FF 3 month old unable to go more than 4 hours between feeds at night - normal??

[BotBotticelli]

Ds2 is 3 months old today.

He is still feeding very frequently at night (for a FF baby, I know Some BF babies feed more than this).

He has 7oz bottles at:

7pm
10pm ("dream feed" although he often wakes and cries for it)
2/2.30am - wakes and cries for it
8am
12 noon
4pm

My first baby (also FF) had dropped the middle of the night feed by 10 weeks so I this is all new to me!

It's annoying that he can clearly go for 6 hours without a bottle (he has his 2am feed and then is not bothered until 8am, despite being unsettled and windy from 5am - goes back to sleep if we co-sleep - and then up for the day around 0630).

I would rather he didn't feed at 2am (obvs!) and actually woke up hungry at 6am!

Is there anything I can do to encourage him to change his feed pattern towards this??

The 2am feed is not a nutritional need if the daytime feeds are being structured.

Ok, i'll try and break this down as simply as possible.

The baby currently requires 6x 7oz feeds over a 24 hour period (7am,11am,2/3pm,7pm, 10/11pm,2/3am)
this is a total milk requirement of 42oz per day.
You have suggested that the baby's needs can be met during the day and the 2am feed eliminated.
This means cutting 7oz from the night time and fitting those 7oz in during the daytime. If you dont fit them in during the day then you are only providing 36oz of milk over the 24 hour period and this baby requires 42oz.
So, where, during the day, are you suggesting those ounces are fitted in?

Because she threw it into the ring to add substance to her inference that I am labelling her as being mentally unwell in the literal sense. I am not. I clearly expressed that she sounded mad with her troll accusation and profanities and aggression.

The baby does not require 42oz.

Today 01:28 ConsciousPilot

The baby does not require 42oz.

You are suggesting OP is forcing the 2am feed into her baby? Of course he requires it. If he didnt require it he wouldnt be waking for it. What is you think wakes him? It is the hunger pains in his belly. He doesnt set an alarm for the sake of it!

Hi OP

My ds is 4 months and mix fed, but mostly formula. Your feeding routine seems entirely normal.

My ds takes 5-7oz bottles at (roughly) these times and I'm very happy with the routine we seemed to have developed:
7am
10.30am
2pm
5pm
7pm
3/4am

We tried the dreamfeed at 10/11pm but it didn't seem to stop him waking in the night and downing 6oz, so now we don't bother with that. At 12 weeks he definitely took smaller bottles more often though. Every 2 - 3 hours. We've only dropped to one night feed in the last few weeks. you could possibly try and offer feeds every 3 hours during the day to get in more calories so he takes less at night? I find if ds has a day where he eats poorly then he wakes twice at night

Now you're just being ridiculous. How do you know the baby doesn't need 42oz of milk. Do you know what it weighs, or its appetite

You overstepped the mark with that Conscious

PND is horrible. No sane person just throws it in to "win" an -internet-- argument.

BTW swearing is acceptable on Mnet.

OP hope you get a long stretch tonight.
Nite all.

The idea with the structured feeds is that the late (or dream feed) of 7oz at 10.30/11pm will satiate the baby until nearer 6/7am. Of course, a baby who refuses the dream feed (or eats poorly due to sleepiness) will probably wake at 3/4am looking for food. No-one is advocating ignoring the needs of a baby here. The success (or otherwise) of the dream feed will depend on how well baby fed at 6-7pm and how easily he settled to sleep at 7pm. Eg. if baby a slept poorly from 7pm he may be too sleepy to feed well at 11pm. This will cause a knock-on effect whereby he seeks food at 2/3am. How well a baby sleeps at night will always depend entirely on how he has fed and napped during the day.

How well a baby sleeps at night will always depend entirely on how he has fed and napped during the day.

Really? Always depend entirely?

There you go parents, no other reason for your baby waking during the night than you not structuring him properly during the day. Thats all there is to it. Where did you do your research for your PhD in infant sleep behaviour Dr. Conscious?

Excepting illness/teething of course. Babies love to sleep

am doing some writing in between mumsnetting

What are you writing? A book called 'The Little Book of Nazi Baby Feeding'?

Does that posting style of yours mirror your RL personality, Cruikshank? I'm asking quite seriously. Do you post in that manner across the boards?

Sorry I'm probably not the best person to give advice as I never "trained" my DC as such. They were all fully ff by 3 months and all were very different. DD1 slept through from 9 weeks - 7 to 7.

DS was definitely sleeping "through" by around 5/6 months but he woke at 5am every morning until he was 3 years old!!

DD2 is still unsettled at night now sometimes at age 2.5 but I am happy to take that over DS's early morning wakes - she never wakes before 6 and usually more likely to be 6.30. She was feeding in the night once - around 1-2 am probably until she was 18 months old and still sometimes beyond that.

OP your baby sounds totally fine.

Some truly dangerous advice on this thread, my oldest took 8oz bottles from early on and fed well throughout the day. She also woke at night and took another 8oz bottle, it wasn't habit it's hunger in a baby that age. I'm an anxious person by nature so love routine but the needs of the baby come first if I'd only given her 2oz in the night, she would of let us know all about it.

12 weeks is still tiny conscious

Glad focus mentioned GF because that's what you sound like.

All babies are different, they are not programmable robots.

You're doing great OP, hang in there and sleep will come

I love that Conscious is peddling this as her advice when it is straight out of Gina Ford's book.
Incidentally a GP friend of mine told me that she sees a strong correlation newest women trying to follow Gina Ford and PND. Because they don't understand why their babies don't do what GF says they should be doing. Why they keep waking for a night feed when she says they shouldn't be, for example.

That does sound like gf, i did it with both mine one ff one bf and it did work. Interestedly I nannied for ten years before I had kids. (pre gf book coming out) Looking back all the children I looked after did a very similar thing with feeds and sleeping. I was never a slave to it. I found the book gave me the confidence to go out and do thing without worrying that I had enough milk with me.

It is not the only way to feed a baby it is one way that works for lots of babies and mums but not ALL. The good thing about mumsnet is you can get lots of ideas of things you could try. It is upto the mum which ones if any to try at the end of the day she is the only one that knows her baby.

Of course the routine I mention is Gina Ford. I never alluded to it being devised by me.

Conscious the "advice" that you have given on here is at best misguided and at worst dangerous. You are making the mistake of assuming that all babies are the same.
At 12 weeks most babies are still tiny. DD weighed about 10 lb at that age. Her little stomach was too small to have enough milk to sustain her through the night.

Your feeding regime - and I say regime rather than pattern because that is how it comes across to me, worked for you. But it doesn't work for everyone. Please remember this and stop making other mums on here feel bad about their parenting.

Wow. The op asked for advise and everyone is derailing it going back to one poster.

Funnily enough the few mums l know that suffered pnd, myself included, were all bf on demand. Sometimes a little routine helps and that's what the OP is aiming for.

She is not going to starve her dc, just let her read other people's experience and make up her own mind!

It is amaznng to me how much vitriol can be spewed at one person offering advice stemming from GF. I agree with the pp who talks about demand-feeding often leading to a depressed mum. I've seen it and it's bloody awful; in the worst cases the sleep deprivation caused by a toddler still feeding two-hourly can be catastrophic for a relationship.

Still, the OP will do what is best for her - as I did for me - but she should know that none of the advice relating to GF is 'dangerous'. What an absurd notion: a world best-seller being dangerous!

Good luck, OP

Oh, and Bunbaker, this routine should never be implemented until a baby has regained its birth weight and is above 7lbs. By 12 weeks the GF routine is then beautifully established