7 week old feeding.

[Bellaloo12]

My lg is 7 weeks tomorrow and she is taking for ever to drink her milk litrally can take over an hour this really cant be normal. She falls asleep after an oz and i have to litaly force it down her or she will be awake an hour later wanting more so dont want her to become a snacker! She is on the dr browns bottles and the level 1 teets. Dont really want to have to change teets as the next size up are from 3 months and i feel they may be too fast. Anyone have any experience/advice what did you do. Thanks.

 

[Countrygirl13]

Hi, am a ftm with a 5 week old so really not an expert but two things struck a chord with what my lo has been through. Firstly, she was really sleepy because i was waking her to feed on the advice of the mwife. Now i wait until she tells me she is hungry, most of the time she stays more alert and ready to feed.
Second, i use avent bottles and moved her onto size 2 teats after 2 weeks because of colic. She was sucking so hard she was getting tired and frustrated as well as sucking more air in. Not sure if dr brown bottles are the same.
Some of our feeds take that long and involve lots of tickling and jouncing around to get her to wake up. Having said that she can knock back a bottle in less than 10 mins.....followed by a couple of hours of screaming due to very windy tummy. Good luck!

 

[Bellaloo12]

Hi, am a ftm with a 5 week old so really not an expert but two things struck a chord with what my lo has been through. Firstly, she was really sleepy because i was waking her to feed on the advice of the mwife. Now i wait until she tells me she is hungry, most of the time she stays more alert and ready to feed.
Second, i use avent bottles and moved her onto size 2 teats after 2 weeks because of colic. She was sucking so hard she was getting tired and frustrated as well as sucking more air in. Not sure if dr brown bottles are the same.
Some of our feeds take that long and involve lots of tickling and jouncing around to get her to wake up. Having said that she can knock back a bottle in less than 10 mins.....followed by a couple of hours of screaming due to very windy tummy. Good luck!

Thanks hun , yeh i do tend to wake her for a feed after about 3 1/2 hours deffinatly by 4 hrs i dont like leaving her longer then 4 hours..? Slyhough the hv did say just leave her to wale herself she knows when shes hungry but i just feel 4 hrs is a long time between feeds? Not sure lol. Anyway im going to get some new teets for her bottles. See how she goes. As i dont want them to be too fast for her and make her sick x

 

[xnewxmummyx]

Try the next size teats love. Tommie tippie do vari flow teats which my daughter is on. They go at babies speed.

X

 

[bananabump]

I'd definitely say to feed on demand instead of waking her. My little one is 9 weeks old and sleeps for 10 hours at night... if she was hungry she'd let me know!

 

[Countrygirl13]

You could have a go at feeding on demand and see how long your LO will go without wanting a bottle? My MW and HV both said that I had a healthy 8lb baby who is well fed so there is no immediate danger of her becoming deydrated or starving and therefore I was safe to let her go longer than 4hours if baby didn't wake up on time.
Sometimes mine will go six hours at night and I will sleep with her so won't spot it until she wakes two hours after a feed should have taken place...

Would love to know how varifilow teats work. I have some but not sure if I have to hold the bottle at a certain angle or turn it or something to make the milk come out at the right rate.

 

[mel28nicole]

I had a phase where LO would take forever to eat. I moved up on the nipples and she went from 1 hour to eat to 20 minutes. Her tummy couldn't handle it and was spitting up so much. So I switched back. She tends to fall asleep as well so I just keep pulling the bottle out of her mouth to get her to eat. Also, if you don't let the air out, it takes longer for them to eat because of the air flow. So since I've been pulling the bottle out, it only takes 40 minutes to feed.

I also agree with feeding on demand. If she's sleepkng and it's time for the next feed, she will wake when she's hungry. Typically LO wants her bottle every 3-4 hours anyway. She's been sleeping through the night (about 9pm-7am) since she was 3 weeks old.

 

[Sqwidge]

I believe that if your lo has got back up to birth weight and is increasing in weight at the right rate you can leave them to feed when they want. Amelia is on the 2nd centile and was teeny when born, and as soon as she got back up to birth weight HV told me to stop waking and leave her to let me know when she's hungry.

 

[mel28nicole]

edited wrong thread!