Feeding FAQ: 3-4 months

*Updated*

Up until 2 weeks ago, my daughter of almost 4 months old had been sleeping until 5am after her last feed of formula at 10:30pm. I had been following the core night method and she did manage to sleep through until 7am on two occasions. However, now she is waking up any time between 3am and 5am. She will no longer accept cool boiled water or a dummy but will only settle if I give her a full feed. Once I have fed her she will happily sleep until I wake her again at 7am.
Although she is still waking only once in the night, I don't feel like we are making any progress and I'm worried that, now she is waking earlier, she may eventually start waking twice. Where am I going wrong?
I have thought about weaning as her hand- eye co-ordination is fantastic and she constantly has her fist in her mouth but she doesn't cry after her feeds and she is normally happy to go 4 hours in between feeds.
Also I doubt her weight has doubled since birth, although I haven't weighed her for a few weeks now.
I have kept her on the 3-4 month routine and still split feed at 5 and 6:30. I tried dropping the 5pm feed but she cut back on her 10:30pm feed and always woke before 4:30am. She sleeps no longer than 3 hours a day. Sometimes she falls straight to sleep and sometimes she needs to cry down for anything up to 15 mins.
She has always been a quick feeder and will not feed very long, but my doctor said this is because I have a fast letdown and she is a very efficient feeder (as was my last daughter).
Up until now these routines have been a life saver, as I experienced a lot of problems with my first child (now 2 years old) who didn't have a proper routine and didn't learn to sleep on her own until some drastic sleep training when she was 18 months.
My daughter is breast fed at 7.30am 5-10mins, 11am 10-15mins; this feed may be earlier if she hasn't fed well at 7.30am. If she feeds for only 10minutes I will give her a 2oz top up of formula.
2.15pm 5-10mins, 5pm 5-10mins, 6.30pm 10-15mins, 10.30pm 5-6ozs formula followed by 5-10mins breast feeding.
My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2.15pm and settles at 7pm.

Team Response

I have a 3 year old son who was introduced to Gina's routines after an awful first 2 months. It took 6 days of the routines until he slept through the night and he has been a contented child ever since - we never looked back and it was the best thing we ever did. So I know that Gina's routines do work because I know that my eldest son was simply hideous before I put him into the routine but I am beginning to think that maybe it was a case of beginners luck because my second son (aged 15 weeks) seems to be all over the place.

There are 3 main issues:
1 He still wakes up 2 - 3 times a night
2 Although he takes a bottle with no problem at 10pm he will only take a couple of ounces at any other time before screaming his head off
3 He rarely takes a full feed and seems to prefer to snack - in particular he does not seem to take much between 7am and his lunchtime nap at all

My son sleeps well during day and in line with Gina's routines. He goes down well at 6.45-7pm and can settle himself. We wake him for the last feed when he takes 5 - 6 oz of formula. However, he still wakes twice, sometimes three times a night - first waking is around 2.30am. I have left him to cry but he does not go back to sleep and seems genuinely hungry. He does not seem able to go more that 4 hours between feeds. When he does wake, he feeds and goes back to sleep - so when I am up it is only for 20 - 30 minutes at the most. I can cope with getting up once but 2 or 3 times seems excessive

Another related problem is that he seems to snack rather than take a full feed. He will be breast fed for 10 minutes or so and then sometimes want feeding an hour later. I have tried feeding him expressed milk from a bottle so that I know how much he is getting and this week I have dropped one of his breast feeds and have introduced formula at 11am (which he often has to have early) but he only takes an ounce or two and then has a fit! He screams and won't take the milk - I have even tried splitting the feed and giving him some 45 minutes or so later to no avail. I am worried that he will not feed from a bottle (even though this has never been a problem at the last feed at 10pm). If I offer him the breast, he calms down straight away and feeds. I want to deal with this as I plan to breast feed until he is 6 months and aim to drop another feed in another month so that by then he will be having breast milk just in the morning and before bed.

