12 week old wants to feed every hour and won't sleep during the day

[marushka82]

Hi everyone, I hope you can help me before I go crazy :)
My DD is 12 weeks old today and will be 3 months next week. I am breastfeeding and she's getting a bottle with my expressed milk for her last feed about 10pm. She sleeps well during the night (it takes about an hour to settle her, sometimes with the dummy, sometimes without) and gets about 8-9 hours usually which I am very grateful for as we can get normal sleep!
However, she doesn't sleep at all during the day and takes forever feeding. I read somewhere that at this age babies should be able to manage without a feed for 2-3 hours, yet DD seems to want to eat every hour or so... My main worry is that she's not properly draining the breast and is just snacking so she's never full. She occasionally has green poos despite my effort to keep her on one breast as long as possible. Every lactation consultant I saw told me that green poos might be due to foremillk/hindmilk imbalance, (hence I'm trying not to swap her from boob to boob too often), but were not able to tell me how to encourage DD to eat up :) They all said she's latched on well.
She's gaining weight and she's currently on the border between 50th and 75th centile.
At the moment I cannot really put her into her bouncer for too long as she starts crying after 15 minutes. I'm giving her Infacol and gripe water as I'm sure she gets a sore tummy and has problems with wind, but I'm starting to run out of options and questioning everything I do...

How can I make sure she gets hindmilk? Are my problems due to the fact that DD is going through a growth spurt? Is she not sleeping during the day because she gets enough sleep during the night?

Sorry I made this too long, I hope someone will be able to help!

I'm no expert but my 18 week dd still feeds every 1.5 - 2 hours (except at night) and will sometimes, but rarely go 3 hours between feeds. Breast milk is absorbed very quickly and I've heard that my dd's feeding pattern is normal. It really helped when someone told me to think of bm as meals, snacks, cups of tea, glasses of water and comfort. If someone told me I couldn't have a drink between meals or had to wait 2 hours for a snack if I was hungry I'd be grumpy too!

As for green poos, we've had the occasional one. And they soon go back to yellow. Lots of people on mn told me not to worry if there are plenty of wet nappies, baby is happy and alert and putting on weight.

Hopefully someone more helpful will be along soon... But to me it all sounds pretty normal :)

Oh and it sounds like you've been reading the baby whisperer? Her advice is out of date for bf. I had exactly the same wobble with dd a couple of months ago (snacking, green poo, not emptying boob etc) Ignore her advice! :)

DS1 was like this too - only really started going longer between feeds and being more content when we introduced solids Hang in there!

Thanks for the advice everyone!
PrincessChick - yes, I've been reading The Baby Whisperer - I was desperate to introduce some sort of a routine, but my DD is not having any of it.
It's very reassuring to hear that it's normal for babies to feed that often... I read way too much advice about introducing some sort of a schedule etc, making sure I'm emptying the breast before I switch DD to the other one and was getting worried that I'm not very good at breastfeeding.
BlackberrySeason - I usually find that DD comes off the breast when she needs a poo or a burp - she usually pulls off and starts fussing. If burping or changing doesn't help and I see that there's not much coming out of the breast I switch her to the other one. I'm never sure whether the breast is completely empty though.
I have a Baby Bjorn and a stretchy sling and tried both (I know that a lot of people don't like Baby Bjorn). I'm still not sure whether I'm tying the sling correctly so I'm off to a sling meet tomorrow to learn. I really hope to use the sling more!

My worry is that I don't think that DD is very efficient at feeding; I read somewhere that babies get better at eating around the 3 month mark and bf sessions take less time. DD seems to take ages and often falls asleep on the breast, but wakes up every time I try to put her on the bed/bouncer/in the cot for a nap. I guess this is why I feel like I'm breastfeeding all the time with no breaks; this makes it very hard for me to have some food/get dressed/have a shower.

Re: green poos, they've gotten better recently and we have more yellow than green. DD has been gaining weight steadily and went to 6.1 kgs from her birth weight of 3.6 in 12 weeks, so I guess she's doing pretty well.

Once again, thanks everyone for your advice! Maybe I'm expecting too much of my DD and should just be glad she's gaining weight and sleeping through the night?

It sounds like you're having a hard time, but that's perhaps down to societies expectations of how a baby should behave.

Your baby sounds not only like she's completely normal, but as though she is absolutely thriving. It can, of course, feel difficult when babies want to feed so often, but I'd personally see the long night time sleeps as the 'pay off' for the frequent daytime feeding. I think it would be difficult for a baby to sleep that long at night and still fit in enough feeds during the rest of a 24 hour period without feeding in this way.

There's good advice on this thread, particularly about breastfeeds being not only good, but drinks, 'snacks' and comfort too and it's very normal for breastfed babies to feed often because of this, but there's no set patten as to what is normal. Some babies feed hourly or more from birth, some 3 hourly and some babies still feed hourly or almost hourly at a year old.

If your baby is gaining weight well (which she is, fantastically in fact!) and seems otherwise well, its often easiest to just go with the flow instead of trying to impose a routine. The sling meet sounds a great idea. I appreciate showers etc are difficult, I used to just shower before DH went to work when DD was small, or if it came to the worst have a very quick shower whilst she was in her carrycot/bouncy chair in the bathroom so I could talk to her.

It sounds like you're doing great to me.

Honestly, it does sound like you're looking into things too much trying to 'sort' problems.

I always just went with the feed on demand mantra. I couldn't have had an easier bf'ing experience. (It was hard at times! Don't get me wrong.)

CackleCackle - I am feeding on demand and yes, perhaps I had some unrealistic expectations. My main worry is the green poos (DD had them for the last few days) - I can tell DD has wind and she gets grumpy and pulls off the nipple... I just have a suspicion that she is getting too much foremilk and all that lactose is causing the wind. I guess I'm just never sure when I should swap DD to the other breast.
I went to the sling meet and I'm going to try wearing DD around the house to see whether she falls asleep that way :)
Thanks for your reassuring words everyone!

Hi Blackberry, thanks for your help.
I feel like DD is just snacking rather than eating. She pulls off the nipple after feeding for 5 minutes and is very fussy. Most of the time I try to burp her and that sometimes helps and I put her back on the same breast, but more often than not I have to switch her. The green poos have been an issue for the last 5-6 weeks. She has a yellow poo in the morning (as she gets a bottle with my expressed milk in the evening) and then green throughout the day. there were a few days when she had yellow during the day but I honestly cannot think of anything I've done differently then...
I will get in touch with LLL and see whether they run a clinic somewhere. I really think I could improve my bfeeding - I really don't want to give up!