Baby feeding advice, is this normal?

Question

I have a 4 month old baby and am just a bit concerned about how much milk she's having. I feed her every 4 hours during the day 7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm and am very happy with this routine. I also have a 4 year old so her bath time needs to be at this time to coincide with his. When she goes down at 7pm she will sleep very soundly until 4am. This is the problem, she has an 8oz bottle at 7pm which is great cos we want her to sleep. But when she wakes at 4am she is having 8oz again. This morning i fed her at 7.30am and she would only have 1 1/2 oz cos she was so full from the night. I just fed her at 11am and she's had 4 1/2 oz. I can't pacify her with water at 4am and she won't go to sleep unless we fill her. What should we do? I don't want her to get into the habit of having lots of milk in the night. We tried feeding her before we went to bed at 11.30pm but she just has a couple of oz and wakes up at 4am for more. That was a couple of weeks ago though. Should we try again? Also she is really inconsistent with her bottles and has anything between 4-8oz. I spoke to my friend yesterday who has a baby the same age and she takes 6oz at every feed. Should i try to get her to be more consistent?

Answer 1

All babies won't have the same eating habits as other babies their age. You should continue to allow your child to feel around and see what she wants to do. Also, you might want to incorperate a tiny bit of cereal(like one teaspoon per bottle) to see if this helps to fill her better(it should).  

Answer 2

My son is 5 months and eats about every 4 hours as well. He doesn't wake at night for a feed but he will if he doesn't get his 5 feeds a day. He is breastfed, and has to have 5 good milk feeds a day, and sometimes he will have some solids, but they have no bearing on his milk feeds. Solids or not he still loves his milk and will want to eat every 4 hours. He doesn't have a set time like yours does, but the last few days it goes something like - 9am, 1pm, 5pm, 8:30/9pm, 11:30/12, then we go to bed together and he sleeps till 9am. The times he eats varies depending on when he wakes up, but that's about what time it has been for the past few days. He does sleep before 11:30/12, but I just haven't put him down in bed yet. He doesn't sleep very well when he is alone.  

Answer 3

Hi, sounds to me like she's doing just fine. I have a 4 month old as well and he's behaving almost exactly the same as yours, apart from that I don't really look at the time when I feed him. I just take his word for it when lets me know he's hungry.

I wouldn't worry about it too much though. It's not like she's only filling up at night. I think things will change once they start on solids.

Good luck

Answer 4

my eldest daughter was exactly the same , i would try giving her a 8 oz bottle later on then every so often try doing it half an hour earlier, and see how this works, it worked for us so i hope you have luck,xx

Answer 5

I don't think you need to change anything since she's healthy and eating well. It will be a long time before she needs to stop eating during the night. I know some parents try to stop night feeding as soon as possible, but my opinion is if the baby is hungry feed her. Especially since she's still very young. I also don't recommend rice cereal in the bottle. We didn't introduce any solids until 6 mo old, which is what the american academy of pediatricians recommends. Feeding solids earlier is thought to increase the chance of food allergies.