Feeding FAQ: 3-4 months – Formula Feeding

My daughter of 3.5mths does not seem to take enough milk by day to prevent her from waking at night but is it hunger or habit?

I have problems with my daughter’s feeding and sleeping. The bottom line is that she’s not taking in enough milk in the day to ever go through the night (she takes anything between 25-29 oz). Some days she starts off well but then slowly takes less and other days, like today, she will start the morning at 7.15 a.m. and won’t take more than 1 and a half oz (having not had a feed since 11 p.m. last night at which time she took 5 oz). I know by 10.45 a.m. today she’ll be starving.

Last night the first time she woke was 2 a.m. – I leave her for a while but the more she moans the more she wakes herself up so I go to her, put her dummy back in and she goes off again. She wakes anything from 2, 3, 4, 5 times in the night and we just put the dummy back in and she goes back off. At first I worried that she was waking in the night through hunger but she’s putting on weight and due to the fact that she doesn’t take much milk at the 7.15 a.m. feed decided it was out of habit. But I’m desperate to try and find a solution because I know that my daughter has it in her to go through from 7 till 7 and I feel I’m obsessed with the amount of milk she drinks and unhappy (and a bit depressed) from getting up every night. I honestly feel like some days I don’t enjoy my daughter as much as I feel I should or want to.

She goes down at night at 7 p.m. every evening and we dream feed her at 11 p.m. We have been advised not to feed her at 11 p.m. seen as she doesn’t wake for that feed but we’ve tried that and find it mentally harder because we go to bed knowing that we’ll be up feeding her in the middle of the night.

For the 6.15 p.m. and 10.30/11 p.m. feeds I feed her Aptimel Extra (Hungry Baby milk) and I wonder if this bloats her out and puts her off her morning bottle but I’m worried that if I stop this she’ll wake up even more in the night?

Because my daughter only took 1 and a half oz this morning I just know that I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to make her take the full 7 oz bottle at every feed, knowing that if she doesn’t I’ll be up early and more times in the night.

She naps at 9 a.m. every morning but only for half an hour and when I get her up, let her have a kick about I find she gets tired again quickly and cries for her bottle at 10.45 a.m. (because she doesn’t have a good enough feed at 7.15 a.m.) – I try to hang her out but find I just pace the room counting down the minutes while my daughter gets more aggravated because she wants food. At lunch time she can easily nap for a couple of hours if I sit at home but most days I go out otherwise it’s a lonely life stuck at home with a baby so she has shorter naps. She can’t get through the afternoon from 2.15 until 7 p.m. without another sleep. Even if she has another half an hour sleep (no later than 5 p.m.) by 6.30 p.m. she’s crying with tiredness while I try to give her the bottle of formula. But it all seems such a vicious circle and I know she’s probably more tired in the day because she’s not sleeping so well at night.

I find myself analyzing and worrying over my parenting every single day when really all I want to do is enjoy our little girl and not feel like I’m forcing her to eat or sleep but deep down I know that if I just tweaked something then it might all fall in to place. Trouble is I just don’t know what else to try.

My daughter feeds at 7.30am 2.5ozs, 10.45am 5.5ozs, 2.30pm 6ozs, 6.30pm 7ozs and 11.30pm 6ozs. She weighs 13lbs.

My daughter naps at 9.30-10.15am, 12.15-2.15pm and 4-4.30pm.

An average daily amount of milk for a baby of this size would be around 33ozs. As your daughter does not take 6-7ozs feeds by day her milk intake is a little on the low side for her weight although if she is steadily gaining weight of between 6-8ozs a week, which may begin to slow down to around 5ozs at this age, then the amount of milk she takes by day is sufficient for her needs. It may help her be a little more settled if you could get her to take another few ounces by day. You can do this by splitting some feeds and moving the times of others.

As you have rightly observed, your daughter’s night time waking is probably not due to hunger but more likely to be associated with her growing dependence on her dummy. She seems to be now associating falling back to sleep at night with this. At her age her sleep cycles are beginning to change and she stirs when in a light sleep. She realizes that her dummy has fallen out so she wakes and cries, needing it to settle back to sleep. Take a look at the case study of Harry on page 82 of The Complete Sleep Guide which deals with dummy dependence and how to get rid of it. At this age your daughter’s memory is quite short and it should only take two or three days before she learns to settle herself without it.

To help your daughter feed better in the day let her wake fully before you feed her in the morning. A baby of this age is not as hungry as soon as she wakes as she was when she was younger. Let her have a kick and really wake up before giving her the feed. If she continues to have a small feed first thing in the morning then offer her a top up at 9am before she settles for her nap. Another 1-2ozs at this time will help increase her daily total and may help her to settle for 45 minutes.

If your daughter is not interested in taking a top up before her morning nap and is hungry well before 10.45am offer her this feed early. By giving her 3-4ozs when she shows that she is ready to be fed you can split this feed and offer her the second half of the feed at 11.15/11.30am. This will again give her a slightly bigger overall intake for this feed which will help her daily total.

Many babies need a short sleep in the afternoon. Let your daughter have a nap sometime after 4pm but make sure she is awake again by 5pm. Depending on how long she slept at lunchtime this nap may vary in length from one day to the next. If you find that your daughter is getting tired for her feed at 6.30pm go back to splitting the feed in the way you may have done when she was younger. Letting her have half of her feed at 5pm, followed by her bath at 5.45pm, then the second part of her feed at 6.15pm could help her cope better. If she needs to go down by 6.30/6.45pm then let her rather than trying to keep her up until 7pm. As she gets bigger she will be able to stay awake for longer periods of time without getting so tired and you can then move her bedtime to nearer 7pm.

Until your daughter has stopped waking in the night, try giving her the late feed when she is awake. Until they are over 4 months old most babies need a time awake between the hours of 7pm and 7am and this helps them to sleep better through the middle of the night. As your daughter is not really hungry at 7.15am it would be better to feed her earlier than 11.30pm to see if the situation improves.

Until your baby is weaned it is not sensible to drop the 10pm feed, no matter how small it becomes, as she may go through growth spurts when her nutritional needs cannot be met by taking only four feeds a day. Look on page 138 of The Contented Little Baby Book which explains how to split the 10pm feed and keep your baby awake for over an hour at this time. Once your daughter has begun to sleep through the night for at least seven consecutive nights you can begin to cut back on the time she is awake at 10pm/10.30pm. Look at the notes at the end of the three to four month routine, on page 164 of The Contented Little Baby Book, where this cutting back is explained.

Have a look at Gina’s article Structure without Stress. This will help you appreciate that the routines are meant as a guide to work towards but you must allow for your own baby’s needs as well. You may need to bring some of the timings forward a little so your daughter does not get over tired or hungry.