Difficult feed in the morning. Help!!! What is happening?

[Mareta]

Hi all,

Not sure if I should be putting this thread in here or in weaning (just in case I am putting it in both) but hopefully someone will be able to help me.

DD (6 months) has started on solids for the last three weeks (as advice by HV) and it is going very well. She is also EBF in demand but for the last three days her morning feed has gone completly crazy and I am running out of ideas of why this is happening.

She wakes up at 8am and usually has a morning feed at around 9am (she does not like to feed just after waking up any more). We do EBM lunch at 12:30pm and then solid food at 1:15pm (we are doing BLW for lunch and she is loving it). She will have a milk feed at around 4pm and then dinner (spoon fed) at 6pm. At 7pm we start the bedtime routine and she has BM at around 7:30pm before she goes to bed. She is waking up for another BMF at 11pm and still wakes up once during the night for a feed at around 3-4am.

Is it possible that her night feed is affecting her morning feed? She always has both breast but, as said before, for the last three days she only wants one breast in the morning. I am not sure if she is really hungry at night, I think she has a full feed but not sure because usually I am half sleepy.

Any comments would be very much appreciated. THank you in advance.

We started weaning at 6 months too. We went with the baby led weaning approach, together with demand feeding - which worked really well for us.

There's lots of info on BLW on this site - or let us know if you want a link to info on it - but one of the basic ideas behind it is that your DC are programmed to know what they need from food.

So we just went with it, and let DS control when he wanted to feed. He's 13 months now, a great eater and his feeds have dropped gradually over time.

Whether you do BLW or not (and I'm not saying everyone should do it! Different things suit different families of course) I think the principle still applies - I really wouldn't worry to much if your DD wants to change her feeding routine - just go with it, and over time another routine will emerge.

Instinct is a powerful thing, and eating is one of the most basic and important things a body does! I would trust that your DD's instinct is guiding her well, and go with it.

HTH

Hi Lowrib,

Thank you for your reply. I was just a bit worried thinking that maybe her night feed was not necessary anymore (everibody keep sayig that at this stage she should be sleeping through!!!! ) and it was this what was affecting her morning BMF.

I am pretty happy with everything that is going on at the moment. She seems to really enjoy eating and it is nice to see her feeding in a different way that it's not just BM. I will just relax and see what happens.

Thank you again

"everibody keep sayig that at this stage she should be sleeping through!!!!"

That sounds very familiar! I find this piece of 'advice' from well meaning people particularly annoying! Although I must admit I am slightly envious of a friend, who just puts her DD in he cot (no feeding) and she quietly coos and gurgles herself to sleep for 12 hours, DS is just not like that!

MIL kept asking why I didn't just cuddle DS to sleep, then she tried herself, and said "oh, it doesn't work with him does it." (Um, no, that's what I've been saying!)

I must say though I think DS does drink less at night if he's had a decent amount of water in the day. We started introducing water when we introduced solids. It took a while to find a beaker he could get on with (and we used a bottle sometimes) and we then let him choose how much he has.

I am going back to work soon, and I have been wondering about how that's going to work with DS waking me up though. We are going to try to do some sleep training at night, roughly based on the methods advocated by Jay Gordon

The basic principles that appealed to me are

1. You don't even consider trying before a year old, and then only when it's right for your family
2. You don't stop feeding to sleep (I intend to feed DS for a while yet, and don't see any reason to change this) instead you try to teach your DC to get themselves back to sleep, for the majority of the night.

The older DS gets, the more I feel external pressure from ignorant people to 'give up' BFing, as if it's something wrong or indulgent we are doing. (He is a baby FFS! And the WHO guidelines are to feed to 2 years!) In many other cultures you get praise for feeding your DCs.

At 6 months, they are still so little, if they need BFing at night, and you are happy to, then why on earth shouldn't you? You are doing a good thing for your DD.

Sorry for the rant, you touched a nerve I think!

I stated a thread when DS was 6 months AIBU to have no interest in teaching my DS to self settle? which has some stuff on it that might interest you.

HTH

Mareta - the only thing I'd add is that if you do try and reduce the night feed, the morning feed should increase to compensate. I'd think about doing that as, whilst you're happy to let baby take the lead and I agree, you don't want the morning feed to be dropped in favour of the 3am feed.
Why not try lessening the amount at night slowly and see if that increases the morning one?