How often do you breastfeed your 5 month old?

[birdybirdbird]

My LO is 5 months old. He’s combi fed (since birth due to weight loss and initial supply issues) but the majority is breast feeding. It varies day to day but on average he has 2 small formula feeds totalling about 200ml. I’m starting to research weaning and a lot of things I’ve read have referenced how, by this point, you’ll be doing less feeds maybe 5-6 a day. This is so far from where we’re at! He has 10-12 a day! They tend to be fairly short, never more than 20 minutes but usually more like 10. How often do you feed your baby? Is mine just a snacker? Or is it possible I’ve still got supply issues and he’s not getting enough to fill himself up for very long?

I share your pain.

DS is 18 weeks and he feeds about every 20-40 minutes in the day. It is exhausting. I am following Gina Ford - I love her - and the only thing that doesn't work for me is her advice that my 18 week old should be on 5 feeds a day.

I counted around 12 so far today.

However the upside of this is that he sleeps very well at night - if you want a baby that sleeps well at night they need to get all their milk requirements during the day.

But the constant daytime feeding is making me wonder if I should reintroduce a night feed - that's how annoying it is!

Does he at least go longer at night?

Every 20-40 minute, you deserve a medal or He wakes up every 2 hours since a sleep regression, he was going 5-6 hours before. The most reliable thing is to then feed him back to sleep. I don’t think he’s always actually hungry at night though, some of it is just for comfort. We plan to try and (gently) break him out if that habit as soon as DH can take a couple of days off work to help with no-breastfeeding resettling.

Haha thank you! DS stirs around 4 times (9.30pm, 2am, 4am and 5.30am) and goes back to sleep by himself...the vast majority of the time. Thank goodness! We do a late feed with a bottle at 11pm so I at least get a break then and have 12 hours where I'm not feeding.

An NCT pal made of sterner stuff than I implemented a strict 4 hourly feeding routine, which has worked well for her, she swears by it now. I tried that once with DS but gave up after about 1 hour as he was so upset, and the upset he is the harder he is to latch on!

Good luck with the sleep regression :D

DS2 is 9m and up til weaning at 6m he fed probably 20 times a day. Since food he has dropped off a bit but still feeds every couple of hours. Just roll with it.