staying awake for night time bottles... ideas needed

[lola88]

DS 14 weeks has started sleeping so well at night he falls asleep after 5oz of his 7oz bottle and goes straight back down sounds great but he's up an hour or 2 later looking for the other 2oz then an hour or 2 after that for his normal bottle. So he has a bottle at 1ish the rest at 3ish and another bottle at 5ish then the rest at 7 then back to sleep til 8.

I can not seem to keep him awake to take this extra 2oz at all i change his nappy after about 3oz when he starts falling asleep but another 2oz and he's crashed out. Can anyone suggest how to keep him awake enough to eat without actually waking him and being up for hours? I know it's a good problem to have but it's sooo annoying me lol

Could you give a bit less in the feed before 1am? He may then wake a bit hungrier and possibly a bit earlier than 1, and be able to stay asleep for longer afterwards because his tummy is fuller iyswim.

no :( if he doesn't get his 7oz he just crys for it

i think you should just follow his lead.

one of the reason that bottle-fed babies are more likely to obese later in life is because of attempts to make them finish bottles, which ends up over-riding their natural ability to tell when they are full and stop eating
if you feed on demand he will take what he needs when he needs... it's a good thing! (annoying for parents though )

he's doing exactly what a breastfed baby would do, eating little and often.. and that's how it should be for a small baby like that.

so i would put up with it. it won't go on forever

I found, aswell, that my DD if she needed the milk there and then, would drink asleep and be winded asleep.

If he is stopping drinking, he is full. Yes, unfortunatley that means he wakes two hours later, but if he is stopping drinking it means he is full.

It could very well be a phase or a spurt, or something. I know it is hard, but battle through.

That sounds normal to me. 14 weeks is very little!

That's normal for such a small baby I would have thought?? I had broken nights til my youngest was 16 months old. 14 weeks is nothing, honestly!!

You just need to follow your baby's lead, as others have pointed out. You cannot force them to guzzle a lot of milk in one sitting at this stage. They only take what they need and then stop, sleep a few hours, then wake for more...

thank you, he does take the whole 7oz if he's a bit less sleepy but then it takes longer to get him back down. I'd rather get up for the exta 10 mins a couple of times than waking him to much and taking an hour to get back to sleep.