Morning feed a struggle...?!

[MemmaJ]

My little boy is 14 weeks and 3 days old and formula fed.
He still wakes once in the night, but the amount he wants in the night has now reduced from a full feed to about 3oz or 4oz.

However the morning feed is always a big struggle. He wakes up hungry around 6.30/7.30, happily has 2 or 3oz and then it's a battle to get any more into him.

I'm always worried about the knock-on effect of that for the rest of the day, because he ends up then wanting half feeds every 2 or 3 hours instead of full feeds every 4 hours (he'll happily have full feeds at any of the other ones usually, just not the morning one lately!)

I've made the mistake of trying to get a full feed into him the last couple of mornings and he's then thrown the whole lot up (he suffers with reflux).

It doesn't seem to matter what time in the night he has fed either: usually he goes to bed st 6.30/7.00pm and I just leave him. He wakes between midnight and 01.00 and has 3 or 4 ounces.
Lastnight I tried dream-feeding him at 10.30 to see if that would help: he only took 2oz at the dream-feed and then still woke at 03.15 and had 4oz.
Both approaches still result in a difficult morning feed!

If anyone has any tips how to get around this problem I would be very grateful...!

 

[LittleLala]

Hiya your little guy sounds just like mine was when he was younger, he would wake at 3am and then again at 6 and drink hardly anything and put out his day feeds. I know that what works for some people won't work for others, but this is what worked for me-

I know this sounds really silly, but have you tried giving him the small dream feed at about 10.30 and then not feeding him when he wakes in the middle of the night, but instead just rocking him back to sleep? That's what worked for me. Then, after a few weeks I dropped the dream feed and instead now give him a little top up right before bed and he sleeps through.

My little guy has always been a bad morning feeder, but I have started waiting a while now until feeding him and it's getting better. He usually wakes at about 6/6.30, and I will now wait about an hour until I feed him (but in saying this, he doesn't cry when he wakes up, he just wants attention, so obviously if your baby is very upset, he probably wants food and my advice won't work).
Good luck

 

[MindUtopia]

That all sounds perfectly normal to me. I would try to move away from all this 'full feed' 'half feed' business. There is no such thing. The amount they take will and should be different just about every feed, just like it is for us, depending on how hungry or thirsty they are. There are loads of factors that can affect that and you can't time it or schedule it in. Just offer him as much as he wants on demand. He'll eventually settle into more of a pattern, which for us was more around 4 months, but for now, if he wants less in the morning and then as a result wants more later on, great. Just go with it and try not to overthink it too much. I think maybe you're seeing a problem where there isn't one.