Finally, he seems to drink little between waking in the morning and going to sleep at lunchtime. How can I change this? I am sure that if he drank more he would not wake up so often in the night.
He feeds at present at 7am 10mins breast, 8.45am 5mins breast, 10.30am try to give formula, 2ozs maximum taken at present, 2.15pm 15mins breast, 5pm 10mins breast, 6.30pm 10-15mins breast, 10.15pm 5-6ozs of formula, 2-3am 10-15mins breast, 5am 10-15mins breast.

He weighs approx. 13.5lbs

My son naps at 9-9.45pm, 12-2pm and 4.30-4.45pm. He is settled at 10pm
Team Response

We started the CLB routines when my son was 10 weeks old, and in order not to be too harsh, we put him on the 4-8 weeks routine first and gradually advanced to the 8-12 weeks routine.

My son is always fretting after his morning nap. He never sleeps more than 45 minutes and is usually awake after 30 minutes. For the first time in 4 weeks after putting him on the routine, I gave him 40 ml expressed milk and 60 ml formula milk this morning (On normal days, I breastfeed him first and then offer him formula milk after that. He usually takes about 40-50 ml of formula milk. However, I realized that since introducing him the bottle, he's not sucking so ell when breast feeding , so I am in doubt how much he actually gets when he is latched on. That's why I gave him expressed milk this morning, so I know precisely how much he is eating). Like other days, he frets almost immediately after he is awaken today. We try to entertain him and as time goes by, nothing seems to interest him at all. I then started to breastfeed him almost at 10:45, and by then I can see that he's hungry. As I do not wish to fall into the trap of demand feeding, I always drag till 10:30-10:45 before giving him milk. But it means he is unhappy for about an hour. He is usually unable to wait until his next feed and will show signs of fretting - usually his noon feed and late evening feed. Should I do a split feed?

My other problem with him is, he fights sleep, every single time he is being put down. The only time he does not do it is after his last feed at around 22:45. He can cry and scream up to 30 minutes. We don't comfort him anymore after he is being put to bed. And I always wait until he does not want to drink anymore before stopping feeding him which means he shouldn't be hungry. For 4 weeks, he has just been fighting sleep and it does not seem to have improved at all. We used to hold him in our arms or sling until he fell asleep, and many a time, he just woke up again, and we had to continue the same until he eventually fell into a deep sleep without waking. We simply do not want to do that anymore. How can we ensure that his crying will shorten? It really hurts to hear him cry and scream like that. He sleeps in a baby “cabin" (used together with a push pram). For your information, he has been sleeping right through the nights the past 5 days.

My son feeds at 7am breast feed followed by 40-60mls formula, 10.30am breast feed followed by 70mls formula, 2.30pm breast feed followed by 70-80mls of formula, 6.15pm breast milk followed by 110mls of formula, 10.45pm milk from 1breast then 60-100mls formula. He weighs 5000gr.

He sleeps at 9-9.30am, 12-2.30pm and 4.30-5pm. He settles at 7.30pm.
Team Response

We have been trying to get our daughter onto a bottle as I cannot carry on breast feeding her. She used to take the 10:30 am feed by bottle when she was 6-8 weeks old and would also take some at 10:30pm. She then became ill and was permanently on breast and since then she has refused to drink from the bottle. We try when she is half asleep and sometimes she might take a bit, most of the time she wakes up and gets upset if we try with a bottle. In the end we have to breast feed her. Usually when feeding on the breast in the morning she will do up to 1h, and likewise in the evening she might do anything up/and over 1h. (taking the time to burp her and sometimes change her)) We are at a wits end as we really need her to start to take the bottle and do not know how to go about it. We have tried trying the bottle and then taking it away and waiting till the next feed which she seems ok with.
At present she feeds at 7am for 1hour, 10.30am 20-30mins, 2.30pm 20-30mins, 5.30 15-20mins, 6.10 20-30mins, 10.30pm try with bottle then will take 15- 20mins.
She naps at 8.30-9.10am, 12-2pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

