Help! Don’t Know What to Do ...

Hi Everyone ... just hoping for some advice as usual

Amy has started sleeping through the night from around 7.30pm to 6.45am. She's done it 5 nights in a row now. I thought this was fantastic and the long term goal for any baby but the Plunket nurse isn't so sure as Amy isn't stacking on the weight. At her last couple of check-ups she first put on 120g in 1 week and then only 160g in almost 2 weeks.

I feel like in the last couple of weeks we'd really turned a corner with her being much more settled, feeding better (or so I thought) and sleeping through.

The Plunket nurse suggested waking her again in the night for an extra feed but i'm hesitant to do so. Help please! DH thinks it's all rubbish and we're doing fine but i'm the one who has to "face the music" each week with the scales.

I should mention that Amy was a sizable girl at birth (4.3kgs) and is now almost 5kgs. The Plunket nurse was torn as to what to do because she thinks maybe Amy grew larger than she would have inside me and is going to be a smaller girl in the long run.

??????

I guess i'm feeding her on demand through the day but I don't let her go longer that 3 hours from the start of one feed to the next one. She's always been quite a slow lazy feeder and gets worse towards the end of the day. We're currently doing a feed around 5.30, followed by a bath, more feeding and then a top up bottle of EBM by DH before bed. It's an exhausting couple of hours

I'm thinking of maybe giving the 10pm dreamfeed a go with a bottle ... probably of formula at first until I can build up my expressing.

Yeah plunket can be a bigger pain than good sometimes. I think as long as she is gaining some weight at each weigh that you shouldn't worry. You know you daughter best - is she happy through the day because she is obviously happy at night?
I wouldn't wake her personally I think that she would ask to be feed if she needed it.
Maybe if you were concerned you could feed more often through the day but then I would be concerned about her getting into a cycle of snack eating.
It will be interesting to see what people say on this one. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

We had the same situation when Daniel was 3 weeks - his weight platueaued (he was 4.2kg when born, and plateaued at 4.5kg). He was sleeping through the night (bliss) but we were concerned by his weight. After about 5 nights he started waking in the night for feeds, so did it himself. So I didn't have to decide to start waking him (luckily, cos it would have been a hard decision to make!). Is Amy on track with all other developmental milestones? If I was in your shoes, I'd probably give it another week or two and then review the situation. Mum's sleep is important

I have to say Im with lilfatty! Once Caden started sleeping through there was no way in hell was gonna wake him for feeds either. The way I see it is that if they are hungry they will wake up!

Amy is obviously happy with sleeping through, so in my honest opinsion I would leave her be.

Also-Plunket kept telling me to not give caden solids until 6 months, but I KNEW he needed them sooner, so he wa son babyrice just before he was 4 months, and a MUCH happier boy for it!
Plunket can be a pain in the ass sometimes. Id go with mothers instinct(I always have).

Edited by Mum2Caden

Yep!

One thing I have learnt is that a hungry baby will not sleep

dont worry too much about how much she weighs. she could be growing in length instead, my boys always did.

I agree with everyone - plunket occasionally gets it wrong. I wouldnt wake her. If she wakes herself though I would feed her but as long as she is putting on weight then it doesnt matter. In the first few months, babies apparently should put on 100-200g a week. These can fluctuate though, some weeks only 60-80g and others well over 200g. As long as she is not loosing weight I wouldnt worry too much. Go with your instincts on this one! I do suggest though that if she starts waking in the wee hours of the morning then wake her up for a dream feed at approx 10pm instead - give her a top-up and hopefully she will start to sleep through again.

Sometimes a baby will not put on so much weight for a couple of weeks and then growth spurt (and then they'll often wake in the night again too!). Keep on doing what you're doing for another two weeks, then go back and get her weighed at the Plunket centre (just drop in, people do it all the time, you don't need to explain it) and if you're still concerned about her weight increase then go with the dreamfeeds.

She was a pretty heavy baby at birth but was she overdue or on time?

Thanks MamaPickle

busymum, she was overdue by 6 days and still didn't want to come out when I was induced! I ended up having a c-section