Is this normal? Feeding every 2hours?

[VickyLou]

My 8 week old baby girl feeds every 2-3 hours, on demand cause she hasn't established a pattern. she's having 6oz bottles. Sometimes she takes all of it other times she leaves an oz. But at night she cluster feeds, she can have upto 3x6oz in 4-5 hours. I think her clock is a little messed up by finding it difficult to change it. She will sleep a lot of the day waking for a feed then goes back off but wakes about 5-6pm stays awake till 1-2am then sleeps all night till 8-9am. She was on normal aptamil but I've recently put her on hungry milk thinking this would help her go a little longer but it hasn't. She has ready made milk cause the powder stuff upset her.

My GP and health visitor said you can't over feed a baby cause they only take what they want. If she wants it then give it her. But surely draining 6oz every 2 hours isn't good??

My first was in a set 4 hour pattern so this is all new to me.

 

[caz_hills]

I'm no expert! But our six week old is very similar. Especially the cluster feeding at night. She will be up say from 6-10 wanting bottle after bottle. She is only draining 4 Oz bottles but I suppose they just take what they need?

As long as they aren't being sick then they need and want the milk so I'd keep feeding her. She is having an awesome sleep in the night of seen hours so that's fab for you I'm sure - just I'm sure you would prefer her to sleep earlier especially as you have another child!!!!

So to me it sounds quite normal and my daughter is doing very similar although she is only six weeks x

 

[VickyLou]

I'm no expert! But our six week old is very similar. Especially the cluster feeding at night. She will be up say from 6-10 wanting bottle after bottle. She is only draining 4 Oz bottles but I suppose they just take what they need?

As long as they aren't being sick then they need and want the milk so I'd keep feeding her. She is having an awesome sleep in the night of seen hours so that's fab for you I'm sure - just I'm sure you would prefer her to sleep earlier especially as you have another child!!!!

So to me it sounds quite normal and my daughter is doing very similar although she is only six weeks x

Thanks Hun. Glad it seems normal. I just feel like we are constantly feeding her especially in the evening with the cluster feeding. I love that she sleeps through the night but I would love her to sleep about 11ish instead. Luckily my first sleeps from 7-8ish till around 9am most days and then my other half gets up with her so I can deal with baby so right now is working out ok. This lazy little baby slept from 1.30am till 9.45 had a feed and now she's asleep again. Might try keeping her in the day so she's sleeps tonight see if that helps. X

 

[Uni tsi]

Seems normal to me. The quantity depends on how much they weigh already, I suspect. But the frequency sounds exactly like what my LO is doing. She eats every couple hours all day, then wants to cluster feed between 10pm and 2 am but then sleeps for a longer stretch. This schedule works for me and is pretty close to when I normally went to bed pre-baby, although she wakes me up a lot earlier than I'm used to lol

I think you can adjust "bed time" slightly over time by waking them up slightly more often to feed during the day and trying to encourage them to start cluster feeding a little earlier every day until it's where you want it. From what I've heard though we shouldn't keep them awake if they're tired because light sleeping is important for brain development. I just try to get as many calories in as I can during the day so she'll want fewer at night.

 

[MindUtopia]

If she's happy, that sounds fine to me. My daughter wasn't a big eater and she was small, so wasn't taking that much per feed at that age, but definitely fed frequently and didn't go that long at night without a feed. Things fell into more of a pattern by 3-4 months. She knows what she needs better that we would, so I would just go with it. I'd probably ditch the hungry milk though as it's not as nutritionally dense.