Growth spurt or something else? Advice or thoughts please..

[flowergirl]

Up until now I have been successfully breast feeding Kathryn. She has been gaining weight quite slowly but she has been gaining or maintaining each fortnight. However, this week she has begun waking up again at night a LOT. She had been sleeping from 7:30pm until 4:30am, feeding and then sleeping until about 6:30am or 7am. Her new routine is to go to bad at 7:30pm and then wake for a feed at 11pm, 1am, 3am, 5am and 7am. I think she MUST be having a growth spurt to have changed routine so drastically and so quickly. Any one else expreienced a similar thing and if so, how long can I expect it to go on for? Any advice to offer?

Needless to say, I'm tired due to extra night feeding but feel ok- she feeds well at these times. It's during the day I feel more upset about as it is the day time feeds I'm having a problem with. She has always been a slow but steady feeder- staying on the breast for 15 mins to half an hour at a time. I don't think my let down is particularly strong or fast so I think she has to be quite patient. In recent days she has stopped feedig well and will stay on one breast for around 7 minutes before screaming and creating and then refusing that breast. I can swap her onto the other breast and she is then fine for another 6 or so minutes and then she is back to screaming. I wind her and the whole time she is sucking her fist and seems hungry still but she will not go back on the breast. Any advice or experience of a similar thing? Could she be distracted during the daytime feeds? I usually have the TV on...could this suddenly have become a problem at 14 weeks?

 

[loz]

Hi - it sounds like it could be a growth spurt, Emms seems to be doing a similar thing. She is wanting feeding about every 1 1/2 hrs during the day and twice a night, whereas a couple of weeks ago, she was feeding every 2 1/2 - 3 hrs in the day and once in the night (I count night from 11pm - 6am).

Emms is constantly putting her fist in her mouth and seems to want feeding a lot but thrashes around and screams when I offer her the boobie sometimes and this really stresses me out. I think she is actually quite tired a lot of the time. not really needing feeding. If I persevere, she often falls asleep and then feeds ok when she wakes up.

I phoned the BF NHS helpline yesterday and they said that sometimes babies have phases that they grow out of and you just have to put up with it. They advised to try expressing some bottles, feed in a different place to normal, feed as soon as they wake from a sleep, try different positions, offer both breasts in case the baby will take one boob but not the other.

I think also consider what you have been eating - has it been spicy or garlicky? This can put babies off feeding. Also could the baby have thrush? This might make feeding painful?

The BF advisor said that if the baby can feed well sometimes during the day, it cant mean anything is wrong with what you are doing.

Hope this helps

We are trying to cope as well - 7pm -11pm is damage control at the moment and trying to survive!!!

 

[charlie84]

Hiya hun

Yep Calleigh was sleeping through the night until last night, she woke at 2am and 4am, had a little feed and went back to bed. Probably a growth spurt.
She has had an icky tummy and not feeding too well lately so she is making up for it.

 

[flowergirl]

Thanks for the replies- I had wondered about the possibility of her being distracted during a feed so today I have fed her in her nursery, or in a room on our own with no TV or radio on. It seems to have worked as I've had two 35 minute feeds from her which is reassuring after her poor feeding yesterday. Problem is, today she's hardly slept! If it's not one thing it's another!

 

[Sage]

yeh from 4 months up until now ky slept from half 7 to 6am every night the last 2 weeks hes been waking and screaming for a bottle. if on the rare occassion before hand he did wake all i had to do was put his dummy back in and he'd go back to sleep but now he screams until hes had a 8oz bottle. (i gave him 6 the other night and he screamed until he'd had more). great fun getting back up in the middle of the night again isnt it Im putting it down to a growth spurt as hes eating like a horse in the day to.

 

[flowergirl]

Isn't it funny how quickly we can readjust to 'normal' amounts of sleep? Kathryn slept well last night - she managed an 8 hour stretch before waking for a feed and then went back to sleep for another couple of hours before needing another feed. I felt brand new this morning!