How did you get your baby to drink more because they arent waking at night?

My baby is 7 weeks- December baby so hoping to get advice please you have all passed this point! She usually has a 4oz bottle but doesnt always finish it. Has started only waking once at night which is fab but she isnt taking more milk to account for the less bottles at night. Last night between 11pm and 7am she only woke once at 3am and only took 1oz! 😳 I think she should be going to 5oz bottles in the day so she is getting more in 24 hours but she isnt interested… really worried the GP and HV will say she isnt getting enough milk but she seems really well she is growing and doing 5 dirty and 10-12 wet nappies in 24 hours? She must be around 10 and half lbs now or slightly more.

Show your support

They say a baby should have between 150ml and 200ml per KG. So to transfer to oz we do 150 x (baby weight in KG), ÷ 28.41 That calculation will give you how many ozs they are meant to have over 24 hour period a minimum. You can do same calculation but use 200 instead of 150 for the maximum they should have. So long as over the period of the day they have their minimum it won't matter how long they go without over night. If your little one was hungry they would wake and take more than 1oz. If you calculate and see she is actually having less than she should, up it to 5oz bottles during the day. The main thing overall however is that she is gaining weight steadily

@Ocean Thank you so much for this. Using 150 its giving me around 24oz. About 720ml. She doesnt take that much, more like 650-660ml. Is there some way to make her take the minimum?? I made a 5oz bottle this morning and she only drank 3.5oz. She is gaining steadily and getting longer and increasing clothing size plus the nappies are good. I tried the next teat size but she wasnt ready but maybe I will try it again soon to see if it helps her to take more. Thank you ❤️

I went through this with LB now nearly 14 weeks. He was sleeping through at around 7 weeks and going 8 hours without a feed but not always having more to make up for it. He was also not as interested in milk during the day and it was really worrying me. I spoke to HV and advice was as long as nappies are still fine and alert and bright in the day when awake not to worry. If you're concerned though give them a call and you could always book a weigh in to make sure not dropping percentiles. He's now the opposite, waking every hour and 2 feeds a night, feeding every 2-3 hours as well in the day, it will change again but these phases do come and go. Xx

Hi! I had a similar experience to @Siobhan . Baby was sleeping 8 hours and I was worried about her weight. Now at 14 weeks she wakes 3 times a night for food! So long as your baby is gaining weight I would take the sleep where you can! But of course ask your GP and Healthcare visitor at your 8 week appointments!

Hi lovely this is just my experience and my advice ❤️ Please do NOT force your baby to take milk if she doesn’t want it, when I had my first child she was the same, she wasn’t a big drinker and I was told she wasnt drinking the amount “recommended’ now I pressured her into drinking more as I was worried she wasn’t getting enough, this then developed into a bottle aversion because i pushed her too much and pressured her to feed more than she wanted too! She ended up refusing bottles altogether!! She would cry at the sight of a bottle and this went on for months! It was the scariest time of my life she is now this happened from About 3 months old till she was about 7-8 months old maybe even after that! She’s 19 months now and still not a big drinker, but she is growing and gained weight. Now with my boy I never pressure him at all! He’s 3 months and weighs almost 17lb already and he only drinks 5oz bottles and sometimes doesn’t finish them. They will drink what they want ❤️❤️❤️

So after my worries this morning after last night with hardly any milk, she has been a hungry hippo today and actually has now taken 755ml in 24 hours the most ever!! So its as if she is drinking all day to make up for quieter nights, hope its a good sign and not a fluke!!