Hungry night time feeder!

[Flossam]

I'm just wondering if anyone can help me to sort this out a little bit please!! DS is 16 days old and seems to be getting into the habit of having mammoth feeding sessions at night. It has become the norm to start feeding at 11pm and for him not to settle for anything up to 3 hours later. Las night for example, he had a good feed at 10pm, then again after nappy change at 11.30 and just would not settle, well screamed down the house untill gone 2. I feel like there is nothing left there to offer him, and he seems really frustrated and just won't latch on. Last night he even snapped his jaw shut on my nipple and my god it hurt! I know he dosen't know what he is doing but why is he getting so worked up unless he's drunk me dry? And can he really be that hungry then when throughout the rest of the day one side is enough to satisfy him? How can it be that at night both sides aren't enough?! Or am I just expecting too much from my newborn? I would just rather not get into a pattern of this if I can help it. TIA

Flossam - big hugs first of all

16 days old is a time when I had no idea what DS wanted or whether he would ever not want to be awake what felt like all night.

Let me also say that you do have enough milk for him - do not think that you don't! There are growth spurts at weird times, there may well be one around his age (personally I think my DS had a growth spurt for the first few months of his life).

What's your DS like at sleeping and eating during the daytime? Thinking back over it later, I realised that when he was very small my DS would sometimes sleep for up to 4 or 5 hours at a time during the day and so it probably wasn't surprising that he needed to eat more and sleep less at night. He also only had one side during the day and would gorge for ever at night.

Don't worry about a pattern happening too much, although differentiating between night and day is a good thing to get your baby to understand. In my case I found that making sure DS wasn't allowed to sleep in the day for longer than about 2.5 hours, and fed at least every 3 hours did help.

And make sure you try and sleep when DS sleeps during the day - I know it's easier said than done, but does help

Could it be the beginning of the third week growth spurt? I would try to feed him more during the day (don't allow him to fall sleep while feeding), if you are feeding more during the day he should need less during the night. But even if that doesn't happen it may help you to increase your milk production. (I think...)

I was trying to feed him more during the day yesterday, so today I thought I'd leave him to his own devices a bit more. He was in hospital with jaundice at 4 days old, so was having 3hrly feeds then, now seems to be at all other times to be happy with feeds every 4hrs, which is great. Just the whole night time thing! Don't think it could be the growth spurt as he has been doing it for several days so too early IYKWIM. Just have to see how tonight goes! He has had an early bath and is awaiting my presence now, so we will see how we go! Wish me luck!

Flossam, for most 16 day olds, four hourly feeds are not enough to keep them happy round the clock or to establish and maintain a good milk supply. For most, they will 'compensate' for these relatively infrequent feeds by feed-a-thons at some other inconvenient time - which is probably what is happening to you. It would be worthwhile thinking of keeping him close to you in the day, so he can probably feed more often than the four-hourly pattern he is in...babies held close, skin to skin when practical, almost always feed more often than four hourly when this age. Good luck!