Ways to Recognize and Deal With Infant Growth Spurts

Has your little one been clamoring for more food lately? Well he/she may be going through a phase called the growth spurt.  Growth spurts in babies can occur quite frequently and the first one generally comes within the first year of his birth. During this period, he may begin to crave for food every hour and this is a completely natural and normal occurrence.

Infant Growth Spurts

One thing that you must know about a growth spurt is that your baby is not starving and hence you can relax and not worry yourself too much.  By the time the baby is 12 months old, he grows to about triple his birth weight!

Baby growth spurts generally last for a couple of days and the following are some of the ways to recognize one:

  • If you generally breastfeed your baby every 3 hours, during a growth spurt, he may need to be fed every 1 or 2 hours.  This is the first sign that the growth spurt period has begun. Don’t worry about the breast milk production, as more the baby feeds, the more the production is stimulated.
  • During a growth spurt, a baby tends to be awake often at night time and this is another way for you to recognize that he is going through a phase of a growth spurt.  He will cry for milk in the night and this will keep him up until he is fed satisfactorily.
  • Another obvious sign which will help you recognize the growth spurt period of your baby is baby’s crankiness.  If your baby has been acting a little more fussy and cranky during the time of breastfeeding by latching and unlatching, he definitely is wanting to have more food.

Now that we have established some ways to recognize growth spurts, let’s go on to explaining some of the ways to deal with this period in your baby’s(and your) life:

  • Since breastfeeding increases at the time of a growth spurt, you may need to keep yourself hydrated well throughout the day. Don’t forget to have more glasses of water than you normally do.
  • Give yourself some rest as dealing with a growth spurt can suck all the energy out of you. Sleep when the baby sleeps and don’t take up any extra work of the house.
  • A lot of women give up breastfeeding during a growth spurt thinking whether or not they will be able to produce enough milk for the baby, but don’t let this discourage you and continue nursing your baby.  The increase in baby’s intake also increases your milk production so there’s nothing to worry about.
  • During growth spurts, one thing that you will need to be extra careful about is the diapers. Since he is having more food, he will be dirtying the diaper more than before and hence you will need to change it more often as well.  Soon the hunger pangs will be over and so will the need to change diapers more often.

Photo Credit By: whattoexpect.com

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

3 × three =

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.