My dd is just over 12 weeks old and is breadfed every 2.5/3hrs throughout the day between about 7am and 7pm. She settles well at 7pm (ish) after a good feed. My dh has been giving her a bottle of formula (comfort milk) at around 11pm, which we've recently put back further to 11.30pm in the hope that she'll take more! She's quite happy to have a feed from a bottle (which we introduced fairly early on) but only seems to take about 3oz. We've tried waking her up for the feed and also doing it dream feed style but both methods seem to result in her only taking about 2-3oz. On the very odd occasion she's had 5oz which is closer to the 6oz we're aiming for to get her through to the morning!
She then generally wakes up between 2.30 and 4am for another feed and seems genuinely hungry (for a while). I've tried delaying her a bit (cuddle, dummy, water) but I always end up breastfeeding her. She sometimes takes quite a bit but generally only one breast and then is back to sleep. I wonder if this is a habit or genuine hunger? She still seems to be eating quite well at the morning feed.
Anyway, my question is really how can I encourage her to take more at the late feed to push back the middle of the night one? I know this is a purely selfish thing in that I want some more sleep! Maybe it can't be done.....dd1 was much easier and used to wolf down the 10.30pm bottle and slept through pretty quickly....maybe my expectations are too high for dd2....
The other night we left her to see when she would naturally wake up after 7pm and it was at 1am! Pretty good but obviously that would mean 2 night wakings as she then woke up at 5am. And she still only took about 4oz at 1am....
Any thoughts?