18wk old feeding in the night rather than day

[hermykne]

hi
my breast feed 18wk old seems to eat very little during the day, even refusing her lunch time feed, and then wakes 2 hourly in the night for feding. she has started solids (pear,carrot,rice,apple). She doesnt sleep very mcuch in the day perhaps 3 hours max, between 7/8 am to 8/9pm. and the wakes at 1 / 3/ 5 / 7 or 2/4/6 and is up for the day!!
how can i get her to eat more in the day? she fusses. She is on two formula bottles a day (afternoon and last thing at night) but she still might only take 4oz out of them. she was 9lb 3 at birth and is now close to 15lb.

Could she be eating too much solid food during the day? Babies need most of their nutrition from milk at this age and she'll probably be trying to 'catch up' with her milk drinking if she's filling up on fruit/veg?

How much does she drink when she wakes at night?

she has one ice cube size of carrot or pear with a teaspoon of rice mixed with cooled boiled water.
and she would eat more.
i try to give her her milk and then the solids and back to the milk but she refuses to finish the bottle or breat after the solids.

in the night she might take an oz at a time if i give her the bottle and from me its not much as she latches on for 4/5 minutes or so. one night she did take 5oz (about 3 nights ago) butgenerally its a sml amount.
i am aware that it could be comfort sucking but i have tried just soothing her to sleep and she starts to cry then.

Hermkkne,

A friend of mine's baby never fed longer that 5 mins from the breast at a time. Your baby is probably getting more breastmilk than you think. Personally I would stop the formula, give her breast before solids ( or stop them too). Offer her 3 hourly breastfeeds during the day at least so that you are increasing her milk intake so that she will need less feeds during the night. I think she is getting confused about what she should be eating. At 18 weeks her main food should be milk. HTH.

mears
thanks for that , will certainly drop the formula & solids. have plenty of milk frozen for her to have in the bottle!

Remember it will take her a good few days to adust. Let us know how you get on.

well one wk later and shes much improved.
she is sleeping much better, and feeding just once at 3/4am but it takes awhile to settle her back down. she is up practically most of the day and ready for bed at 7.30/8pm, which is great.
has a little pureed pear now, took out the rice and reduced the formula. Decided to use the stash of breast milk frozen in her night bottle, reluctant to use it!! wanted to keep it for when she is totally bottle fed as a treat.
so off to the cinema tonight!

Glad to hear she has improved. Out of interest - why are you planning to totally bottle feed her?
Hope you enjoyed the film by the way

hi mears
catch me if you can was great and a welcome escape, meet a friend there who also has a little girl 4 wks younger than mine, so we were all escaping for a night.
i am feeding her three times a day myself at the moment and hoping to go down to twice by the end of this month and then a morning and evening feed for march and maybe weaned by april.or if the bust decreases to a reasonable size(!!) maybe keep a morning feed for another little while.