Any Baby Whisperer gurus out there? Pls come and help me work out how to move from the 3-hour routine to the 4-hour one with a hungry baby??

[Ceebee74]

DS2 is nearly 16 weeks so, according to the BW, should be moving to a 4-hourly EASY routine now.

He is bottle fed and currently has 5 feeds a day at 3-hourly intervals. He has been having 8oz bottles but is draining at least 2 of those a day and wants more (the other feeds he perhaps takes 6-7 oz) so I am going to make 9oz bottles tomorrow.

If he is not being satisfied with 5 bottles a day and needs feeding 9oz every 3 hours, how on earth am I going to move to only feeding him every 4 hours??

Do I have to make 2 bottles each feed (my bottles only take 9oz) to increase the volume he takes?

Any advice would be very welcome as I am a bit stumped - DS1 was never a hungry baby and we moved to 4-hourly feeds very easily as he was just not that bothered about his milk (and 2-5 years later, he is still not bothered about food )

Yes - read Kramer again. Here's a quote from the abstract:

"Based on studies from Belarus, Iran, and Nigeria, infants who continue exclusive breastfeeding for six months or more appear to have a significantly reduced risk of gastrointestinal and (in the Iranian and Nigerian studies) respiratory infection"

Hope this helps.

Ah, I see, right, missed that bit. But Kramer is the main study, isn't it? And am right about the conclusions?

Kramer is one of the authors of the systematic review, and actually there was a team of people. It is a Cochrane review - prob the best 'brand' of systematic reviews there are!

The review sought to find out the optimal time for exclusive breastfeeding and came to the conclusion it was 6 mths, and that infants did not as a rule have any growth or nutritional deficit from not having solids before that time.

The findings have been extended to include ff babies, but I don't think there are any studies that show this.

tommee tippee have started doing 11oz bottles now if you want to give him a bigger feed but if hes happy on 3 hourly, stay on it.

i used the baby whisperer book with ds1 and it's really helped. it's not a strict schedule but rather a routine or pattern.