3 month old feeding all the time

[Nix99]

Dd is 3 months old and I'm finding I'm feeding (bf) most of the day. I think she may be a snacker but am unsure but everything I've read say at this age they should be going about 3 hours between feeds which she definitely does not do in the day. Night time is a different story and she can sleep about 6 hours without an feed during the night. is there anything I can do to stop her eating so frequently in the day? How do I know if she is getting full feeds and what can I do to make sure she does? Also she refuses a dummy so I cant use that for soothing her.

Hi,

I was told every 2hrs at three months not 3.

Is she having a little and then refusing her actual feeds?

Why don't you express milk and that way it will give you a break from constantly having to put her on the breast and you would know how much she is actually taking.

It can go both ways with night feeds, maybe she's not hungry or maybe she is but isn't communicate it to you.

I have to give my daughter night feeds whether she cries or not as otherwise l know from her behavior and feeding habits that she will go hungry. And my girl is fussy as anything

Thank you. 2 hours sounds a lot more realistic. Unfortunately she is also refusing a bottle as well as a dummy so expressing isnt an option. We're working on it so fingers crossed this is something we can look at in the future.

Just a thought, OP... Have you looked into tongue tie? While very frequent feeding at 3 months can be normal, sometimes it can be a sign of latch issues. A baby may have a TT for example that is not so bad that they struggle to gain weight, but one that makes it that little bit harder to feed, so that they get sleepy or too tired to continue before the end of a feed. It might be worth getting that checked by an expert. Posterior ties, in particular, can be easy to miss and often go undiagnosed.

If she can go up to 6 hours at night she has to catch up with more frequent feeds in the day . So if she is feeding 8 times a day she is on schedule for your 3 hourly plan .

That's not strictly true though, @yikesanotherbooboo. Sleeping through a 6 hour period once in any 24 hour period is fine and normal once back up to birth weight, even for very young babies, little more than newborn. OP's baby is 3 months old. Sleeping a 6 hour stretch at night does not mean the baby will need to be feeding constantly through the day. While periods of cluster feeding can be very normal, constant feeding at that age can sometimes indicate a latch issue and is worth exploring. I wouldn't want the OP to miss something that requires further attention because she's been advised it's normal.

P. S. Although if it's every 2 hours, that doesn't seem too bad. Especially in the warm weather. Sorry if I missed that point. Would you say it is every 2 hours OP? Your first post suggested it was more frequent than that.

I've got a few thoughts on why this might be happening, I've been there! We were feeding every hour until recently (my LO is 15 weeks).

How does she nap during the day? Until a month ago I was mistaking tiredness for hunger! Sounds so daft now but I didn't realise he was overtired. He'd get cranky after an hour/hour and a half after feeding so I'd stick him on the boob - he'd take it then fall asleep so I thought he was hungry. Job done!

I was getting so fed up and was praying he'd go longer. I'd noticed he'd go longer between feeds when out and about with my DH or with other people. I started paying attention to what he was doing during his massively long and frequent feeds and discovered he was mostly suckling for comfort (ie not actually swallowing milk). Once I learned how to read his cues, comfort him other ways and get him to nap, we went to 2.5 to 3 hours between feeds.

Hang on in there! It kinda just happened all of a sudden, this change in feeding, but looking back I think I was always just reading him wrong...

Could any of this apply to you, I wish someone had mentioned the comfort feeding/overtiredness to me months ago! I just assumed newborns would sleep when tired and would continue to do so but that wasn't the case for us...