v heavy hungry baby 12 weeks can you advise?

[dycey]

Hello - I am hoping someone has had or heard of a similar experience and can advise me. My baby boy is 12 weeks old and on the 91st / 98th centile - he is 7.5 kilos.... and has been entirely breastfed. A happy lad. He always slept very soundly and I was thrilled that he could sleep long stretches relatively young...

Recently his first stretch of sleep is shorter - about 5/6 hours - and from 1am he wakes every 2 hours and never goes into a sound sleep again. It is hard to settle him in the early hours (2am 3am etc) I am up every hour or 2 hours from midnight and utterly shattered. Is he hungry? Should I feed him each time he wakes? I have used a dummy but he wakes after a while.

During the day he will go to 4 hours between feeds.

Would a bottle of formula last thing at night be a bad idea? When can I start him on solids? Where do you think I can get advice?

PLEASE ADVISE... he is my first baby and I am absolutely knackered......

i would feed him each time he wakes, his heaviness or position on the centiles does not mean he is not hungry in the night, his stomach is still small and needs regular filling, day and night

if he does not settle with a dummy etc he is more likely to be hungry.

solids absolutely not at this age. and he seems to be thriving on your breastmilk, so i would feed more rather than a bottle of formula, one bottle won't make him sleep any longer

If he has a good long stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night, go to bed when he does (if you want some evening to yourself, do it every other night) as the long stretch will make such a difference to you!

He might well be going through a growth spurt at this point, and might well settle for longer if you feed him. If not, its often the quickest way to get them back to sleep

He's absolutely too young for solids - you should be looking to start them around 26 weeks.

I know lots of people who have offered a bottle (EBM or formula) at bedtime, and none of them have found it makes a difference at all.

My ds was big like that. He would feed and feed as well, in fact he didn't know when to stop! If you put him on a bottle he will be more likely to have wind which is a bigger pain and you'll have all the sterilising etc.

try offering more breastfeeds in the day.

sounds just like ds1, and completely normal. His very hungry times will come and go, he might be heading into another growth spurt?

Also, if he is hungry you could try offering every 3 hours instead, to tank him up a bit during the day - or offer feeds an hour or so apart before bed.

Never worked for me, but then my DS fed much more frequently until he was much older!

sounds a lot like my ds. except the 4hrs between feeds during the day part. we didn't get to that til he was about 6m, iirc (memory for that year v faulty!!)

thank you all for your replies- v comforting! Sure I should change my expectations - one of the surprises has been the change as he did these wonderful long stretches (6 hours at 6 weeks and then the glory of 9 hours at 9 weeks)....

Also he does not fall soundly asleep after feeding any longer.

But I will feed him when he wakes each time tonight and try bringing him into bed. (no husband at home at the mo so there's space).

He is JUST starting day sleeps of more than 45 minutes.

What do you think of me moving his bedtime later? I had been aiming for 7-8 ish.

Thanks to you all

My advice to you is. This baby is now 12 weeks old. I started giving baby rice at 16 weeks. Come off the boob, not necessary and give him formula, its richer and thicker. Ignore the breast is best brigade and think of what best for your baby boy. He is hunrey and because of his age needs more. At least with the bottle you know where you are and how much he is getting. Forget the boob.

dons hard hat

luvoneson, you're really an ignorant troll aren't you?

Oh dear, luvoneson, I don't think you'll get much back up around here for your advice!

It's not so much the quantity of trolls one objects to, as the quality these days.

OP your baby is normal They don't follow a magic sleep trajectory where it gets better and better every week/month (unfortunately!). Sometimes they will go backwards and it is hard when you think you have cracked it, but formula and early weaning are hardly ever the answer to anything.

Dear SoupDragon and Mrsbabookaloo, I think you are totally wrong to call me ignorant when you do not know me at all. I have a lovely healthy son. I breast fed him successfully for two weeks and he was hungry so I put him on the bottle. What is wrong with that. I do not call that ignorant I call that common sense. Why have a crying hungry baby when you dont have too. I think you lot must be a real type 'leftie veggies' by the sound of it.

You are ignorant because the "advice" you give is contrary to all advice given by people who are qualified to give it. Quite frankly, you are touting b*llocks, especially when you claim there is no need to breastfeed.

It is entirely possible to breastfeed a 91st percentile baby without weaning early or having a crying hungry baby.

I'm not a leftie veggie but you are an ignorant troll.

Not wishing to be overly pedantic, but I didn't call you ignorant, just warned you that many people on here would not share your opinion.

There is nothing wrong with your choices, but I don't think it was the sort of advice the OP was looking for.

Point taken Mrsbabookaloo thank you.
Soupdragon pls be polite and do not call me ignorant troll. Pls note my midwife told me that she 'had' to tell mothers to breast feed because of government recommendations. She told me she was not in agreement with it herself and if I wanted to put my son on formula that was fine. Also it was my health visitor and the weigh-in group who recommended I offer my son baby rice a sixteen weeks. 'that was eight years ago'.

ok, sidestepping the troll debate...i had a very similar ds. you may find this is a growth spurt and after a week or two of guzzling you go back to previous patterns. or you may find now he's 12 weeks and more alert, and realises you are there for the taking in the middle of the night, that some of it is waking for comfort/attention etc. three months is still pretty little to settle into a routine and lots of things chop and change so i'd see you how you go for a week or two and just keep going as you bf'ing on demand.
but if it continues after that it may be that you have a sleep issue rather than a food issue (if you feed him to sleep every time, ie he falls asleep on the boob, he may ask for food whenever he wakes up because that's how he knows to get back to sleep). in which case you might think about trying to separate the two (putting him down when sleepy but not totally zonked after feeding).
i wouldn't start solids - as everyone has said it's too early (and as someone who started ds on solids at 5mo because he was huge and seemed hungry and had recently started waking up after sleeping through, it made not a whit of difference to the sleeping - turned out it was a sleep issue not a food issue, they're very easy to confuse)

formula is not richer and thicker, it is actually a tiny bit less calorific than formula

also baby rice for a 12 week old: current advice and the advice for the last 2 -3 years has been no food other than milk for at least the first 17 weeks and then weaning should begin around 26 weeks, when the baby is showing signs of being physically ready for food

being hungry and heavy at 12 weeks is not a sign

the OPs baby has clearly thrived and gained weight fantastically on breast milk

filling his stomach with baby rice which is not as calorific or safe to give is nonesense

the MW should not be saying formula is better than breast milk, or even the same as. it isn't

and i formula fed boith my babies, so no breastfeeding agenda from me

nor am i a leftie vegetarian, just in possession of a few more facts about feeding a baby safely.

baby rice is not safe or suitable for a 12 week old

what might hvae been deemed safe 8 /10/ 15/ 20 years ago has no bearing really on what is deemed safe now by the WHO, NHS and DoH.

current guidelines are current because they reflect the research that has been done and are up to date

pmsl

Lulumama, I was advised by midwife 8 years ago to start weaning at 16 weeks not 12.

You quote what was deemed safe 8/15/20 years ago has no bearing on the safety of feeding today. Are the babies that were fed then unhealtheir than the babies of today. No. The only reason the age of weaning keeps changing is because these government do-gooders have nothing useful to do than invent a job of interferring. What is is with you women. Listening to you lot I feel sorry for your poor husbands, If they are not having affairs already they will be soon.