep rigidly still and daren't move at all. As a result I ache in the morning! I'm hoping having a lot more space in the bed will make it easier to roll away from her post-feed and sleep a bit better. If we hadn't just bought a huge bed, a bedside cot sounds like a very good idea. Wish I'd thought of that first.

I suppose I should be grateful she's not up longer in the night. She'll grow out of this... Right? (Please tell me this too shall pass!!).