Waking up for feeds

[Angelica]

How often should my LO be waking up for feeds now? She will be 3 weeks old tmw.

When she was born the hosp/mw's said every 2 hours but if she doesnt wake up then to wake her up after 3hours.. is that still applicable?

 

[Zarababy1]

I couldnt really tell you what SHOULD be done, What i do is during the day i wake him up if its been longer than 3 hours but on a night i just leave him how is he ever going to learn to sleep on a night if i wake him up every 3 hours to feed him? if he's hungery he'll wake up and let me know, im my experiance if i wake him up he only has a tiny bit then goes back to sleep, origanly the mw said to not leave him during the day for longer than 4 hours but like i said if there hungery they'll soon let u know about it!

 

[claire1983]

The general advice is every 2 to 3 hours for the first 6 weeks of life and thats day or night for breastfed babies - it takes that long for your baby's tummy to get big enough to go longer and for your milk supply to increase. If you leave it too long between feeds at this stage your milk supply will start to dry up and you may not be making enough milk to feed your baby

 

[Vickie]

Hannah goes every three hours between feeds, but she's bottle fed....not sure if that makes a difference or not.

 

[Margerle]

For the first 6 weeks I was feeding almost constantly. Baby took almost 2 hours to eat, and wanted to eat every 3 hours.

Now she takes about 20 mins to feed and eats about every 3 hours.

A baby digests a tummyful of breastmilk within 2 hours or so.

Sharlotte feeds a lot more often during a growth spurt (to encourage milk production), and sleeps a lot less. Then afterwards, spends 2 or 3 days doing nothing but sleeping.

(She is breastfed)

 

[ryder]

At night, I was told that there is no reason why your baby cant sleep for several hours at a time, there is no need to wake a baby every 2 hours in the night. Every baby is different and every baby will develope their own sleeping/eating habits. It also depends on how developed your baby is, remember, every baby developes differently in utero and is born this way too.

Your baby will know when they are hungry and you will be able to tell how healthy he/she is by weightgain, alertness etc. That being said, if it was getting onto 4 or 5 hours, I might wake the baby up.

 

[KarenLV]

How often should my LO be waking up for feeds now? She will be 3 weeks old tmw.

When she was born the hosp/mw's said every 2 hours but if she doesnt wake up then to wake her up after 3hours.. is that still applicable?

Yes,it still applies.

 

[cparks1]

My LO is breastfed and I was feeding him every two hours. The first 3-4 weeks he was gaining weight really slow, but now he is doing well. He still eats every 2-3 hours during the day. At night he goes 4-5 hours, sometimes I wake him up to eat but mostly I'm too tired and just wait for him to wake me up. They will let you know when they are hungry. I am on a pumping schedule while I am at work so I can stay consistent with him.

 

[AppleBlossom]

Grace eats wherever whenever. When I put her to bed at night she'll usually sleep about 4/5 hours before she wakes up and I am glad of the sleep! She is now on 5oz a bottle instead of the recommended 4oz because she eats all the time. The way people DO do it and the way mw's and doctors say it SHOULD be done are 2 completely different things a lot of the time

 

[KaidensMummy]

Baby will wake up when shes hungry hun...there not long in letting you know!! sleeps as good as a feed ! x

 

[Angelica]

thanks for all the advice ladies!!
I feel a bit better now & will try not to worry too much if my little princess decides to have a bit more sleep!