Baby suddenly sleeping like a log, even struggling to feed him

[catrionagray]

Hello,

I suspect my baby might be heading into the 11/12 week growth spurt but I was wondering if anyone else's baby handled this by suddenly sleeping like a log? I can't wake him and he's falling asleep during every feed. I'm breastfeeding with the odd bit of bottle-fed expressed milk.

My question is, should I just be letting him sleep as much as he wants? The only reason I ask really is because his weight gain has been less than perfect. His weight plateaued for a while around 3-4 weeks and this meant he dropped from 50th to 9th percentile. So, as you can imagine, him sleeping and not feeding worries me.

Anyone's thoughts on this would be great :)

My newborn daughter slept a lot. I had to wake for feeds and she would fall asleep during feeds. As she was my third and the other two had not been like that, I thought it was worth checking out so I took her to the GP. He impatiently dismissed me as a neurotic mother with the advice that "all newborns sleep a lot". I decided he was an idiot and saw the HV instead who agreed with me and referred along to local sick kids hospital 'to be on the safe side'. Turned out she had a chronic UTI (contracted in the womb) and was on antibiotics until she was three, owing to scarring on her kidneys caused by the infection.

I'm not suggesting your baby is ill....but if your spidey senses are tingling, get it checked out. Mother knows best. x

Pictish, would that kind of thing not be flagged up by not enough wet nappies etc? He's wetting lots of nappies per day and doing about 3-4 good poos a day too.

Or by a high temperature?

Also, I'm not saying he generally sleeps a lot, just that suddenly in the last day or so he is and he's coming up for the growth spurt around 11-12 weeks.

Is he alert when he’s awake? If he’s suddenly sleepy ALL the time, I’d get him checked out by the GP. If he’s alert and happy when awake but just sleeping more, then it could well just be a growth phase.

As I said, I'm not suggesting your baby is ill...I'm just sharing my thoughts like you asked.

The problem with babies is that they can get into a cycle quite quickly of not feeding enough so not having enough energy to feed meaning they have less at the next feed so have even less energy. My two are older now but I don't recall any of the babies I knew well sleeping more into the run up to a growth spurt so I don't think it will be that. However, some had settled into a good sleep routine by this stage (e.g. doing a 10-12 he stretch at night).
If you don't think there is anything wrong, I'd have a day of focussing on feeding - lots of skin to skin, feeding in a room with no distractions (11-12 week old are so much more curious than newborns), strip the baby, tickle the baby, prod the baby etc each time they fall asleep whilst feeding & monitor them very closely to check for signs of dehydration. Babies can deteriorate very quickly.
Also, bear it mind it is Friday. It will be a lot easier to run it past your GP or a HV today than over the weekend.

If it's sudden and you're struggling to get them to wake I would absolutely get checked by a doctor just incase.

I've had a similar experience to Pictish - all of a sudden my 6 week old got very sleepy, wouldn't feed and within 24 hours was in hospital very very poorly with a kidney infection.

Also no other symptoms until later

Thanks. He saw the GP on Monday and she was happy that he was really nice and hydrated and alert. I will do a day today though of lots of feeding and cuddling :)

OK will think about calling the GP if he's the same later this morning :)