My son of three months, who weighs 16lbs 4ozs, will take 4-5ozs quickly at each feed, but them struggles to finish the last 2ozs. He sleeps from 7pm to 7am, yet even after this twelve-hour sleep, it can take up to 45 minutes to persuade him to take the last 2 oz.I also have an 18-month-old and I need to find a way to speed up my young baby’s feeding.  I don’t really want to do split feeds, although my baby often seems hungry at 5pm, as I need to be able to concentrate on my toddler at this demanding time of day.
Team Response

My baby of 3 months who weighs 14lbs 7ozs is still taking a large feed at 4.30am. He falls asleep before taking a full feed at 10.30pm and takes a smaller feed at 7.30am.

Feeding details

4.30am: 7ozs
7.30am: 5ozs
11.00am: 8ozs
2.30pm: 8ozs
4.30pm: 3ozs water with squeezed orange
6.15pm: 8ozs
10.30pm: 5ozs

Daily milk intake 40ozs

My son naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2.15pm and settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My daughter of 3.5mths is currently doing very well on the routines, goes down well at 7pm and just in the last week has started sleeping through from the last feed at 11pm until around 7am most days. I am now starting to bring forward the 11pm feed by 5mins a night and am going to reduce the amount offered as she is starting to eat less at 7am. The lunchtime nap is still a struggle but I am currently trying to train this through taking her out in the buggy for two hours (she will sleep the whole time) or taking her to bed with me if she wakes after 45mins and refuses to go back down. My husband doesn't get home from work until 6.10pm and likes to be involved with bath time, so I have adapted the routine to the extent that we split the feed with a feed at 5pm, playtime till 6.20/6.25pm, bath around 6.30pm with the final bottle in the nursery at around 6.45pm.

My problem is that I am going back to work four days a week in four weeks time, and this will involve my daughter being dropped off at nursery at 8am and being picked up at 6pm (my husband and I are sharing drop offs and pickups). We are fortunate in that our nursery is around 2mins walk from our house and on our way to the railway station. Currently my husband is up at 6am to get ready for work, and when I return to work we will both be up at 6am.

We have a small two-bedroom flat which makes it hard to get ready and not disturb my daughter, despite her being in her own room with the door shut. I'm worried how we are going to get her up, fed, dressed and at nursery by 8am particularly once we start introducing solids. Should we adapt the routine for a slightly earlier start 6.30am with a longer nap around 8.30am instead of 9am? Similarly, at the end of the day our current routine with the later bath and split feed should work. Is this a reasonable adaptation of the routine? And again, once weaning commenced, should we continue to split the feed and when should the solids be given?

My daughter feeds at 7.15am 160-200mls formula, 10.45am 200-230mls, [often has this feed by 10am as hungry]. 2.15pm 180-210mls, 5.00pm 60-160mls, 6.45pm 130-200mls and 11.15pm 130-200mls.

My daughter weighs 14lbs 12ozs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.45pm, 1.15-2.15pm and 4-4.30pm.
Team Response

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.
Team Response

This is a question rather than a current problem. My baby has been diagnosed Reflux and we are managing with Gaviscon powder and Zantac. My question is whether I need to take more care at the time of introducing solids because of the reflux problem - I am worried if the problem will be aggrevated by weaning and if I should try to delay weaning until her stomach is a bit more developed (eg at 6 months).

Also, please can you review the daily progress report and comment on whether I should cut back the 10pm feed further with the aim to cut it out soon, as she is very unhappy to wake up at 10:30pm and it has the knock on of her not being interested in the 7:30am feed.

