Very hungry at 23 weeks!

[kingprawnjalfrezi]

My ds now 23wks has been bf pretty much exclusively (very occasional bottle of formula or ebm when I've gone out). It has all gone pretty well and he has been sleeping through the night for a few months - until last week. Now he is waking up for feeds every 2-3 hours during the night and the intervals are similar during the day. I was wondering if he is displaying signs of needing weaning - I was hanging on till 26 weeks but thinking about doing it earlier now - or should I just introduce a regular bottle of formula in the evening?

I think it's a growth spurt- my ds was the same at this age and I remember feeling totally overwhelmed by the constant feeds. He is 7.5 months now and his feeding has calmed down a lot in the last few weeks. I too thought that ds maybe needed weaning but it is really only in the last few weeks that he has taken nay food, and even now he'll only have about half a banana or the equivelent throughout the day.

If you are bf I don't see why you would need to introduce formula in the evening - can you not just offer him an extra bf? Babies can start waking in the night for all sorts of reasons - and introducing food has not been shown to help with night waking. As far as weaning goes - there are physical signs of readiness that you can look out for. Sitting up unaided, loss of the tongue reflex, being able to put food in their mouths, chew it and swallow it. Early weaning foods do not have any more calories than bf - so they won't fill him up or anything - he will just be tasting them alongside his usual bm. I would just up his bf and hang on for another 3 weeks HTH

My DS is 25 weeks tomorrow. I have been weaning for about 4 weeks and for the first two weeks he slept through from 8 until 5/6 most nights (never had before) - I thought we had cracked it. At 23 weeks he started waking for feeds 3 hourly again and still is 2 weeks later! I am putting it down to a growth spurt hopefully.

Oh, forgot to say he is bf during the day and night but has an evening bottle of formula which didn't make any difference either.

if your DS is showing other signs of readiness for food, such as being able to sit unaided, loss of the tongue thrust reflex and being able to pick up , chew and swallow a piece of food, he could well be ready now for food...if it is just a growth spurt, then more milk will be the most filling and satisfying thing you can give. formula won;t really make any difference to waking every 2 -3 hours, but might help you get some more sleep if your DH gives the feed!

To be honest he has always fed frantically in the evening - sometimes it feels like he's always on the breast - so I'm not sure how I can increase the amount of milk he's getting. It's very tiring but I haven't really minded up till now as I've been getting a full night's sleep.

my DS is 26 weeks and has also upped his feeds in the night for the past 3-4 weeks. he always did feed at least 2 times in the night (between midnight and 6am), but now it's 3 to 5 times. he also feeds lots before bed so i've never figured out how to increase the uptake, short of top-ups of EBM or formula.

He has a bottle of formula at 11pm as an experiment we've been trying to see if he'll go longer - well, he doesn't. he actually goes longer between breast feeds. It does work for some babies though. so you could always try.

we've just started some solids here but i think it will take quite a while before those start affecting things.

good luck!