My DS is almost 3 weeks old. He's a good feeder in general and is steadily gaining weight. He was well above his birth weight by 2 weeks old.
During the day he feeds every 2.5/3 hours and he feeds well. Sometimes only for 10 minutes but generally around 20 minutes - 30 mins. He's not at all grouchy or gassy in between feeds and seems not to need winding much at all.
Our 'routine' so far generally consists of me feeding him about 10/11pm just before we go to bed. He settles in his crib well and nods off to sleep.
However when he wakes up, which is usually about 3/4hours later the feed never seems to go very well :-( he always seems very hungry and perhaps a little agitated. He splutters and gasps often for the whole feed. He sniffles like he's got a cold and often when he's finished has milk coming out of his little nose :-( as a result he has a lot of gas afterwards and doesn't seem very comfortable. It really wakes him up and unsurprisingly he's then hard to settle back to sleep. Once he is asleep he'll go till 5/6am and this feed seems much more 'normal'. It's only the feed in the middle of the night that leaves him like this.
I have a very fast flow - perhaps this has something to do with it?
I'm questioning my tactics to help us all get a bit more sleep!
We've tried different positions already.
I only ever offer him one breast in 2-3 hours. If he's hungry in between feeds he'll go back on the 'old' one but otherwise we swap. That's what my MW advised as he was gaining weight well.
Should I try cluster feeding him early evening?
Should I try waking him for a dream feed before he wakes himself? Is it possible that by going that bit longer 3-4 hours between the 11pm - 3am feed I just end up with too much milk and too fast a flow for him to handle?
I could start expressing and feeding him this expressed milk at the 3am feed?
I'm not worried about getting him to feed less at night (yet!) I just want him to be as comfortable at as he is in the day.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!