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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Night feedings...

9 replies

ProudFTMum · 09/06/2021 08:33

Hi mums

I’ve posted a few times - I’m a FTM and things didn’t start smoothly for us so I was quite nervous in the first couple of months. I have a nearly 15 week old DS and we’ve had some issues with feeding recently. He started screaming at the bottle, or when placed in his feeding position (I express and he’s bottle fed breast milk). I think we managed to get to the bottom of it, turned out he had TT and also silent reflux which we are managing now so feedings are significantly better (and faster!) with the odd crying episode here and there.

Anyways, the one thing I can’t get to the bottom of is night feeding...he dropped one of his feeds so now only wakes up once. (Dinner at 7, wakes up anytime between 2-4, up for the day at 7). However, the last couple of weeks night time feeds are a nightmare. They take forever, he’s fussing and shaking his head and often doesn’t finish the bottle either. He doesn’t look particularly hungry but he wakes and I’m not sure if he can go all night without eating at all at this stage (also not sure if he would go down to sleep without feeding despite how difficult it is..). He is losing his hunger signs so sometimes it’s really hard to tell whether he’s really hungry or not. He’s also quite fussy with his breakfast and doesn’t finish a bottle but the rest of the day seems to be fine. The main issue really is night times...

Anyone experienced anything similar? Shall I try to let him go through the night without feeding..? He has 6oz bottles every 3 hours during the day and around 4oz during the night on average (but that’s after A LOT of persuasion haha) I’m starting to find the constant nighttime battles exhausting Hmm

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Sairafina · 09/06/2021 15:02

We introduced a dream feed when our son was about that age (can't remember exactly). He would have his bedtime bottle at 7pm, then DH would give him a 5oz bottle at 10.30pm. DS usually stayed asleep for this. We'd give the milk 15mins or so to settle then lay him back in his crib. Could this be something which might work for you?

BunnyRuddington · 09/06/2021 17:31

Agree a dream feed is worth trying but I personally wouldn't make such a young baby go without a night feed at this age if they were waking.

ProudFTMum · 09/06/2021 17:45

@Sairafina yeah I was thinking that might help..I’m just baffled, I don’t understand what causes such a drastic difference in his behaviour. He used to pretty much sleep through his night feeds, and now he is wide awake and wiggling and doesn’t want to feed Hmm

@BunnyRuddington ahh I know I was thinking the same...don’t get me wrong I don’t want him not to feed during the night, it’s just that it feels like he doesn’t want it..but I agree I’m not sure I would be comfortable leaving him without a feed. Just unsure what causes this change in his behaviour and it’s not the most pleasant thing to deal with 3 in the morning haha Grin

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BunnyRuddington · 09/06/2021 17:47

and it’s not the most pleasant thing to deal with 3 in the morning

I can imagine. Do you think you'll try a dream feed tonight?

ProudFTMum · 09/06/2021 19:32

@BunnyRuddington yes I think I’ll give it a go see if that helps Smile if not I’m hoping that it’s just a phase and he’ll grow out of it HmmGrin

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BunnyRuddington · 09/06/2021 20:15

Let us know how you get on Smile

ProudFTMum · 10/06/2021 09:38

So we’ve tried the dream feed last night - it actually went really well, he polished a 5oz bottle while asleep! Thank you for the suggestion @Sairafina and @BunnyRuddington

I also got to the bottom of the change in his behaviour...he still woke at 3.15 but not due to hunger - he was incredibly windy and passed so so many farts! Now thinking back, he started farting during his night feeds since we’ve been using carobel for his reflux, and that’s roughly when I started noticing his strange behaviour - it all adds up now! I decided to wait until he passed all the wind and see if he was still hungry afterwards or it was purely the wind waking him up. Once he got more comfortable he fell back asleep!

I think I will stick to this dream feed now, as I would rather stay up a bit later than battle with him for an hour during the night to get some milk in him which is not good for either of us in my opinion.. we’ll see how it goes, but hopefully it’ll make life a bit easier for us, and he’ll grow out of this windy phase so he won’t be woken every single night☺️

Thank you ladies ❤️

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Sairafina · 10/06/2021 12:29

So glad to hear the dream feed went well.

Since we introduced it, I was pretty strict about no more milk in the night (unless he was actually hungry of course!) so he didn't associate night wakings with milk and at this point I was confident he could 'sleep through' for 8 hours without needing a feed.

DS is now 7 months and we dropped the dream feed last week so he now goes from 7pm - 7am without a feed and he is absolutely fine

ProudFTMum · 10/06/2021 14:49

@Sairafina I think that’s what I will try to do as well - I’m glad I didn’t pick him up straight away last night as he clearly wasn’t hungry, once he passed all the wind he went straight back to sleep! And he is definitely ok going for 8 hours without a feed, as he’s been doing so up until now but instead of a dream feed he usually had a night feed around 3am. We just need to tackle the issue with the wind now, but I have a feeling I might just need to accept that he’ll grow out of this which is fine ☺️

It sounds amazing, your DS is doing so well! How great is it to have your evenings and nights back haha ☺️

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