My DD is 5months old and since 5 days old has been EBF with feeds at 3 hourly intervals and a dream feed at night. I was told to feed her every three hours(minimum) because she was slow to put on weight, as a result she has very rarely demanded food - she has always got it earlier than required iyswim. I use nipple shields which have not given me a supply problem - I am able to express around 7-8oz of milk during two expressing sessions a day (3 per session). She has slept through from a dream feed at 11ish until 7am (sometimes a bit earlier) since about 12 weeks. She has always napped for an hour in the morning and a little bit in the afternoon. Her feeds always took 20-30mins.
Over the past couple of weeks the feeding has changed. First of all we tried to drop the dream feed, which was really successful and she slept through from 7:30 until 7. I was paranoid about her not getting enough milk over the 24 hours so most days was feeding her about 2 hourly with one of the afternoon feeds normally being a 4oz bottle of EBM (used Kellymom to judge the amount needed). We have tried baby rice and she is now having a very small portion of fruit puree at lunchtime - 90mins after a feed and 90mins before the next.
Suddenly a couple of days ago, she started being really fussy during feeds and coming off after only a few minutes. She is now waking for her dream feed again (which is not a problem at all) and then sleeping through the night. During the day her nap has lengthened to 90minutes in the morning. The only two feeds that I feel she is eating well during are the 7ish and (now) 10:30am feed. All afternoon she fusses. She is now also accepting the breast without shields (which is great). She is therefore only really getting 5 feeds during the day 7,10:30, 1:30, 4:30 and bedtime and some of those are really brief and fussy now.
She is alert, happy and has just begun to roll. She coped really well with the hot weather this summer, so I don't think the change is down to that.
I am worried that she is not getting enough milk and might start to lose weight again. Please could someone let me know what they think, I am really confused. Just when I think I have cracked it things change again!