Dilemma Feeding a 3 week old

[Shortbird76]

Hi guys, Louie was born in 5/1/14 and weighed 6lb 13oz, due to low sodium issues after birth he lost a lot of weight really quickly. We slowly managed to get his weight back on track and as of Monday he weighed 7lb 11oz. He is formula fed and I started him off with 3oz every 2-3 hours for the first week and he was waking up regular as clockwork for feeds. After about a week an half I upped his feeds by one ounce and he was still in the same routine give or take half an hour.

Over the last few days he has become more alert, but his feeding routine had gone. He is waking up screaming for food, I'm making sure it's a feed cry and giving him a 4oz bottle, he will sometimes drink it all and other times he will only finish 2oz, when he only takes 2oz this has a knock on effect to the next feed. He will stay awake sometimes and then drop off to sleep. When I know he's not hungry or need a nappychange he seems to be just moaning for the sake of it but if you offer him a bottle he will take it, he seems to be hungry all the time. I've up his milk scoops in a 4oz bottle to 5 and see if making the milk this way stops him from being hungry. Or is he just a hungry baby and I need to swop his milk for the next level milk or the hungry baby range..

I just worry that if he carries on eating the way he is he will either get constipated or putting on too much weight too quickly and end up overweight. Or could he just be having a growth spurt???? X

[Hidden]

Hi

It sounds like a growth spurt to me as babies do tend to fluctuate on their food intake during the 1st few months after birth.

As you mentioned you could try giving your baby the next stage / hungrier baby formula & I understand your fear of constipation as my son experienced the same thing when he was a baby but the best way I found to combat the constipation for me was to add a Lil more water to the feed by following the measurement guidelines on the feeding bottle which in essence I believed helped to keep his bowel moving properly.

[CharlotteDavies]

Hi I can't say for the first 6 weeks of my lil mans life I had this problem as he was eb but after this when I moved him onto formula he would quite often leave 2-3 oz of his bottle and then be hungry again within an hour or so then I would have to make another bottle for him so wasted a fair bit of formula to start but as lil one gets bigger he should start to drink all the bottle and lengthen the feed times you could try hungry baby milk and give him some cooled boiled water in between feeds to help also you will probably find you lil one will experience some form of constipation or trapped wind and grunting and so on as it's all part of the body's developing, I personally wouldn't make a 4oz bottle with 5 scoops as you don't want lil one to get poorly and it doesn't recommend this on the formula tins xx

[Hidden]

Hey - firstly what a beautiful profile pic!!

Does sounds like a growth spurt - I wouldn't recommend increasing the formula scoops as over time this could really upset his tummy, its important to follow the guidelines or try the hungrier baby milk (maybe wait and see how he goes for a while before changing).

Just a thought...do you let him drink the whole bottle in one go? He could be getting wind and then losing interest only to be hungry once his tummy had settled after an hour or so? When I increased LO's feeds I would stop him half way through to wind and then give him the rest.

I think you suggested that you're doing this but don't feed him too readily - be sure that he really is hungry before you offer a bottle - obviously don't let the poor little monkey cry!!

Hope he's back on track soon.

[Shortbird76 in reply to Hidden]

I always wind him during a feed as sometimes it can take up to over an hour to feed him as he tends to fall asleep during feeding.

I have only given him one bottle with the extra scoop of formula, but only done this on advice from my parents thinking it would

be a good idea. I will now stop that and try him with a 5oz feed. I think I will try the hungry baby milk as of tomorrow.

I tried the cooled water and found that this didn't help really as he was still as hungry. I thought he had trapped wind at one stage and gave him some infacol.

Thanks for your advice Xx

[Hidden in reply to Shortbird76]

Don't worry too much about the extra scoop in his feed for now - if it was going to upset his tummy you'd know by now. He'll be just fine.

If you research growth spurts on the internet you'll see that the first one occurs around 3 weeks which would be right? Their increased appetite doesn't last long so have a think about whether you want to change formula just yet - give it another day or so and he might go back to normal - it's really common.

I used to use Infacol with my LO but you do have t use it regularly for it to have an effect rather than just the once - maybe keep using it to see if it helps?

Try not to worry too much these little monkeys have a habit of testing us and then going back to normal - he'll settle down xx

[Hidden]

I was a hungry baby, breastfed then bottlefed....the whole time every 2 hours 4oz! Piglet I was. Maybe actually offer him this every 2 hours instead of awaiting his hungry cry and see if this improves his mood. Putting the extra formula in isn't gona work....but I just saw you said you won't be doing that. It can cause all sorts of little issues when doing bottles out of proportion whichever way-the powder or the water. Could definitely be a growth spurt so it does get so hard to judge how much they want and when. My boy went through stints of constant feeding when he was younger. They won't drink what they don't want and as they get older the feeding will stabilise x