Do only Hitched babies have growth spurts?

I'm seriously wondering as it's so common on here and yet I have so many mummy friends with babies around the same age and none of them seem to have gone through what we are at the minute (up 5 times last night, yawn). Except possibly the one who said "if it was after 1.00, I'd just leave him".

I remember feeling this way. E seemed the only baby still not sleeping through when we went to baby massage, they were all only around 8 weeks old at that point! There doesn't seem to be any info. on growth spurts readily available to mums, I only knew about them through hitched. My mummy friends have started weaning around 4 months, or given up bf'ing at 6 weeks due to baby fussing/feeding more often etc. so they assume their milk is not enough.

Hope you are the other side of this GS soon!

Lol I know what you mean, very few of my friends even considered the idea but I don't think it's just us - or if it is membership will go down massively as everyone tries to avoid suffering through one lol!

If you think about it the 16w one used ot be a big co-incider with being told to wean/baby 'not being satisfied' etc. We just use the labels more?

I think that's ther thing Handbag, that we know about it so just persist and feed through it rather than resorting to letting them cry or trying to wean them. 

yes lol ....

I told my mum about them and she said well after 4 kids, I have never heard of them...

oh well still thanks to hitched i got the info and support needed !

Sadly I think there's just not the general knowledge of them out there - possibly well stamped-out over the previous few decades of high FF use, parents advised to leave babies to cry so they withdraw sleep through, that sort of thing?

I have a personal campaign to raise awareness with local mums about the big 4 mth GS - we have a HV who routinely recommends weaning at 4mths so I use the line that the 4mth GS 'was traditionally misinterpreted as a need to wean'.

Lack of knowledge, I think, sadly. An NCT friend started weaning at 15 weeks as her son would take 10oz ebm at night then wake 4 hours later to feed. To me, that sounds like the massive 16 week gs a bit early, but what can you do once they've started weaning on hv's advice?

We see a lot of babies at drop in who have growth spurts and try to support mums through them.

Did you know that a growth spurt isn't actually a growth spurt and there is no documented increase in weight after one?  They don't really know what they are but presume they are baby's way of upping our milk supply.

I use the milk supply explanation too Shiny - it just makes sense that they're programmed to increase supply to support them through the next stage of growth.

I have found that G's growth spurts relate to developmental milestones rather than a massive increase in weight. She has started grabbing objects and that hit around the time of the 12 week feeding frenzy... Her weight seems to increase at a steady rate but she seems to need more calories for all her activity now so I also see the feeding frenzy as a way of increasing milk supply.

It is really sad that many babies are weaned too early due to misinterpretation.