bottlefeeding routine for mt 12 wk old dd2 help needed.

[jeanini]

hi my 12 wk old dd2 has been diagnosed with silent reflux and is currently on enfamil a.r. which has
helped a bit.

i dont think she has enough milk i think last few days shes only had 22 oz she weighs 11lb 9oz.

she has bottles at 7am 10.30am 2pm 5pm 7.30pm then not till 2-3am .

ive read somewhere that babies of this age should have a bottle when you go to bed approx 10-11pm. but she is always asleep and i worry that if i wake her to feed her. will she have the milk and will she go back to sleep after.

when she was awake still at 10pm one night i fed her and she went to sleep but still woke at 2am for another feed.

also when she wakes in the night at 2-3am she has 5oz which is more than she has in the day she normally only has 3-3half oz each bottle. but its probably because she has gone 8 or 9 hours without milk.

what does everyone else think should i just thank my lucky stars she has a long period in the night.

xxx

your lo is doing great for her age. I never woke my dd to give her a late feed and left her to wake when she was hungry. Your routine seems to be working well for both you and your lo so I would probably stick with it. She is sleeping for a good period at night so I wouldnt want to rock the boat by changing anything (thats my opinion, anyway )

p.s. the amounts given on the tin are just a guide - my dd never took what she 'should' either but she turned out just fine.

i'm also concerned about this my ds has silent reflux too. recently his feeding has been much better and he has put weight on very quickly - been having at least 30oz a day, sometimes more. the thing is all this improved whilst on holiday in spain and i think it was just down to thisrst as now we are back in england he has started leaving bottles again. he is 2 months old tomorrow and today he only had 21oz of milk.

My DS had reflux and was on enfamil too. We fed him at 7, 11, 2, 4.30, 7 then night time we woke him before we went to bed at 11. He slept through then till the 7am feed at 12 weeks. I'm not allowed to tell you about the routine I used with him but hopefully you'll get the idea. With reflux you need to decide which appproach works best for you and your baby -as much as possible with big gaps,or little and often. We went for the gaps as it seemed to suit DS and helped with the routine which made him happier, in turn helping with the relfux (which was worse when he was upset). I don't have a tin of milk at the moment so can't see the recommended amount for your DD's weight. All I remember with DS was that he took a while to work up to what he 'should' have - I think because he associated eating with pain by the time we started using it but hedid gradually improve. As long as your DD is happy and putting on weight I wouldn't worry. I think enfamil possibly makes themm feel a bit more full anyway because of the way it congeals in their tummy.

hth.

PS- nappyaddict, they tend to have a growth spurt around 6-8 weeks so they eat more, then they cut back a bit again. I think the next growth spurt to expect is around 3/4 months so maybe the same will happen.

ahh thankyou. i knew they had growth spurts which i had put down to the increase in milk tane but thought they kept to that amount. i didn't know they went back down to what they had before.

I don't think they always go back to exactly what they had before but with DS we found that we increased the bottle size and then he suddenly he dropped his intake back by about 2-4oz per bottle which seemed a lot. But, he got through to his next feed time ok and didn't seem hungry so we didn't worry about it.

the recommended amount is 2 - 2.7 oz per pund of weight.
so if she is 11lb that means she needs betweem 23.125 (approx 23) and 31.21875 (approx 31 oz a day)

*11lb 9oz

thanks for everyones comments-its probably too much to ask for her longer period to be between 10-11pm till 6-7am.

because she has never slept in her cot, really unsettled all night ive been putting her to sleep in her pushchair all night. really wrong i know but its the only place she would sleep i think it helped being a bit more upright. even with the cot raised she didnt like it.

ive just bought an amby nest hammock bed for her and tried her with it last night. she was ok i didnt sleep well though worrying about her. but hopefully ill relax more tonight.

xx

Jeanini - have you tried waking her for a feed at 11pm? If not give it a go and you might be surprised, DS would have happily slept until 2.30-3am if we'd not woken him but because we did every ight he got used to it. Also when it comes to trying to drop night feeds all together it's easier to manipulate an 11pm feed than a 2.30am one.

Love those baby hammaocks btw - so cute!

rather than waking her and worrying if she will a) drink them ilk and b) go back to sleep, try a dreamfeed instead.

ive heard of a dreamfeed what is it? and if the baby stays semi asleep can you still wind them ok? xx

it is when you feed them whilst they are still asleep. usually they are so relaxed they don't need much winding and what they do have comes up very easily. some people don't even fetch them out of their cots, but if choose to do this i would advise raising your lo up a bit so she doesn't get too much wind.

also bear in mind if she is already taking 22 oz and according to the recommendations needs just over 23, rather than faffing around with a dream feed, is there nowhere in the day you could get her to drink an exta oz or two?