How to get DS to feed more during the day?

[MissObsessed]

My DS is almost 5 months and we've been following the EASY routine. He is always fed when he wakes and I rock him to sleep with a dummy (may be making a rod for my own back here....)

All has been going well the last few weeks, separating his feeding and sleeping has helped me recognise when he is hungry or tired and at first meant that his milk consumption went up (he is FF) This meant that he was only waking once in the night for milk as he was having most of his milk during the day.

The last few days have been a different story however. For some reason one day he didn't seem too hungry and fed a lot less. I put this down to teething and didn't think too much of it. The problem was he then woke up twice in the night (at around 2am and 5.30am) and took 10oz in total. This then meant at 7am wake up he wasn't very hungry and took only 2oz. He continued this all day but woke twice in the night again!! And took another 10oz!

We have now got ourselves in a pattern of only taking 1-2oz every 2 hours or less and then feeding lots overnight. How can I break this cycle? He sleeps in good chunks overnight, sometimes doing a 5 hour stretch initially but is so hungry when he wakes. I always try to resettle before feeding, should I just attempt to stretch him further so that when morning comes he is actually hungry?

I've tried offering milk more often during the day but I offer at least every 2 hours anyway and I cannot get him to drink more, he pushes the teat out with his tongue and turns his head.

Any tips would be great!

What's his daytime naps like?

Mine stařed lengthening her naps at around 5 months. With longer and fewer sleeps in the day, routune naturally movesmoves away from EASY and feeds can be stretched if needed.

1-2oz every 2 hours is no good for anyone. My chunk of a child fed 2 hourly through to about 9 months, but these were full 6-8oz feeds every 2 hours.

1-2oz is not a full feed, so I would just stretch the time between. As mentioned, longer naps does this anyway. But if you have not yet moved away from short, frequent naps then you may bed need to adjust your EASY routine. Maybe EASAS would work better?

Daytime naps vary. Sometimes he does 35-45, sometimes an hour, sometimes 90 mins. He either naps while we're out, in the pram or on me, whatever seems to work at the time.

We were having 5oz feeds, which are full feeds for him, it's just with the more frequent night time feeding that we've moved to 2oz during the day but 5-7oz a time at night.

So would you try feeding every 3 hours instead? And like you say try EASAS?

Ive just noticed that this change has only been for a few days. I probably wouldn't change anything if that is the case. He might be poorly or teething and may well go back to normal once better.

Certainly give it a week or two. Just accept a couple of night feeds while he's a bit off-colour.

Then try to not feed in the night, resetting instead if possible. Or if you do feed, have less in the bottle to drink. Once he's back to normal, everything should settle back down.

I'll hold fire for a bit then before changing anything, he was taking 36-40oz over 24 hours with one night feed until around Thursday and now it's dropped to around 25oz, with sometimes 10 of those at night.

I tried to resettle him this morning when he woke at 4.30am but by 5am it was obvious he was hungry. He then took 6oz and then wasn't hungry at 7am and still only took 2oz at 8am! Hopefully he'll sort himself out soon

I'd hold off the morning feed, if he isn't hungry. If he wants to wake up, have a play, have a nap and then feed at 9am or even 10am then do that. No point giving a feed when he isn't hungry and I would suggest if he only takes 2oz, he wasn't hungry.