My 3 month old will only eat 1-2oz at a time. How can I help him eat better?

Описание: You mentioned that you have a 3 month old little boy who's sleeping through the night (so you can count that up as a win), but during the day, he's only grazing on his bottle. He's drinking 1 to 2 ounces at a time, and this is also affecting his sleeping patterns, because feeding and sleeping are very intertwined for newborns. So how can you get him to go longer stretches in between feedings? Some babies start to snack-feed because (maybe as they're little) parents do what they're supposed to do and feed their baby on demand. But sometimes the signals are misinterpreted, like a baby is doing things that don't necessarily mean hunger, so the parents feed them, and they get used to eating every 1 to 2 hours, and so they just consume 1 to 2 ounces every 1 to 2 hours. And overall, as long as they do this throughout the day, they're getting enough to eat, but it's just time-consuming and frustrating for parents.

So there are ways that you can try to fix this. Just incrementally and slowly increase the amount of time between feedings, and your baby should adjust by drinking a little bit more each time. Don't wait until your baby is out of control and screaming, because it may be harder to get them under control, and they'll swallow a whole bunch of air, and then it can cause tummy problems. But if your baby is going every hour, then start going an hour and a half in between feedings if possible, and this is from the beginning of one to the beginning of the next. Once your baby is doing that, then try to go 2 hours in between feedings, and once they're doing that, then go 2 1/2 hours, and so on until your baby is drinking about 3 to 4 ounces every 3 to 4 hours once he's about 2 months old or so. Think of it like this - I call it the pitcher principle - your baby has to drink an entire pitcher of milk in a 24 hour period, and they can drink little amounts frequently throughout the day, or they can drink more substantial amounts less frequently throughout the day. Just like adults, we can eat 3 big meals - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - and get the calories we need, or we can eat smaller more frequent meals throughout the day to get our calories spread out over the day. So a baby will do the same thing. And by increasing the amount that a baby eats, they'll consequently start to eat less times during the day.

Hopefully as your baby's eating patterns start spacing out, he'll start taking 3 substantial naps during the day, like maybe one in the morning, one after lunch, and maybe another one later in the afternoon. And a normal nap is anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, and so the same kind of thing will happen with naps as what will happen with feedings - the more naps he has, the shorter they'll be; the less naps he has, the longer they'll be. So now that he's 3 months old, you can try to get him on a schedule where he's eating every 3 to 4 hours, where he's napping in the morning and in the afternoon. And this is all done by making subtle slow changes incrementally, getting him used to one change and then moving on to the next. You can also try sleep-training and changing the environment so that it makes it more conducive for sleep so he'll take better naps for you. Good luck with everything, and if you have more questions for me in the future, feel free to ask them on our Facebook page at   / intermountainmoms  , and recommend us to your friends and family too.