Nursing Less at almost 4 months?

[sk8boarder15]

My Ds is nursing a lot less the past week.... He used to nurse every hour for 20min +. Now it's every 2-3 hours for 10 minutes! He will be 4 months tuesday, we haven't done any solids yet.... Is this normal? He's plenty big, about 15lbs. Maybe he's better at nursing? Or doesn't need it for comfort as much? Anyone else have a drastic slow down of nursing around this age?

[Knitting Mama]

He may be getting more efficient with his nursing. It's not uncommon for nursing sessions to spread out, and if he's able to get what he needs more quickly, then I could see him not staying on as long. Just keep watch over his wet and dirty diapers and his weight gain. I absolutely would not start solids this early if you have been thinking about that-- nothing you could give him (aside from formula) would have anywhere near as much nutrition as your milk.

[sk8boarder15]

We are waiting till 6 months for solids and plan on starting really slow.

[LittleBirdy]

Mine did slow down a lot around that age.  Like Aimee said, just keep on eye on weight gain and wet/dirty diapers.  I know it's so weird after having a baby that needed to nurse every 60-90 minutes to suddenly be able to go 2 or 3 hours.

DS is almost six months and the only time I can get him to nurse for longer than a minute or two is for naps or late afternoon (when I figure he finally gets hungry enough).  Oh yeah - AND ALL NIGHT LONG... sigh.

[Knitting Mama]

Yeah, now that you mention it, Cece is one of those kids who doesn't nurse much unless she's going to sleep, and then she stays latched on for quite some time after she drops off. Might be that your LO is going into a pattern like that as well.

[sssheri]

That happened with my almost 4 month old a few weeks ago. She nurses every 2-3 hours, but she used to nurse for 20 minutes or more and often fall asleep nursing, and now she nurses 5-10 mins tops. While I miss our longer snuggle sessions, it is actually much more conveinent to nurse for a short time. I think they just get more efficient and they know there is a lot to do and see and want to get to it!

[stephbrownthinks]

My DS did this too. We went to a weekly breastfeeding support meeting at a local lactation consultant's office where they weighed the babies before and after the feeding to see how much they had taken in. I felt like he had a "bad" nursing session. It was only about 10 minutes and he kept unlatching to look around. Imagine my surprise when he had drank 3.8 ounces! He had just gotten more efficient.

[SamiPolizzi]

Wow, good to hear of other moms who went through this. He still nurses A LOT at night! And so much first thing in the morning (he has a rough time waking up) that he usually goes all the way till his first nap before nursing again! Its just so weird that I go to work out for an hour and he's happy the whole time and DH doesn't use any of the pumped milk! 

[sk8boarder15]

/\ /\ That was ME! My sister didn't log out!!!