Help, sleep and feeding issues

Over the past 2 weeks Olive has become very vocal about bedtimes.
She used to be a baby who hardly ever cried and was soooo cruisy, well that has changed. She is screaming at sleep times, getting really worked up. I rock upside down, side to side, I have tried reading to her, putting her in cot when tired signs appear but she just keeps crying until I usually feed her out of desparation even though she has just had a feed. Which brings me to the next issue.
I express full-time due to BF issues which I won't go into and Olive has been eating me out of house and home. Up until 4 nights ago she slept all night but has been waking up again. I'm beginning to wonder if she is getting enough per feed and should be having less feeds but more per feed by 4mths? Her output is fine. So I was wondering , for those of you who express how much EBM for a 3.5/4mth old? I can usually only get her to drink 125mls at a time. I may have to introduce one FF but really want to avoid this. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Is it just a stage, could it be teeth?
TIA

How frustrating for you!! :hug:
Charlotte was like that....dream baby, until about the same age.
It could be teeth, but I think you may find it is a growth spurt. She will be going through some major changes about now, and it will mess with her sleeping and feeding. I didn't express but I do BF, and feeding was the only way I could get Charlotte to sleep until about 6-7months when I began to put to bed awake. Even now she still will eat dinner, feed properly and go to bed fine, wake 15 mins later and need to be fed again before going down for the night.

I really hope it is just a phase! In a couple of weeks she will likely go back to Content Olive, in the mean time you may need to try and express a little extra if you can and keep your supply up, just in case. (nothing worse than expressing a bottle at 2am!!)

HTH and good luck, hopefully some of the girls who used EBM full time can give you some more specific advice.
:)

Hi Olive'smummy,

Sorry to hear things have been difficult but it sounds so familiar. DS#2 got worse at the same age but he had always been bad. Our paed told me that wakefulness increases at 4 months, it is a stage they go through - so unsettledness gets worse - they are just so much more interested in the world and some babies become harder to get to sleep.

Nothing really worked for my DS.

Can I ask - how long is she up for? Have you tried putting her to bed before tired signs appear? My DS#2 doesn't show any tired signs until he is overtired - he is just too alert and I have to put him to bed by the clock - so different from DS#1 who would go to bed when he showed tired signs.

Sorry - I can't help much with the feeding issues. You are doing a fantastic job keeping up the expressing for so long. Hopefully someone else can help with that.

3.5/4 months is pretty early for teeth - but it is possible. The only reliable sign that teeth are coming are well, the appearance of teeth - is there anything moving under the gums?

Hope it settles down soon.

TICKLISH

I just wanted to come in and say that it is VERY common for a happy, cruisy baby to change into an unsettled and wakeful one at 4 months of age. There is an article about it here: kellymom.com ::Wakeful 4 Month Olds by Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC (I have seen a mod post it before so I hope it's OK to post this link?).

My DS2 was a classic case of this! I rode it out and by 5 months things started to calm down a bit. DS1 started having feeding issues at this age and I introduced top-up formula feeds, unfortunately because of this he weaned himself by 6 months of age. I wish I had known about this age milestone back then!

So I just wanted to offer you some encouragement that this is a normal phase, lots of us have been through it and it does get better :hug:. Hang in there, you are doing a great job :)

Hey Olive's Mummy,

Sorry to hear things are a bit rough at present! We had two big feeding spurts - the "normal" one at 3 months, but then again recently at 4 months, so certainly I agree that things change around this time. And yes, he was eating me out of house & home too. I started expressing both before AND after his feeds to try & keep up. I also find that Xander is much more wakeful than he used to be as well.

In terms of EBM volumes, I don't know if we're a good guideline or not, as I think Xander is a little bear... he likes big feeds & big sleeps. So he usually has 4 feeds of about 200-260ml (occasionally even up to 290ml at the most - freaks me out!! :o). Bear in mind that he was 7.6kg at 4 m.o. so he's a solid little chunker. So if Olive is a bit lighter she won't need as much. While the "formula formula" (so to speak!) is 150 * weight/number of feeds, on average DS takes a bit less than that (unless he's having a growth spurt).

My gut feeling is that some kids just like a big feed, and some like a more snacky style of eating, so maybe she'll guide you as to whether she wants more feeds or fewer bigger feeds? One way of doing it when they seem to want more but you don't want to waste precious EBM is to heat a bottle of the "default" amount, then have a back up bottle of some extra. Dole it out (and heat it up) in 20ml amounts to see how much more they want to take - so I just decant into the bottle i"m using so as not to contaminate the back-up bottle IYKWIM! Or if you're using some fresh EBM it's even easier cos you don't have to heat it.

I'm also with Ticklish on the whole tired signs thing. We usually put Xander down after about 1 and a quarter hours and I find that works really well for us. He usually doesn't LOOK tired to me, but then he goes out like a light! The other question, how much after the first feed do you end up giving her the second feed?
We were told by someone not to let them take too long to feed... i.e. not more than 45 min. But I find our feed goes for about an hour... he acts full then suddenly wants a smidge more, then he's happy. So while it breaks someone's rule (lol) it seems to work for us! Someone else also suggested (dont' know if this is true) that feeding them quite frequently at this age can make them a bit windy, so I'm just wondering if she's getting windy/uncomfy and then using the bottle to soothe herself?

Anyway, that's enuff of my waffle, hope that's helpful, let us know how you're going and GL with it!
And you CAN do it! I've gone through so many patches of doubting myself, wondering about FF etc... and I'm getting better at knowing what to do and managing to keep up. So congratulate yourself cos you're doing such a fab job.
Cheers,
Belfie

Thanks alot ladies. I definatley seems like a 4mth stage so I don't feel as bad (just sleep deprived).
Limeslice - your right, pumping at 2am really sucks!!!!

Ticklish - I think maybe I need to do what you said about just putting Olive in her cot before the tired signs cause I think she definately gets overtired. She usually gets grizzly after about 1 - 1.5hrs but can then fight the sleep for another 2. It's almost like she wants to be wake but can't quite handle it yet and gets to tired. I originally thought she was getting teeth because she started drooling all the time and mouthing everything and I could see a white lump on her bottom gum but TBH i'm not really sure if it's thrush as there are a couple of spots,so might treat her for that as well and see if that makes a difference.

Trish - thanks alot for that link. I guess it's just a shock to the system when your baby goes from sleeping 8-11hrs a night then goes back to 4-5. This was also my main expressing time as I could pump before I went to bed then in the morning get 2 bottles but there's no phyical way I can do that now.

Belfie - I think your right about the wind, Olive has definately been getting wind pains and hadn't done a poo for 2wks up until the other day. I give her water to help this.
She is supposed to be drinking 180mls according to the formula formula but only has 120 then a lttle while later wants more but this is usually only in the evenings and early morning. As I mentioned above I have to express about 8 times a day to keep up and it takes me up to an hour each time which is very tiring ing itself.

Thanks for you help and suggestions.