Growth spurt at 10 days?

[CharBell]

Midwife said he may be hitting a growth spurt. He seems hungry all the time and dp is worried that I am going to teach him to be a 'snack feeder' if I feed to often. He used to feed every 4 hours. What is 'normal' during a growth spurt??

my baby is 18 days old and sounds the same as yours. I've noticed she seemed to grow out of her "newborn" vests almost overnight. She will take a good feed and wake for another one (or maybe a snack of 1 oz) an hour and a half later. She gets so angry waiting for the bottle to warm up, gulps at the milk like she's never been fed, gets full of wind and falls asleep.

I hope this is a phase, because she reminds me of "stripe" from the film "gremlins" recently. She even rolls her eyes in the same fashion.

Reminds me a bit of her seeming to have growth spurts while I was pregnant. I remember periods of the pregnancy where I was ravenously hungry every two hours. I used to refer to her as "the food theif". Maybe it's a similar thing?

I do know how to spell "thief" really

Are you breast or bottlefeeding?

It's totally normal for a usually settled baby to feed seemingly all day during a growth spurt. Don't worry about teaching him to be a snacker!

Feeding only every four hours, particularly during the day, isn't very often at all, especially if your DS is breastfed.

And feeding little and often isn't a problem, as long as they don't do it at night - DS2, at nearly 10 months, will feed every couple of hours in the day, but doesn't feed at all at night now.

CharBell....your baby is normal. I would be concerned about a baby of 10 days who stuck to a 4 hourly feeding routine. For most babies of this age, it would not be enough, and it would not be enough to establish and maintain a good milk supply. He hasn't been on this earth long enough to have 'used to' pattern - every day is different at this age and it's biology, not something you can control with 'teaching' him something different.

Just go with the flow. If he appears to be snacking, this is what his body needs - heavens, he is only 10 days old, cut him some slack Less than two weeks ago he was inside you, and he was probably snacking like crazy!!

At 10 days old you simply can't "teach him" anything, his brain hasn't got around to forging those connections yet and won't for several weeks. He's way too busy growing in size. So do whatever he wants safe in the knowledge that you can't possibly set up a bad habit.

midwife just confirmed what I knew!

baby has gone from birthweight of 8lb 15oz to 9lb 8oz after dropping to 8lb 9oz. Little tumper!