At present my daughter feeds at 7.30am 150mls expressed breast milk. 11am and 2.30pm, 200mls formula, 6.15pm 200mls formula and 50mls expressed breast milk, 10.30pm 50-100mls expressed breast milk which she is not really interested in at all. My daughter weighs approx 12lbs.
Team Response

My 3.5mth daughter has been following your routines since she was 1 week old and with only a couple of hiccups she is doing brilliantly. Her sleeping is great and 2 weeks ago I decided to drop the 10pm feed as she hated being woken and was grudgingly taking 2oz. She has slept 7pm-7am fine since I dropped it. The problem is that she is such a bad feeder. She never appears hungry and when first offered the bottle (at every feed) she refuses it by shaking her head side to side, up and down and kicking her legs and getting very upset. We'll have 5-10 minutes of this before she finally gives in, even then her suck is so weak that it takes ages and she spills half of it. She still tries to fight it and gets very upset. I'm sure she doesn't suffer with wind as she always brings it up very easily and doesn't seem to have any discomfort in her tummy. We've tried feeding in another room, calming music, swaddling to stop her arms from fighting it. We feel awful as we're practically force feeding her. This last couple of days she has got even worse and I'm sure she knows when feed time is coming as she starts before I even put her bib on. Tonight’s bedtime was horrific and very distressing for her and me. She has always been bad but now we're at the stage where only I can feed her. She has gone from taking 31oz a day to 24-25oz. We've also tried every teat there is including the Tommee Tippee variflow which you recommend but the only one we have half a chance with is the Avent fast flow. No wonder she wouldn’t breastfeed! She is 17 weeks and everyone I speak to says solids is the answer but I feel she should be draining bottles happily first. Please help; she is otherwise a very happy baby.
At present she feeds at 7.20am 8ozs, now down to 6.5ozs, 11am 8ozs, now down to 6-7ozs, 2.30pm 7ozs, now down to 6ozs, 6.15pm 8ozs, now down to 5ozs. She weighs 14lbs 3ozs.
My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2.15pm and is settled at 7pm.
Team Response

My baby is nearly 17 weeks old today, and I was adamant that I was going to wait as long as possible before starting solid food. She is taking four 9oz bottles of formula a day with a smaller feed of 5/6oz at 11pm, amounting to a total of 40oz a day. She sleeps through from her last feed until 7.30am every morning. But she is no longer sleeping well at her lunch time nap, and when I go in to try and settle her back, she is stuffing her fists in her mouth. I don't know whether this is hunger or just frustration at not being able to get back to sleep.
She is fairly content most of her awake time but is stuffing her fists in her mouth the whole time, so much so that she actually cut herself with gnawing them so much. I have ended up giving her the dummy more than I would like to. Also in the evening she goes crazy until she gets her bedtime bottle. I can't do a split feed in the evening as I have a 16 month old daughter, and I just don't have the time to give her tea, and feed the baby.
I am so confused about whether she is ready to be weaned or not, she is a big girl and I am already dressing her in 6-months+ plus clothes, and she is only 4-months-old.
Team Response

Osian weighed 10lb 2oz at birth, is gaining 6-7oz per week, and has been following the routine since day one. He is now three months old. He has always been difficult at feeding time. I believe he suffered from colic and have used Omneo Comfort and Colief. I went away for three weeks and the symptoms went away. I carried on using Omneo but he was very hungry. I therefore gave him a milk for hungry baby (Novalac Satiete) and he fed very well - 5 bottles of 7oz sometimes 8-9oz at 6.15pm feed.
He then started to reduce his daily amount of milk. I was not worried and let him take what he needed. I carried on feeding him but he would then refuse to drink at the 7am feed. I changed the milk and put him on SMA Gold as I thought the milk was too rich, but he is still refusing to drink. He always took 30-45 minutes to drink a bottle but he now stops at 2oz and waits 15 minutes before taking another 2oz. He is still very windy but I don't think that it is the problem as before he wanted to feed but was in pain and now he pushes the teat with his tongue. He can drink a bottle in 10 minutes as he has done last night and still wake up at 6am, so I don't know what the problem could be.
My health advisor thinks that he doesn't like milk and I should wean him as he always chews his hands and cries for food before it is time - to take only 4oz.
Team Response