Growth spurt or getting ready for solids?

[JumpingJellyfish]

DD2 is four months old (18wks), exclusively b'fed, although can take a bottle of EBM, which she does every other day (approx. 6oz once in morn, as sometimes I have to work).

Two weeks ago she started feeding far more frequently, including waking every 3 hrs (sometimes less) at night. A ha I thought, this is the 16 weeks growth spurt, and settled in for what I hoped would be just a few crazy days of frequent feeding. But she's still at it now, and feeding sometimes every hour during the day. She chews her hands constantly, seems very interested in me eating, and is making me wonder if she's hungry for solids rather than just b'milk. She was small at birth (5lb 10oz, born early due to PE at 37wks) but has managed to get onto the 25th centile (started at 0.4th) and maintained that. Do I start solids in case this "helps"? I am incredibly exhausted, have managed to get mastitis and cracked nipple on one side, and finding it hard to keep up with everything my older two children need. DH has mentioned one bottle of formula in the eve, but that is kind of a last resort...

I should really know what to expect, her being my 3rd DC, but I'm a bit stumped (and very tired). Thanks for any advice x

Has she got thrush, do you think? DD did this, albeit much earlier on. She would feed for 10 hours at a time and after a fortnight of it I finally discovered that we both had thrush. After treatment it all went back to normal.

I would hold off starting solids this early if you can possibly help it. They don't have the right enzymes to cope with solids properly at that age and early weaning can lead to problems with obesity etc later on. (www.kellymom.com has some useful information in this regard, including plenty of studies to back up the assertions.)

Ringing the NCT breastfeeding helpline really helped me and is what meant that we found out about the thrush.

Equally, if she's chewing her hands and so on then it's possible that she's teething and the breastmilk is soothing her gums.

I'm not a professional - but DS is 19 weeks, and I too had the same situation, and the same reaction. But it carried on and on to the point he was waking every hour at night for a fifteen to twenty minute feed. I mentioned it to the HV, and her reaction was pretty much, "Try him on solids - if he's not interested, he won't eat it." So I tried, and he loved it. He started sleeping better immediately. I then stopped the solids for two days to check it was those (iyswim) and again, he was waking up every hour. We're back to three feeds in 12 hrs during the night now.

They say 17 weeks at the very earliest (although I'm not sure if she was born early ) to start weaning. Maybe mention it to your HV?

That's just my experience, but whatever you decide to do I hope things work out - I sympathise greatly!

Hmmm, we had suspected thrush in the early days, and I've just finished antibiotics for the mastitis, so will maybe get checked. Can't see any visual signs of it yet though.
Agree re. teething, it really could be that. Sometimes she really gnaws at my nipples (which is pure agony). My otehr 2 DC didn't cut their first teeth until 13 months so I guess I wasn't anticipating that yet! Thanks

Sirboot- did you start weaning with purees or did you do BLW? I'd like to try the BLW approach, but she seems definitely too young for that as can't yet grip well enough to lift things into her mouth (though is trying very hard!)

Purees - though he would be quite happy to BLW as its a fight to keep the spoon to myself! He is grabbing and putting EVERYTHING in his mouth (quite accurately, as well, I might add), and has been for a while. So I might give it a shot later on.

I'm in the same boat! 19wk old ds starting to feed every hour in the night, the last 3 nights. it is draining me and i'm getting moody with ds1 (3yrs).
tried ds2 on mashed banana with rusk this morn and he seemed to like it! lets hope he'll sleep better tonight. i do feel guilty as he's not 6mths old but i'm sure ds1 had baby rice about this age...

My little girl (ebf) went crazy at 4 months for about 2 weeks, feeding and screaming constantly, she started waking in the night when she had previously slept through.

I really didn't want to be faffing with purees and didn't see how filling her tummy up with what we would class as diet food would help so we toughed it out and after that she went back to normal, took a couple of weeks for the sleeping to sort itself out.

Glad we waited now as with the wonderful hindsight it was clearly a growth spurt, so thanks to my lazyness we avoided early weaning.