Feeding - confused.

[LadySnapcase]

I'm just wondering if this is 'normal'! Well, normal for babies

DS is 7 weeks and formula fed (SMA comfort milk if it makes any difference). During the day he is going about 2 - 2.5 hours between feeds at best. We give him a top-up feed at 10.30pm before we all go to bed, then he wakes at around 1/1.30am, then will go till about 4.30/5am, then usually wakes again about 6.30am. After this we seem to feed hourly until about 10am I give him a dummy, which sometimes settles him for another 20 mins or so, but not longer. He usually takes 1-3oz per feed, despite offering more, although sometimes he'll take 4oz. He seems to struggle on the bottle, lots of grunting and straining which he tries to feed through, but does end up spluttering and dribbling a lot. We try to get his wind up regularly, and infacol has helped, but he still doesn't get much up easily. We are using gaviscon as we thought he might have silent reflux, not sure about it but does seem to get worse if we miss it, but that could be us seeing a placebo effect as he's generally a chewy baby anyway!

Guess I'm just wondering if there's anything I could try to get him to take fewer, bigger feeds? It's a nightmare trying to plan anything as feeding him out and about is pretty stressful. Or do we just need to ride it out until he starts taking more naturally..?

Should say, his weight gain is fine, in fact he gained 22oz in ten days last week!

Thanks withalittlesparkle. We're still using the first size teats, might give the next size up a try! We do use a dummy, sometimes it will help him go a bit longer but not always. Last night he had 4oz then went from 10.30 to 2.45, so that was nice, but not holding my breath for the same again tonight!

has he been checked for tongue tie...?

my lo was like this a couple of weeks ago and he did just eventually get over it. when I made up bottles I vigorously shuck them (following instructions on my perfect prep machine) so they were quite frothy. hv suggested stirring with a sterilised plastic spoon to reduce the bubbles and that did seem to make him lesd fussy during feeds.

we put it down to a growth spurt couple d with us shaking the bottles too much. but he did eventually calm down on the number of feeds and during the feeds. hope that helps

minipie I asked about tongue tie after he wouldn't latch when I tried to bf, but the two midwives I mentioned it to didn't seem to think he had one. Not entirely convinced but don't know what to look for myself?

NinaGE will try the stirring thing, can't hurt! Otherwise opefully he'll grow out of it soon too

Literally just gone through this with my 13wk old DS! I could've written your post! We went up a teat size and he's fine again now

DD fed two hourly during the day till she was about 9 or 10 months old it was just her way she always had a bottle on the go and pretty much just snacked all day! Weaning helped

Right, will definitely try the bigger teats then

Sparkles 9 or 10 months, eek! Though I'm still more of a snacker myself, so suppose it's not a surprise if DS is too...

No I don't know what to look for either... DD's was diagnosed by a lactation consultant... not v helpful sorry!

To be honest we got used to always having a bottle on the go, we made bottles up using a mix of hot and cold water so it was quite quick.

Once she went on to size 3 teats it helped but that also coincided with weaning and her dropping down to only 3 feeds a day. Now she has 3 bottles/ cups a day but will drink juice as much as possible so I guess she is just thirsty!
She also suffered with reflux so it was actually better for her to drink little but often, it gets easier