Hello,

My 9 week old son is driving me crazy! We have been doing a wake, feed, sleep routine but it seems to have resulted in a baby that just wants to snack all the time(only around 100mls or so) Ie when he wakes up he then really wants food even if its only been a short hour - hour and a half nap. Since he sometimes falls immediately asleep after a feed the time between feeds is now so short, only 2 hours or so.

We attempt to settle him when he wakes but the screaming justs keeps escalating, yet once we give him food he immediately calms and falls asleep. I don't think its just that he is over tired as he sleeps well, around 1 1/2 - 2 hours but doesn't seem to be able to wake happily without having food.

Occasionally when he sleeps longer and its been 4 hours between feeds he will have a good amount 160 - 180mls but we don't seem to be able to get him to this long. It seems the only way to do this is to let him scream for 2 hours once he wakes until the time is reached and this just seems cruel.

Has anyone else had this experience? Any ideas greatly appreciated! This is driving me nuts!

Megan

Hi,

I also follow a feed/play/sleep model. I can't claim to be an expert, but I can add a few thoughts for you to consider. It sounds like your DS is sleeping well, so that's fantastic. I wonder if perhaps you need to extend his awake/play time. My DS is only a few weeks older so it is not long ago that he could only manage to stay awake for 1 hour max, including feed time. And yes, he woke screaming for food. I would always feed him immediately (he is a quick feeder so that would take about 10 mins)and then spend the next 50 mins trying to entertain him and keep him from grizzling. I would watch for tired signs and put him in bed when I saw them (usually about 1 hour awake time in total). Then I would aim for him to sleep for about 1.5-2hrs. Sometimes the gaps between feeds were 2.5 hrs - sometimes 3.5, I tried to use the routine as a guide of what I should do. Anyway, if your DS falls asleep during feeds, try waking him up for some 'play' time before you put him back down. I sometimes changed a nappy to wake DS up, or undressed him a little during the feed to keep him alert. Playtime for us included lying under the gymini, some tummy time, walking him around the garden, under a mobile, sing to him etc. You can also top and tail him to add to the nappy change time. If he is really struggling to stay awake, then 1 hour would be too long. Perhaps try to push things out in small increments, eg. 10mins more after each feed.

HTH.

Just a thought but your baby might not be wanting a feed but extra suckling time. Have you tried a dummy? Your baby might just want to suck not actually feed.

RIC

Thanks both for your advice. We did try a dummy but our boy just keeps spitting it out and looking at us like 'what are you kidding, this isn't food' - its very cute but not the result we were after!

I've come to realise though that if bubs is happy and growing well, then I should be happy with that. He is thriving so I've decided not to care should he want to eat often.

Could be that he's going through a growth spurt? Whenever I got to the end of a period where my bub was snacking and sleeping irregularly I noticed that he'd grown (he's now nearly 5 months). He then went back to eating/sleeping more normally after a few days - a week.

I'm breastfeeding so I'm not sure if it's the same but I've never been able to get my DS to go longer than 3.5 hours between feeds. I try to look at it from their perspective and say I wouldn't be happy either if I wasn't allowed a small snack between feeds too if I was hungry before main course - why should bubs be any different?

Caroline